CA Technologies has become  a founding Platinum member of The Linux Foundation’s new Open Mainframe Project.

The project is designed to create a collaborative environment among top industry leaders and academic institutions to drive both improvements and enterprise innovation on the mainframe. The project will initially focus on reinforcing four key areas: scalability, availability, performance and security.

The Linux Foundation is a non-profit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux and collaborative software development. As a founding Platinum-level member of the Open Mainframe Project, CA Technologies will help fuel innovation by participating in a neutral forum to drive support for Linux tools, associated hypervisors and open source components.

“As the application economy brings increased workload demands to organizations, advancements are needed to promote innovation on Linux systems. CA Technologies is proud to partner with the Linux Foundation and other founding companies to help progress innovation on the mainframe,” says Gerard King, CA Southern Africa’s support engineer: mainframe. “As a leader in management tools for Linux platforms both on, and off, the mainframe, CA is committed to investing in innovations that are secure, reliable and cost-effective.”

Linux has been on the mainframe for 15 years and has become a critical operating environment for its flexibility, openness and ability to handle complex and large workloads. The growth of Linux on the mainframe, coupled with its potential, validates the fact that all companies should be educated on this option so they can make the right choices for workload placement in the Application Economy.

According to The Linux Foundation, 97% of hiring managers report they will bring on Linux talent relative to other skills areas in the next six months. The Open Mainframe Project’s academic partnerships with universities, such as Marist College, will ensure that upcoming developers can pursue innovative solutions on the mainframe to manage the future of mobile processing, cloud computing and virtualisation.

“We are excited to extend our existing relationship with CA Technologies as they understand Linux will deliver the speed and efficiency needed to operate in this dynamic mobile and cloud computing landscape,” says Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “CA understands the potential that Linux has on the mainframe and other platforms. CA’s expertise and history of innovation makes them an ideal contributor to help us advance the most complex enterprise operations through The Open Mainframe Project.”