GenevaERS is designed to deal with the problem of efficiently reporting on large volumes of transactional data where the data naturally resides – the mainframe
Read more in 2022:Issue 1 of Enterprise Systems Journal
Kip discusses the Open Mainframe Project’s Open z/OS Enablement Work Group. The OzE working group was created in response to some of the challenges GenevaERS and other projects have trying to work in the mainframe space.
Based upon the Active Project Status achieved in August 2021, the project team reviewed and updated it architectural direction. The following slides give a sense of progress made to date on the Spark Integration Efforts.
Main conclusions continue to be:
Code conversion of existing GenevaERS to Java for pre-processing increases product consistency
Spark adds significant capabilities to the tail-end of the GenevaERS Performance Engine, perhaps replacing the GVBMR88 Summarization Engine
Approaches for this integration require further development:
File based approaches may be more simple to code, but can Spark be configured to skip its Map phase?
Streaming integration may allow for reduced IO, but perhaps increase integration complexity.
The continued open Friday R&D Session (typically noon ET) will progress thinking on these points.
The following is a video extract of the Technical Steering Committee review of the slides which follow,
Extract of GenevaERS Technical Steering Committee Architecture Update Discussion
On August 12, 2021, the Technical Advisory Committee of the Linux Foundation’s Open Mainframe Project approved GenevaERS’s promotion from an incubation to active project. The following were the points made during the presentation, and a video extract of the meeting.
Extract of OMP TAC Presentation on GenevaERS Project Renewal
Presentation Points
Background
Initially developed as a product and consulting services asset from late 1980’s through early 2000’s when purchased by IBM as part of acquisition of PwC Consulting
Original name was GenevaERS until IBM Acquisition when it became known as Scalable Architecture for Financial Reporting or SAFR
Effectively a Map-Reduce Engine more than 10 years before development of Map-Reduce in 2004 by Google
Drives incredibly high throughput focused on z/OS on IBM Z Mainframes
A score of very large, enterprise customers over its history, continuing to be supported under contract for some customers
Website (GenevaERS.org, new Linux Foundation GenevaERS.Com soon)
Adopters: Continuing GenevaERS customers•Committers: 17 team members from multiple organizations
Next Steps
Public Build Processes
Enhanced Documentation
Renewed Spark Integration Efforts
Other Enhancements
Project Mission Statement
The Linux Foundation has formed an LLC to legally hold the GenevaERS Intellectual Property. The terms of the entity can be seen on this Open Mainframe Project GitHub site.
The mission of the GenevaERS Project, as stated in this document is:
1. Mission and Scope of the Project
a. The mission of the Project is to radically improve business systems using Business Event principles while processing significant data volumes to achieve :
● Accurate, fast and transparent outputs,
● Respond quickly to changing business needs, and
● Minimize costs over time.
b. The scope of the Project includes collaborative development under the Project License (as defined herein) supporting the mission, including documentation, testing, integration and the creation of other artifacts that aid the development, deployment, operation or adoption of the open source project.
(Technical Charter for GenevaERS a Series of LF Projects, LLC Adopted March 25, 2021)
