Getting ready for Long Term Support (LTS)
Heading into 2020 the focus of the Zowe squads is to prepare for a version 1 Long Term Support (LTS) release. Why LTS?
- This will establish a foundation which offers adopters easy (or seamless) subsequent release upgrades, essentially eliminating the possibility of “breaking changes”
- Customers or software vendors who leverage Zowe can be confident that any offering built on top of the LTS will remain functional with all drivers delivered after the LTS
Look for more information on LTS and how this affects the Zowe conformance program in future playbacks and blogs. Questions? Concerns? Interested in learning more? Contact the Zowe Onboarding squad on slack or by [e-mail] (mailto:zowecommunity1@openmainframeproject.org), as well as check out the github issues tagged with LTSR.
Community Happenings
Zowe Explorer (FKA The Zowe VS Code Extension)
The Zowe Explorer had a great November!
- Release 1.0 went GA
- Reached more than 2,600 unique downloads
Technologies powered by Zowe Explorer
- Eclipse Che Che4z: Broadcom contributed the Eclipse Che4Z project to the Eclipse Foundation. This allows web-based z/OS development with a cloud-hosted IDE built around Zowe technology. Lukas Zima has a great blog showing how to get started
- VS Code Code4z: The Broadcom Code4Z collection of extensions for Visual Studio code was released. It includes the Zowe Explorer together with COBOL language support and an explorer for CA Endevor
- IBM Z Open Editor: introduced plenty of new functionality as well, including JCL Syntax Completion added by Bill Pereira. When used with the Zowe Explorer, the user can expect a development experience like one would get on many other platforms
Upcoming Conference News
February 24 – 28 2020: Don’t miss the SHARE conference in Fort Worth, Texas
- SHARE is introducing a new track Open Source on Z that includes approximately 20 sessions on Zowe
- MAKE PLANS TO ARRIVE EARLY and join us on Sunday Feb 23rd for a 4-hour deep-dive Zowe Education for Exploiters ISVs, SI and DIY customers; Please register to attend, this is open to all!
Releases
Zowe 1.7:
- November 20th
- See updated content here
- Check out the new! video recording, it walks through the content and provides great demos
Zowe 1.7.1:
- December 5th includes single fix
Zowe 1.8:
- Originally scheduled for mid-December
- Currently expected for early January 2020 release
Blogs
Security blogs Zowe API security from Greg McKinnon and Zowe CLI from Dan Kelosky
- Single-sign-on (SSO)
- Multi-factor-authentication (MFA)
- JSON Web Tokens (JWT)
Bill Pereria of the Zowe onboarders squad has a Zowe demos youtube playlist and last month published two new videos.
The medium.com/zowe blog site has new content
- How to Quickly Build a Mainframe Web App with ExpressJS and Zowe CLI from Alex Dumitru.
- VS Code and Zowe for z/OS System Programmers by Diego Rodriguez
- Beginner’s Guide to access mainframe via Zowe in 10 easy steps by Jessielaine Punongbayan
- Creating a Flutter App to interact with z/OS via Zowe from Mehmet Alp Summer
- Getting started with Zowe by Bill Pereria
Conferences
- Zowe was featured featured at the Open Source Summit in Lyon, France where the Open Mainframe Project had a booth showcasing Zowe’s capabilties as well as Zorrow, Feliong, and other open source projects
- Guide Share Europe UK included five presentations on Zowe as well as mention in two keynotes. There’s a write up on Linkedin. Jessielaine Punongbayan and Richelle Anne Craw (shown below) demonstrated how to manage z/OS security definitions from the Zowe Explorer and monitor LPARs from a mobile phone
- Zowe was featured at the Dutch Guide Share Europe conference
#SquadGoals
The squads use git issues and meet each week to track and plan their work. If anyone wants to influence or follow progress please look at the zenhub board or attend the meetings.
Command Line Interface (CLI)
- CICS web service support was enhanced by adding URI maps
Zowe Explorer
- Remembering of filter criteria similar to a browser history, avoiding re-typing each time values need recalling
- Job filtering made easier with optimized search paths and favorites.
- Dataset and member copy and rename
- Credential prompting in profiles and favorites
- Safe save is the default function (to avoid in-flight collisions)
Web UI Squad
Menu options added for
- Dataset and Dataset member deletion
- Displaying properties of unix files and directories, as well as dataset and dataset members
- Showing original JCL for submitted jobs similar to the SJ function in SDSF
API Mediation Layer
- URL Endpoint to show the Zowe version
- Supress “private” interaction messaging between components to simplify the log
Happy holidays
… and a merry new year.
