Skyla Loomis, Vice President for the Z Application Platform at IBM | @SkylaCLoomis sits down with John Furrier at theCUBE Digital studios for AnsibleFest 2020. #AnsibleFest2020 #theCUBE #WomenInTech @IBM @SiliconANGLE theCUBE https://siliconangle.com/2020/10/13/connections-collections-evolving-automation-mandate-ansible-ibm-zos-ansiblefest/ Connections and collections: Evolving the ‘automation mandate’ with Ansible and IBM z/OS BY DENISE NELSON A central theme at this year’s AnsibleFest 2020 involved connecting, making things easier, and the evolution of the cloud as one big distributed computer. Ansible and IBM’s z/OS are making great strides to drive greater integration across platforms and bring together a common automation control plane for the enterprise in this era of the “automation mandate.” “We just launched some Content Collections … to enable and accelerate client use of Ansible to manage to z/OS. And we’ve just seen tremendous client uptake in this,” said Skyla Loomis (pictured), vice president of the IBM Z Application Platform at IBM. “We got to talk with them about how they’re bringing it into Z, what use cases they’re looking at, the type of culture change that it drives for their teams as they embark on this journey, and where they see it going for them in the future.” Loomis spoke with John Furrier, host for theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during AnsibleFest 2020. They discussed delivering greater transparency across automation and platforms and modernizing the application to adapt to platforms that are already incredibly modern. (* Disclosure below.) Breaking down bundled automation for greater transparency and accessibility The IBM z/OS core collection is part of a broader offering known as the Red Hat Ansible Certified Content for IBM Z. This automation content enables enterprises to start using Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform with IBM z/OS out of the box to unite workflow orchestration in one easy-to-use platform with configuration management, provisioning and application deployment. “Automation on z/OS is not new — there are decades worth of automation on the platform — but it’s often been proprietary or bundled up with individual teams who have specific, non-shared assets,” Loomis said. Ansible’s power as an orchestrator is part of why it has been so successful, she added. “This is not a rip-and-replace solution, where you have to rewrite anything that you already have,” Loomis explained. “It’s more like a glue, a custom automation that works with everything and provides a level of transparency that makes it much more accessible to everyone.” Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of AnsibleFest 2020. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for AnsibleFest 2020. Neither Red Hat Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)