That is half 4 in a five-part sequence on mainframe modernization.
The key to mainstreaming the mainframe into immediately’s trendy, cloud-centric IT environments is to make the expertise of working with the mainframe just like the expertise of working off the mainframe—particularly the developer expertise (DX).
Traditionally, engaged on the mainframe was a completely completely different expertise from the distributed world. Mainframes sported green-screen terminals (or terminal emulators), mainframe-specific instruments and programming languages, and fully other ways of organizing and accessing information, managing safety, and leveraging any working system-level performance.
Giving builders a contemporary DX on the mainframe requires greater than a brand new pores and skin, nevertheless. Builders require hands-on interplay with the instruments they use—a deep relationship that makes the know-how their very own, at the same time as they work within the cloud.
The important thing to this deep relationship? Open-source software program.
DevOps, open supply and the mainframe
Open-source software and DevOps share a typical philosophy and technical underpinnings. Understanding one is important to understanding the opposite.
DevOps is a mindset, a tradition and a set of technical practices that foster higher communication and collaboration throughout the software program lifecycle. Instruments-based automation is a vital enabler, however DevOps is extra a change in human notion and habits than a technological effort.
The DevOps group in lots of organizations works with the builders and operations individuals to assemble and handle the assorted automation applied sciences that assist the continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) components of the lifecycle—what we’ve come to name the DevOps toolchain.
GitOps can also be an necessary enabler of CI/CD and, by extension, DevOps. GitOps is a cloud-native mannequin for operations that takes into consideration model-driven, configuration-based deployments onto immutable infrastructure that assist dynamic manufacturing environments at scale.
GitOps will get its identify from Git, the vastly in style, open-source code-management instrument. Adopting customary instruments and processes like Git and GitOps can empower a company’s improvement practices to extra successfully ship on enterprise outcomes.
Empowering groups to make use of a normal pipeline based mostly on Git to orchestrate the event and deployment of an utility unleashes productiveness.
Since mainframe builders must be on the identical group as everybody else, they need to have an energetic position within the improvement lifecycle. Because of this, the optimum structure for attaining mainframe inclusiveness balances actions on the mainframe with its integration into the broader DevOps toolchain.
Such an structure consists of many open-source parts. One supply of such software program is the Open Mainframe Project (OMP), hosted by the Linux Basis and championed by IBM, Broadcom, Rocket Software program and others.
The flagship undertaking on the OMP is Zowe. The objective of Zowe is to equip mainframe builders with all of the instruments they should be first-class DevOps individuals—each throughout the improvement course of the place continuous intengration (CI) applies and when deploying software program into manufacturing the continuous deployment (CD) approach.
The OMP based mostly Zowe on IBM z/OS, IBM’s working system for its Z mainframes. Zowe is a software program framework that features a core set of purposes, APIs and working system capabilities to assist future improvement.
Zowe gives builders trendy interfaces to work together with z/OS, enabling them to work with the mainframe as they do in trendy cloud environments. Third-party distributors are additionally welcome to create plug-ins and extensions to incorporate Zowe capabilities in industrial improvement instruments. IBM can also be championing the open-source-based Wazi. Wazi is a household of instruments for delivering a cloud-native DX for z/OS and offering for cloud-native improvement and testing for z/OS within the IBM Cloud. With Wazi, builders can rapidly spin up a z/OS dev and take a look at system or create their very own customized picture from on-premises mainframe LPARs (logical partitions).
Bringing open-source mainframe DevOps to different clouds
Operating Wazi parts within the IBM Cloud is a pure match, however the open-source mainframe DevOps cloud story extends to different clouds as nicely.
AWS, for instance, gives a managed runtime setting for modernizing mainframe workloads following a number of hybrid methods. The IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack runs on Purple Hat OpenShift on AWS. This stack consists of containerized modernization instruments and the power to hook up with z/OS environments.
DevOps engineers are additionally capable of run the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform on AWS as a basis for implementing DevOps automations throughout AWS and IBM zSystems mainframes.
Microsoft Azure additionally connects its DevOps efforts to the mainframe. Azure DevOps options combine with DevOps for zSystems, spanning Azure providers and z/OS environments to orchestrate the software program improvement lifecycle throughout zSystems and Azure.
Lastly, as with AWS, the Red Hat Ansible Automation platform runs as a managed platform on Azure, integrating mainframes with quite a few Azure-based providers. The truth is, builders can use the Ansible Visual Studio Code Extension to develop Ansible playbooks utilizing IBM Z collections.
The Intellyx take
IBM’s distinctive place as the only remaining mainframe producer offers it a market-leading position inside the broader mainframe group.
Regardless of the mainframe’s exceptional longevity as a mission-critical platform for contemporary enterprise, IBM is the primary to acknowledge that the mainframe should play properly within the broader enterprise IT panorama.
Working with public clouds is an integral a part of this technique. Mainframes are a central a part of the IBM Cloud, and each AWS and Azure are stable IBM companions on the journey to creating the mainframe a first-class cloud participant.
To be taught extra, see the opposite posts on this sequence:
Learn more about mainframe modernization by checking out the IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Center
Copyright © Intellyx LLC. IBM is a present Intellyx buyer. Broadcom, Microsoft and Rocket Software program are former Intellyx prospects. Intellyx retains closing editorial management of this text. No AI was used to put in writing this text.
