Zowe Archives - Open Mainframe Project

Jun 11

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Zowe Jupyter App: A Big Hit at the Poughkeepsie zModernization Summit Event

By openmainframe | Blog, Zowe

Guest blog from Daniel Jast – IBM Z Systems Technical Specialist

The Poughkeepsie Client Experience Center recently hosted the annual IBM Z Summit Program Technical training event titled, zModernization Summit Event. At the training event, we provided 20 of the new IBM Technical Sellers in Z with hands on training in some of the “modernizing” applications on Z. These technologies included CICS, DB2, z/OS Connect, z/OSMF Zowe, Spark, ICP, Docker and more. The week let participants take a cobol application running on z/OS, expose the applications services into APIs, and then create a containerized application with those APIs which was then deployed out to the IBM Cloud. The application that was being run was a stock trading application which allowed users to create an investment portfolio, add stocks to the portfolio, and so on. We then let users get a hands-on experience on the Zowe Desktop and CLI, seeing how easy and simple completing complex z/OS tasks can be for new users by utilizing Zowe.

On the Zowe Desktop, we had created an IFrame application that had the Jupyter Notebooks running right on the Zowe Desktop. Jupyter Notebooks are used to exploit Spark to analyze data sources of your choosing. We had the Jupyter Notebooks analyzing Investment portfolio data which the users had created unknowingly as they worked through the technical labs throughout the week of training.

Training participants thoroughly enjoyed the Zowe and Jupyter Notebook piece. After getting previous training on “green screen” interfaces to z/OS, the Zowe Desktop and Zowe CLI were very well received. The audience was majority straight out of college, matching the target audience for the Zowe platform. When participants were asked what their highlights and key takeaways from the week of training were, some mentioned Zowe explicitly:

“Being able to learn more about Zowe and more innovative technologies integrated with Z.”

“Highlight: Zowe presentation!”

“My favorite (presentation) was the Zowe presentation”

“I think I really enjoyed learning about Zowe, and the hands on lab are super helpful in understanding!”

If you are looking to add Jupyter Notebooks to your Zowe Desktop, you can follow the github documentation posted here: https://github.com/zowe/jupyter-app

You can also follow the custom documentation written by the Client Experience Center’s Alex Lieberman(Alex.Lieberman1@ibm.com) and Dan Jast here: https://ibm.box.com/s/wo583vfw4klc2jg7l0zxo0k55yvw681b

If you would like to go through most of the Zowe Hands on Lab which event participants went through, you can request a demo from the Client Experience Center Demo Portal located here:

Zowe: Modern Z Systems Programming Demo: https://www.ibm.com/systems/clientcenterdemonstrations/faces/_rlvid.jsp?_rap=!viewDemo&demoId=3089&conversationContext=1&_rvip=/dcSearchDemonstrations.jsp

NOTE: If you are not an IBMer, you will not be able to participate in this demonstration without your IBM representatives help. You can contact Dan Jast (daniel.jast@ibm.com) for further information.

May 30

0

Dalian University of Technology Expects to Deliver New Zowe Tools

By openmainframe | Blog, Zowe

Guest blog from Kun LU, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Director of Innovation Practice Center, School of Software Technology – Dalian University of Technology – China

When it comes to the Best DevOps Open Source Project, do you think it has anything to do with the IBM mainframe? Well, it does. Open Mainframe Project’s Zowe, the first open source project based on z/OS, was named as a one of the finalists for the “Best DevOps Open Source Project” category by Devops.com. Zowe is an open source software framework that provides solutions that allow development and operations teams to securely, manage, control, script and develop on the Mainframe like any other cloud platform. Leveraging the Zowe framework, we (DLUT) plan to develop and contribute a few tools to Zowe to help developers be more efficient, productive and agile in their daily work on z/OS.

We will work closely with IBM CSL CICS team and expect to deliver the following tools as Zowe plugins for CICS customers, first for the China market, in 3Q/4Q this year.

CICS Statistics Visualizer plugin

In the past, CICS health status check needs to be done manually by CICS experts who have profound CICS skills and experience. The workflow includes understanding the system design, configuring CICS statistics programs and collecting CICS statistics data from CICS sample region at service peak time by uploading statistics data and analyzing the data, and finally generating reports and diagrams. With CICS Statistics Visualizer plugin on Zowe Web UI, all the work can be done automatically. The plugin also supports statistics data comparison of a single region at different time intervals, which can largely simplify the work the customer used to do before to monitor and analyze the system, like CICS health status change after CICS upgrade or configuration change, the trend of system resource utilization over time etc. Furthermore, key CICS health indicators can also be queried by a simple shell command line through Zowe Command Line Interface (CLI).

CICS Liberty Debugging Assistant plugin

In the past, the customer needs to collect and store a list of debugging information from different storages and locations to troubleshoot a CICS Liberty problem. This includes CICS Job log from mainframe JES, JVM profile and Liberty configuration files, STDERR/STDOUT/JVMTRACE files and Liberty output files like messages.log, trace.log and ffdc from zFS, MVS system dump accompanying with JAVADUMP, SYSDUMP and CEEDUMP dumps depending on the problem. In addition, CICS trace level needs to be configured and Interactive Problem Control System (IPCS) must be used to format the unformatted dumps. With CICS Liberty Debugging Assistant plugin, all the debugging related configuration, debugging information collection and dump formatting can be done conveniently by one-click operation.

CICS Application CI/CD plugin

Nowadays, CI/CD is widely used in software development. More and more customers have increased demand on the z/OS development CI/CD to modernize the mainframe development, integrate with the distributed platform development, and assist the full stack developer to work with the mainframe services. Zowe acts a good platform to eliminate the operation gaps to enable the z/OS development CI/CD, which provides some plugins like CICS and DB2 plugins to help simplify the application development. As Git is widely being used for the distributed development, to centralize the code management, Zowe plugins (or cli) can be built for mainframe DevOps, like:

Trigger the build automation and end to end test automation (e.g. online COBOL or batch COBOL)
Trigger the env update when there is a CICS or DB2 configuration update
Deploy update into the multiple environments

Sep 28

0

IBM Systems Magazine | Getting to Know the Open-Source Zowe Project

By gfallon | News, Zowe

Zowe—the first open-source framework for z/OS—is poised to break new ground for IBM Z clients. Announced on Tuesday, Aug. 14, at SHARE in St. Louis, by executives from IBM, CA Technologies, Rocket Software and the Open Mainframe Project, the open-source project promises to be a game changer.

“Open source redefines industries across the board. We’ve seen it solve problems and lead to innovative solutions. Open source changed the automotive industry and the cloud changed networking, too,” says John Mertic, director of program management for The Linux Foundation and director for the Open Mainframe Project. “We’re excited to see what Zowe and open source will do for the mainframe industry.”

The Networking Group | The Modern Mainframe: “Consuming it Like the Cloud”

By gfallon | News, Zowe

The Modern Mainframe is by all accounts an old technology but what progressive companies are now doing with it is nothing but old. Now the mainframe is in the Cloud and that presents many opportunities. Listen to leaders in this space talk about how we can change the mainframe so the consumption of it is similar to a Cloud experience.

Watch at The Networking Group.

Sep 11

0

Clabby Analytics | A Different View: The Zowe Initiative and the “Open Mainframe”

By gfallon | News, Zowe

At this year’s Open Source Summit IBM, CA Technologies and Rocket Software announced an open-source software framework known as “Zowe” – a framework designed to draw new application development to the z/OS operating environment, as well as making it simpler to integrate modern applications on other platforms (systems, servers, mobile devices, etc.) with mainframe servers. We at Clabby Analytics, however, see this move as a heck of a lot more than application development and integration – we consider it a major step forward in opening up the mainframe and making it a transparent member of any enterprise hybrid cloud environment.

Open Mainframe Project Announces Open Source Framework for Modernization | Database Trends and Applications

By gfallon | I Am A Mainframer, Zowe

The Open Mainframe Project has announced Zowe, an open source software framework that bridges the divide between modern applications and the mainframe, intended to provide easier interoperability and scalability among products and solutions from multiple vendors. Zowe is the first open source project based on z/OS.

Read more at Database Trends and Applications.

Sep 09

0

IT Toolbox | More About Zowe

By gfallon | News, Zowe

IBM has been a big supporter of Linux for many years and is a keen supporter of the project because it gives a younger generation of programmers access to the mainframe and all the power and security available on that platform. Also involved are CA Technologies and Rocket Software.

Zowe has four components. These are: Zowe APIs, Zowe API Mediation Layer, Zowe Web UI, and Zowe Command Line Interface (CLI).

TechZone360 | From Mainframe to Open Frameworks, Linux Foundation Fuels Up with Rocket Software

By gfallon | News, Zowe

Last week, at the Open Source Summit, hosted by The Linux Foundation, the Open Mainframe Project gave birth to Zowe, introduced a new open source software framework “that bridges the divide between modern applications and the mainframe, providing easier interoperability and scalability among products and solutions from multiple vendors,” according to the announcement.

Devops | Open Mainframe Project Launches Zowe to Advance DevOps

By gfallon | News, Zowe

Announced at the Open Source Summit, the Zowe project is being led by IBM, CA Technologies and Rocket Software.

Matt Hogstrom, chief architect for z/OS Systems at IBM, said the goal of the Zowe project is to attract a new generation of IT administrators to the mainframe platforms and make it simpler to include mainframes within the larger scope of an integrated set of DevOps process spanning multiple platforms.

Heise Developer | Zowe project gives the mainframe a GUI

By gfallon | News, Zowe

The Linux Foundation’s Open Mainframe Project recently introduced Zowe, an approach designed to bring a graphical web interface to the mainframe for the first time. While it was previously possible to run a Linux operating system with a GUI on a mainframe, IBM’s central zOS mainframe operating system did not have a graphical user interface.

Read more at Heise Developer. (German publication)