Making working with the mainframe similar to working off the mainframe especially the developer experience(DX) is the key to mainstreaming the mainframe into today’s modern, cloud-centric IT environments.
Working on a mainframe used to be very different from working in a distributed environment. Green-screen terminals, also known as terminal emulators, mainframe-specific tools and programming languages, as well as completely different methods of handling security and utilizing any operating system-level functionality were all features of mainframes.
But it takes more than a fresh skin to give developers a contemporary DX on the mainframe. Developers need to have a close working relationship with the tools they use, even though they do their work in the cloud.
What is the secret to this close bond? open-source applications
Open source, DevOps, and mainframe
DevOps and open-source software have similar philosophical and technical foundations. Understanding one is necessary in order to comprehend the other.
Better communication and collaboration throughout the software lifecycle are fostered by the DevOps mindset, culture, and set of technical practices. Although tool-based automation is a key enabler, DevOps is more of a shift in how people think and act than it is a technical undertaking.
Assembling and managing the various automation technologies that support the continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) portions of the lifecycle what we’ve come to refer to as the DevOps toolchain is a common task for the DevOps team in many organizations.
Additionally, GitOps is a crucial enabler of CI/CD and, consequently, DevOps. Taking into account model-driven, configuration-based deployments onto immutable infrastructure that support dynamic production environments at scale, GitOps is a cloud-native model for operations.
Git, the wildly popular open-source code management tool, is where GitOps gets its name. An organization’s development practices can be empowered to more effectively deliver on business outcomes by implementing standardized tools and procedures like Git and GitOps.
Productivity is increased when teams are given the freedom to develop and deploy applications using a standardized pipeline based on Git.
Mainframe developers ought to participate actively in the development lifecycle since they ought to be on the same team as everyone else. Because of this, the ideal architecture for achieving mainframe inclusivity strikes a balance between mainframe operations and its incorporation into the larger DevOps toolchain.
Many open-source components are included in such an architecture. One source of such software is the Open Mainframe Project (OMP), which is supported by companies like IBM, Broadcom, Rocket Software, and others and is run by the Linux Foundation.
The OMP’s signature project is Zowe. Zowe aims to give mainframe developers all the resources they require to be first-rate DevOps participants, both during the phases of development where continuous integration (CI) is applicable and during the phases of software deployment into production where continuous deployment (CD) is used.
On IBM z/OS, the company’s operating system for its Z mainframes, the OMP built Zowe. A core set of applications, APIs, and operating system features are included in the software framework called Zowe to support upcoming development.
Developers can work with the mainframe just like they do in contemporary cloud environments thanks to Zowe’s modern interfaces for z/OS. Third-party vendors are welcome to build extensions and plug-ins to integrate Zowe functionality into paid development tools. Wazi, which is based on open source, is also supported by IBM. Wazi is a family of tools for providing cloud-native development and testing for z/OS in the IBM Cloud, as well as delivering a cloud-native DX for z/OS. With Wazi, developers can quickly spin up a z/OS development and test system or build their own custom image using logical partitions from an on-premises mainframe.
Introducing mainframe open-source DevOps to other clouds
Although it makes sense to run Wazi components in the IBM Cloud, the open-source mainframe DevOps cloud story also applies to other clouds.
For modernizing mainframe workloads using various hybrid strategies, AWS, for instance, offers a managed runtime environment. Running on Red Hat OpenShift on AWS is the IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack. This stack features connected z/OS environments and containerized modernization tools.
As a base for implementing DevOps automations across AWS and IBM zSystems mainframes, DevOps engineers can also run the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform on AWS.
Additionally, Microsoft Azure links its DevOps initiatives to the mainframe. For the purpose of orchestrating the software development lifecycle across zSystems and Azure, Azure DevOps solutions integrate with DevOps for zSystems, spanning Azure services and z/OS environments.
The Red Hat Ansible Automation platform, which integrates mainframes with a variety of Azure-based services, also operates on Azure as a managed platform, similar to how it does on AWS. In fact, developers can create Ansible playbooks using IBM Z collections by using the Ansible Visual Studio Code Extension.
Intellyx’s position
With regard to the Intellyx take, IBM enjoys a unique position within the larger mainframe community as the only remaining mainframe manufacturer.
Despite the mainframe’s remarkable longevity as a crucial business platform, IBM was the first to realize that it must coexist peacefully with other enterprise IT systems.
Utilizing public clouds is a crucial component of this strategy. AWS and Azure are reliable IBM partners on the path to making the mainframe a first-class cloud participant. Mainframes are a key component of the IBM Cloud.
