It’s that time of year again – school is back in session. This makes it the perfect time to learn a new open source skill, and obtain the certification to demonstrate it. 

Our 2021 Open Source Jobs Report, which will be released in late September, found that demand for certified talent is skyrocketing, with 72% of technical hiring managers surveyed reporting they are more likely to hire a candidate who holds a certification, up from 52% in 2020. 

That is why we are discounting our bundled offerings, which include registration for one of our widely-respected certification exams as well as the related training course. This will give you the skills and knowledge to be successful working with a particular technology while getting you ready to take your exam. During this sale period, you only pay for the exam ($375) but you receive the training course for free. Make sure to select “Buy Bundle” from the product page, and use code FREE21 at checkout to take advantage. 

Options include:

Kubernetes Fundamentals + Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)
Kubernetes for Developers + Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD)
Kubernetes Security Essentials + Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS)
Essentials of Linux System Administration + Linux Foundation Certified System Administrator (LFCS)
Linux Networking and Administration + Linux Foundation Certified Engineer (LFCE)
Hyperledger Fabric Administration + Certified Hyperledger Fabric Administrator (CHFA)
Hyperledger Fabric for Developers + Certified Hyperledger Fabric Developer (CHFD)
Node.js Application Development + Certified OpenJS Node.js Application Developer (JSNAD)
Node.js Services Development + Certified OpenJS Node.js Services Developer (JSNSD)
Cloud Foundry for Developers + Cloud Foundry Certified Developer (CFCD)
ONAP Fundamentals + Certified ONAP Professional (COP)

View full sale details

If you aren’t sure what to pursue, that’s ok! Check out our Plan Your Training page to view learning paths, or take our Career Path Quiz to figure out which area of technology best fits your interests and personality.

The post Our Back to School Sale is On! appeared first on Linux Foundation – Training.

By Marco Fioretti

WebAssembly, or Wasm for brevity, is a Web-optimized executable software format, designed to give programmers the greatest possible flexibility. Wasm binary modules can be compiled once, and then safely run anywhere, alone or embedded in other applications. In practice, Wasm needs at least three key components to keep that promise. Two of them, already presented in this series, are the WebAssembly System Interface (WASI), and Wasm Interface Types.

WASI gives Wasm modules standard, language-independent ways to interact with any host environment in which they may land. The Interface Types, instead, are equally standardized definitions, but for all kinds of software variables. By using them, Wasm modules can pass complex data structures to each other without risking corrupting them, even if they were written by independent programmers in very different source languages. The other main piece of this puzzle is called module linking. This is what allows distinct binary files to interact directly – for example using each other’s functions – as if they were both written as different sections of the same source code and then compiled together.

The pros and cons of linking Wasm modules

The first reason to link Wasm modules is one that is always valid in every area of programming, which is reuse. If a library of, say, mathematical or networking functions can be written (and maintained!) once, but in a way that allows thousands of programmers to use it with little or no effort, everybody wins.

The other reason is even simpler, but particularly important for a format like Wasm: speed. At least for the foreseeable future, most Wasm modules will be downloaded by some remote server, possibly on a slow mobile link, to be executed on the fly. In all such cases, every extra second spent downloading and preparing code can make a difference. If a large Wasm application is split in separate, interlinkable modules, its host can download only the ones its own users need, and only when they actually need them. To further reduce downloads, frequently requested modules can even be cached locally.

Of course, there can be too much of a good thing. Using many modules, especially from many independent sources, speeds up software development, but can make its maintenance more complex in the long run. At the same time, on any stable network, downloading and linking several modules takes, almost by definition, more time than getting just one blob of code that does exactly the same thing. In addition, function calls between linked Wasm modules “can be slower than function calls within one module”. Overall, all these factors may lead to a real-world performance hit of a few percentage points. In many cases, this will be a very reasonable price to pay.

The Wasm way to link modules

Independently developed Wasm modules can always be “linked” in the same way used for countless software applications, which is at compile time. This produces one executable file that has all the desired features and is ready to run inside any Wasm/WASI compliant virtual machine. Besides depending on the specific languages and toolchain used to generate each executable file, however, this static linking is almost the opposite of the desired result: a “portable, host- and language-independent ecosystem” of WebAssembly modules that are composable as needed after, not before downloading them, and regardless of where they came from.

A first, if small step in this direction consists of using the already mentioned Wasm Interface Types: they can, in fact, let different Wasm modules exchange copies of their data structures, without actually sharing them but as if they were parts of the same program. This limited form of cooperation among modules is called “Shared-Nothing Linking”.

The kind of linking that is really consistent with the core Wasm philosophy, however, is the one that happens only when and where it is really needed, does not waste resources and, above all, doesn’t put unnecessary constraints on the providers of Wasm modules. The linking, that is, should happen on the host that actually needs it, but without requiring any preparation for the modules that are linked, or any application-specific customization for the programmers who wrote them.

This means that Wasm binaries should use some virtualization technique to declare and import the other modules (or parts of them) that they want to link. This mechanism, called “link-time virtualization” would eventually allow so-called “Shared-Everything Dynamic Linking”, in which all the linked modules could directly share their memory and data tables, without duplications. The low-level, gory details of this approach are described in the corresponding section of the official Explainer for linking Wasm modules linking. Here, we only mention two of the general properties, or constraints, that every “pure-Wasm” linking solution should include.

The first one is the “Principle of Least Authority”, by which every Wasm module must always expose to its host, or demand from it, only the smallest possible subset of capabilities that it needs to do its job. The other is, to put it simply, that linking modules should not make Garbage Collection in Wasm more complicated than it already is.

In practice: Emscripten, JavaScript APIs and WAPM

The most elementary tools to create and use from scratch linked Wasm modules are functions like dlopen() in C or C++ or, in JavaScript, the equivalent WebAssembly APIs. With the proper instructions, the Emscripten toolchain can add, to the glue logic that makes JavaScript virtual machines load and run Wasm code, a dynamicLibraries array that lists all the modules that should be downloaded and then linked. To study or use complete linkable modules instead, check out the official registry of the WebAssembly Package Manager (WAPM), an open source tool whose purpose is exactly to facilitate the publication and installation of such modules.

The post How and Why to Link WebAssembly Modules appeared first on Linux Foundation – Training.

The open source mainframe virtual event features keynote speakers from DeployHub, FINOS, Jono Bacon Consulting, the Linux Foundation, ZEDEDA and more 

SAN FRANCISCO, August 12, 2021 – The Open Mainframe Project (OMP), an open source initiative that enables collaboration across the mainframe community to develop shared tool sets and resources, today announces the complete schedule of the 2nd annual Open Mainframe Summit. This year’s virtual event, which takes place on September 22-23, will feature keynote speakers Gabriele Columbro, Executive Director of Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS); Jason Shepherd, Vice President of Ecosystem at ZEDEDA and Chair of the LF Edge Governing Board; Jono Bacon, a leading community and collaboration speaker and founder of Jono Bacon Consulting; Steve Winslow, Vice President of Compliance and Legal at The Linux Foundation; Tracy Ragan, CEO and Co-Founder of DeployHub and Continuous Delivery Foundation Board Member, and more.

The theme of this year’s Open Mainframe Summit expands beyond the mainframe to highlight influencers with strengths in the areas supporting or leveraging the technology like continuous delivery, edge computing, financial services and open source. It will also highlight projects, diversity and business topics that will offer seasoned professionals, developers, students and leaders an opportunity to share best practices and network with like-minded individuals.

Conference Sessions highlight projects, diversity and business topics such as:

Mainframe Mavens: 5 Women to Know – Stacey Miller, Global Product Marketing Manager at SUSE and Yvette LaMar, Director of the IBM Z Influencer Ecosystem at IBMThe Facts about COBOL – Misty Decker, Product Marketing Director at Micro Focus; Derek Britton, Director of Communications and Brand Strategy at Micro Focus; and Cameron Seay, Adjunct Instructor at East Carolina UniversityMaking Our Strong Community Stronger moderated by Dr. Gloria Chance, CEO at Mousai Group -Jeanne Glass, CEO and Founder of VirtualZ Computing; David Jeffries, Vice President of Development IBM z/OS Software at IBM; Greg Lotko, Broadcom; Andy Youniss, Rocket SoftwareConsoleZ – Accessing z/VM Console Data from a Browser – Mike MacIsaac, Systems Programmer at ADPWorkflow wiZard: A Flexible Workflow Creation Tool for z/OSMF – Ray Cole, Product Architect at BMC SoftwareFeilong: The Open Source API for z/VM Automation – Mike Friesenegger, Solutions Architect at SUSEIntegrating Tessia for Self-Provisioning of Linux Distributions on Z – Alexander Efremkin, Tessia Architect, Linux Workload Enablement on IBM Z at IBMIntroducing ZEBRA – an Incubation Project for Zowe – Salisu Ali, Student at Bayero University Kano, Andrew Twydell, Intern at IBM and Alex Kim, Enterprise Solutions Architect at Vicom InfinityDIY: Zowe Explorer Starter Kit – Jessielaine Punongbayan, Product Marketing Engineer at Broadcom and Richelle Anne Craw, Senior Software Engineer at Broadcom

With a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, Open Mainframe Project worked closely with the CHAOSS Diversity & Inclusion Badging Program, which encourages events to obtain D&I badges for leadership, self-reflection, and self-improvement on issues critical to building the Internet as a social good. Open Mainframe Summit earned a Gold Badge for prioritizing diversity and inclusion.

See the full conference schedule here. Conference Registration for the online event is $50 for general attendance and $15 for academia.

Open Mainframe Summit is made possible thanks to Platinum Sponsors Broadcom, IBM, Rocket Software and SUSE; Gold Sponsors Micro Focus and Vicom Infinity; Silver Sponsor BMC; and Academic and Community Sponsors CD Foundation and FINOS. For information on becoming an event sponsor, click here. 

Members of the press who would like to request a press pass to attend should contact Maemalynn at maemalynn@linuxfoundation.org.

About the Open Mainframe Project

The Open Mainframe Project is intended to serve as a focal point for deployment and use of Linux and Open Source in a mainframe computing environment. With a vision of Open Source on the Mainframe as the standard for enterprise class systems and applications, the project’s mission is to build community and adoption of Open Source on the mainframe by eliminating barriers to Open Source adoption on the mainframe, demonstrating value of the mainframe on technical and business levels, and strengthening collaboration points and resources for the community to thrive. Learn more about the project at https://www.openmainframeproject.org.

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see its trademark usage page: www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

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The post Open Mainframe Project Announces the Full Schedule for the 2nd Annual Open Mainframe Summit on September 22-23 appeared first on Linux Foundation.

Industry leaders come together to drive the growth of eBPF as a transformational technology to redefine networking, security, tracing and observability

SAN FRANCISCO, August 12, 2021 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced that it is hosting the eBPF Foundation. Founding members include Facebook, Google, Isovalent, Microsoft and Netflix. This comes in advance of the eBPF Summit, a free and virtual event taking place August 18-19, 2021.

eBPF allows developers to safely and efficiently embed programs in any piece of software, including the operating system kernel. As a result, eBPF is quickly becoming the method of choice for achieving a wide range of infrastructure use cases, delivering significant efficiency and performance gains and dramatically reducing the complexity of the system. For example, Facebook is using eBPF as the primary software-defined load balancer in its data centers, and Google is using Cilium to bring eBPF-based networking and security to the managed Kubernetes offerings GKE and Anthos.

“eBPF is a revolutionary technology that allows us to modify operating system behavior in real time without risky or expensive kernel code changes. It’s had a remarkable impact on our ability to iterate quickly on everything from networking to security to containerization,” said Alexei Starovoitov, Co-creator and Maintainer of eBPF, Kernel Developer at Facebook.

eBPF changes the way operating systems and infrastructure services are designed. It bridges the boundary between kernel and user space. It encourages and accelerates innovation and is a significant leap forward in open source technology for networking, security, application profiling/tracing and system observability use cases. eBPF enables users to even combine and apply logic across multiple subsystems which were traditionally completely independent.

“eBPF has redefined the way we think about the operating system and has led to a massive wave of innovation in networking, security, and observability. Because of its deep relevance in the cloud native world, eBPF adoption has been accelerating at an incredible pace,” said Daniel Borkmann, Co-creator and Maintainer of eBPF, Kernel Developer at Isovalent.

By making the OS kernel programmable, infrastructure software can leverage existing layers, making them more intelligent, scalable and feature-rich without continuing to add additional layers of complexity to the system. eBPF has resulted in the development of a completely new generation of tooling in areas such as networking, security, application profiling/tracing and performance troubleshooting that no longer rely on existing kernel functionality but instead actively reprogram runtime behavior without compromising execution efficiency or safety.

The eBPF Foundation will expand the significant level of contributions being made to extend the powerful capabilities of eBPF and grow beyond Linux. It will be the home for open source eBPF projects and technologies and nurture the community through a variety of activities, including summits and other collaboration events in order to further drive the growth and adoption of the eBPF ecosystem.

“eBPF is one of the greatest examples of the kind of innovation that happens in the Linux community and encompasses technologies that are natural for us to host. It also represents the future of operating systems and microservices delivery,” said Mike Dolan, general manager and senior vice president of projects at the Linux Foundation. “We look forward to supporting the work of the eBPF Foundation and community.”

For more information, please visit: https://www.ebpf.io

Member Quotes

Facebook
“For many years, eBPF has played a critical role in accelerating the kernel development — thanks to the tireless work of many dedicated developers and maintainers,” said Chris Mason, Kernel Maintainer and Engineering Director at Facebook. “We’re excited to support the work of the eBPF community, enabling them to build the tools needed to power the next generation of Linux system development.”

Google
“We are excited to see the Linux Foundation announce their decision to host eBPF,” said Chris DiBona, director of open source at Google. “eBPF is the future of networking for the Linux kernel and Google is pleased to be part of the evolving standard it has created.”

Isovalent
“The programmability of eBPF has enabled a revolution in security, observability, and networking. In particular in the area of containers and the cloud native space more broadly. We are proud to have played a central role in developing and co-maintaining eBPF from its early days to the industry standard it has become. We are looking forward to continuing to work with the community,” said Thomas Graf, Chief Technology Officer, Isovalent. “Even though eBPF has already found its ways into the production stacks of countless enterprises, we are still at the beginning of the innovation curve that eBPF as a technology unlocks.”

Microsoft
“eBPF has resulted in a new generation of tooling that allows developers to easily diagnose problems, innovate quickly, and extend operating system functionality,” said Mark Russinovich, Chief Technology Officer, Microsoft Azure. “Microsoft looks forward to partnering with the community in further expanding the use of eBPF in new scenarios and platforms.  We’re excited to collaborate with the other founding members and hope additional organizations will join.”

Netflix
“eBPF is a new type of software that provides superpower capabilities, birthing an industry of networking, performance, and security technologies,” said Brendan Gregg, senior performance engineer at Netflix. “Netflix has pioneered uses of eBPF for observability, providing insight into countless areas that were previously difficult or prohibitively expensive to instrument. eBPF has helped us lower application latency and find cost savings. Netflix is delighted to join the eBPF Foundation to collaborate and develop more exciting technologies.”

Supporting Quote

Intel
Intel welcomes the creation of the eBPF Foundation. Technologies including eBPF have the potential to revolutionize critical applications and use cases across compute, storage, networking, and next generation infrastructure. We are excited to continue to contribute to eBPF and look forward to working with the new eBPF Foundation to accelerate customer workloads and unlock innovation,” said Jesse Brandeburg, a Principal Software Engineer in the Ethernet Products Group at Intel.

About The Linux Foundation
Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation is supported by more than 1,000 members and is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. The Linux Foundation’s projects are critical to the world’s infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, and more. The Linux Foundation’s methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org.

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The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page:  https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Media Contact
Jennifer Cloer
for the Linux Foundation
503-867-2304
jennifer@storychangesculture.com

The post Facebook, Google, Isovalent, Microsoft and Netflix Launch eBPF Foundation as Part of the Linux Foundation appeared first on Linux Foundation.

Experts from financial services, technology and open source will come together to deepen collaboration and drive innovation across the industry in order to deliver better code, faster.

SAN FRANCISCO, August 11, 2021 —  The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, and co-host Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS), a nonprofit whose mission is to accelerate adoption of open source software, standards and best practices in financial services, today announced the conference agenda for Open Source Strategy Forum London 2021 (OSSF). The event takes place October 4-5 in London, England. The schedule can be viewed here.

The event will gather experts from financial services, technology and open source who will come together for thought-provoking insights and conversations, providing unique opportunities to hear from and engage with those who are leveraging open source software to solve industry challenges. OSSF is the only conference dedicated to driving collaboration and innovation in financial services through open source.

The event will feature 35+ sessions and endless opportunities to learn about the most cutting edge topics at the cross section of finance, open source and technology, revealing recent developments and the direction of open source in financial services.

Conference Session Highlights:

An Open-sourced Solution to Data Governance? How Legend May Be the Answer to Data Quality Concerns in the Financial Industry – Ffion Acland & Beeke-Marie Nelke, Goldman SachsNew Generation of Mainframers – John Mertic, The Linux Foundation; Jessielaine Punongbayan, Broadcom; and Alex Kim, Vicom InfinityOpen Banking, Open Source, and Open Standards – Kevin Morris, Large Credit Union CoalitionHow to Maximize Open Source Investment to Drive Business Innovation – Traci Robinson-Williams, GitLabIf It’s Such a Good Idea, Why Haven’t We Been Doing It? – Gil Yehuda, U.S. BankDevelop Automated Workflows in Seconds – Olivier Poupeney, Symphony Communication Services

Registration is offered at the early price of 220 GBP through Aug 17. Members of The Linux Foundation receive a 20 percent discount – members can contact events@linuxfoundation.org to request a member discount code. Members of FINOS can attend at no cost – members can contact ossf@finos.org to request the FINOS Member registration code. 

Health and Safety
In-person attendees will be required to be fully vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus and wear a mask while onsite at the event. Additionally, all attendees will need to comply with all on-site health measures, in accordance with The Linux Foundation Code of Conduct. To learn more, visit the Health & Safety webpage and read our blog post.

Diversity & Need-Based Scholarships and Travel Funding

Applications for diversity and need-based scholarships are currently being accepted here. The Linux Foundation’s Travel Fund is also accepting applications, with the goal of enabling open source developers and community members to attend events that they would otherwise be unable to attend due to a lack of funding. We place an emphasis on funding applicants who are from historically underrepresented or untapped groups and/or those of lower socioeconomic status. To learn more and apply, click here.

Sponsor

For information on becoming an event sponsor, click here or email us for more information and to speak to our team. The Sponsorship deadline is September 9. 

Press
Members of the press who would like to request a press pass to attend should contact Kristin O’Connell.

About the Linux Foundation
Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation is supported by more than 2,000 members and is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. Linux Foundation’s projects are critical to the world’s infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, and more. The Linux Foundation’s methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit linuxfoundation.org.

The Linux Foundation Events are where the world’s leading technologists meet, collaborate, learn and network in order to advance innovations that support the world’s largest shared technologies.

Visit our website and follow us on Twitter, Linkedin, and Facebook for all the latest event updates and announcements.

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see its trademark usage page: www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. 

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Media Contact

Kristin O’Connell
The Linux Foundation

koconnell@linuxfoundation.org

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