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IDC Tech Spotlight: Making Open Source Work for You

Starting from remarkably humble beginnings over three decades ago, open source software is the story of a better mousetrap that wins over the world. Originally, the intent of open source projects was to create software that system administrators and developers could use without having to pay licensing fees – but it has become much, much more. This IDC Technology Spotlight takes a deeper look at the value proposition associated with using commercially supported open source software in mission-critical environments, like IBM Z.

To read more, please visit: IDC Tech Spotlight: Making Open Source Work for You: Achieving Optimum Value, Security, and Productivity

September 28, 2021
Mainframe Output Management That Drives Efficiency
Mainframe output management that drives efficiency and increases security
Simply providing access to reports and data on the mainframe is no longer enough for today’s stakeholders. Your users—whether they’re employees, partners or customers—increasingly expect a more modern digital experience and efficient workflows. And with more regulation and restrictions impacting data security, you’re expected to protect all data, regardless of platform. Rocket® EOS 360 integrates with mainframe environments to capture output from applications, manage the storage of that data and provide fast and secure access for users.

Quickly improve mainframe output management efficiency
Rocket EOS 360 allows you to allocate precious MSUs to business-critical applications, improving the efficiency of your output management system.

Rocket EOS 360 Platform:
Ensure data security and regulatory compliance
Rocket EOS 360 centralizes your data and provides a single, secure point of access to ensure you stay in compliance with any regulations and minimize the risk of a data security leak.

Improve user experience and optimize workflows
Rocket EOS 360 provides a modern user interface that helps you retain talent and the ability to integrate with web services to build customized experiences for users such as partners and customers.

Expertise in mainframe management
Rocket Software is helping a new generation of managers and stakeholders to not only understand and leverage the mainframe intelligently, but also to merge modern technology with legacy infrastructure for a competitive edge and drive the user experience for today and tomorrow.

Read the datasheet.
September 14, 2021
Leveraging the Open-Source Ecosystem When Developing Modern z/OS Applications

Developers today are under great pressure to create apps faster than ever before, and they must continuously update them, adding new features and incorporating new technologies. Many companies have adopted DevOps, cloud-native architectures, and low-code development solutions to accelerate the development and updating cycle. But another critical aspect to modern application development has been to take advantage of the numerous benefits of using open-source software.

The advantages of open-source software include fast cycles (compared to many commercial applications) for new versions, more responsiveness to add user-requested features, frequent updates to accommodate new technologies, and a large developer base that brings varied and diverse approaches to solving problems. Then there are the business benefits. Open-source software is often lower cost, more flexible (less chance of vendor lock-in), and more transparent than commercial offerings. Additionally, open-source software perfectly complements today’s cloud-native applications that bring loosely coupled components together as an alternative to the monolithic applications of old.

Such benefits have driven up the use of open-source software in enterprises, particularly over the last several years. A number of past studies highlighted the wide-scale and growing use of open-source software. One study found that essentially all (99 percent) of the codebases examined contained at least one open-source component, with open source comprising 70 percent of the code overall. And in another survey released last year, 75 percent of enterprises said open-source software was very or extremely important. And 77 percent of companies in the same survey said they planned to ramp up their use of open software over the next 12 months.

Open source and z/OS

The enthusiasm for open-source software extends into the z/OS application development community for all the same reasons as with general apps. Namely, there is a vast ecosystem of solutions and developers that a company can rely on when developing modern z/OS applications.

In particular, there are a number of z/OS open-source software groups, projects, and efforts to draw from.

To start, there are open-source programming languages and tools like Python, Git, and cURL available that let developers use the power of z/OS systems without learning new skills.

There are groups like the Open Mainframe Project, which aims to be a focal point for deploying and using Linux and Open Source in a mainframe computing environment.

One project from this group is Zowe, which is an open-source framework for the modern z/OS system. Zowe bridges the divide between modern applications and the mainframe, providing easier interoperability and scalability among products and solutions from multiple vendors.

And there are open-source projects like Ansible, an open-source community project for app deployment, configuration management, and orchestration. It is available for z/OS. Ansible allows developers to automate z/OS applications. With Ansible, developers can use existing JCL, REXX, and z/OSMF to automate z/OS-based software. This lets a developer take a common approach to hybrid applications and lets them integrate z/OS into an enterprise automation strategy in a consistent way.

A great advantage of using these open-source z/OS offerings is that developers with widely available skills can create new z/OS apps. That is a major plus these days as the pool of talent that has native z/OS skills is diminishing. Many of the people that came up on mainframes and coding for z/OS are retiring. And many younger developers are learning on the job to program for z/OS.

Enterprise capabilities are still a must

As with many open-source solutions ranging from Linux to Apache webserver to Kubernetes, companies that use them must complement the solutions with additional capabilities to ensure availability, security, and performance.

A do-it-yourself (DIY) approach is certainly possible. But that requires a great amount of time and resources. It also requires skills that a company may not have. Hiring for those skills or getting internal staff trained in these areas also is costly and time-consuming.

The alternative is to partner with a technology provider that brings z/OS expertise, a knowledge of open-source, and the features and people to make the solutions enterprise-ready.

August 6, 2021
Rocket Open Source Languages and Tools for z/OS Forum
Join the Rocket Open Source Languages and Tools for z/OS forum. A place where you can ask questions about our open source languages and tools and get answers from other mainframe professionals like yourself, as well as members of the Rocket team.

As a Forum member you can engage your peers, learn how they’re using Rocket Open Source Languages, and share your experiences. You can crowdsource solutions and you’ll also get access to exclusive information and experiences, including invitations to work directly with product teams on future releases and enhancements.
- Access general installation and use postings
- Leverage experience of other users
- Post your own questions
Join the Forum NOW.
July 30, 2021
The Move Away from Monolithic Application Development

Shifting from monolithic application development

Businesses need agility to deliver better services, meet changing requirements, and seize new opportunities as they arise. At the heart of many efforts are applications based on modern development strategies and techniques. Specifically, many businesses are moving away from monolithic applications of the past that are hard to modify and take a long time to bring to market.

Why the shift and why now? Over 80% of organizations expect to compete mainly based on customer experience (CX). As a result, businesses in the most competitive markets like retail, banking, insurance, financial services, and travel/hospitality cannot afford to wait months or years to release new services, applications, or features.

The bottom line is that software development teams are under pressure to deliver more of everything (new applications, enhanced features, more access options) in shorter time frames. A widely cited past industry study put the issues into perspective. Leading companies routinely perform multiple deployments daily. By comparison, low performers reported deploying only once a month at best. (At the extreme end of the spectrum, companies like Amazon and Google do deployments thousands of times a day.)

Monolithic application development does not work in this fast-paced environment. A simple change in an existing application, such as incorporating a new dataset, adding new features in a front-end app, or using a different analytics method, requires that the entire application be revised, retested, and redeployed. That all takes time. Lots of time.

A better approach is to use modern applications development methodologies. In particular, there is a shift underway to using cloud-native architectures based on loosely connected microservices and elements.

A cloud-native approach is particularly well-suited for modern applications for several reasons. For example, a cloud-native approach helps organizations address the customer experience drivers that require constant updates and new services. Each component of a cloud-native application can be deployed and maintained as a self-contained microservice. If any element of a broad application needs to be updated or changed, only that element needs to be touched. The rest of the conglomerate application remains the same.

z/OS plays well with cloud-native

Many industries under the greatest pressure to speed development and deliver ever-more customized, personalized customer experiences use z/OS systems. As noted, these are retail, banking, insurance, financial services, and travel/hospitality. Government also can be added to the list. It is a large user of z/OS systems and is constantly trying to improve access to its services via new or improved web, mobile, chat, social, and phone applications.

There are two ways to enhance and develop applications for these systems that use modern development methods. One is to make data, applications, and services that run on z/OS systems available as APIs and as microservices to be used by larger cloud-native applications.

The other method that is gaining more favor is to provide the modern development tools for the z/OS systems themselves. Specifically, modern application development approaches that move away from monolithic architectures need certain essential elements. Many rely on open-source development techniques, workflow automation, and continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) tools.

Bringing such commonly used tools to the z/OS environment helps businesses speed the development of new applications to meet changing demands of their customers. It allows a business to leverage the data and applications on its z/OS systems and create innovative new applications.

In an age when it is getting harder to find developers with expertise in native z/OS programming, bringing familiar DevOps tools to the z/OS environment offers several benefits. Those who have the native z/OS skills can focus on core applications and leave the tasks like supporting a new front end or enhancing a web interface to others. After all, there are many more developers available with modern development skills.

Bringing the DevOps tools into the z/OS environment also lets businesses retain all the pluses of those systems. Namely, businesses are assured that the same reliability, superior performance, tightly controlled security, and massive scalability are retained and can be leveraged with integrated with a broader cloud-native application.

July 23, 2021
Integrating z/OS Systems for Cross-channel Experiences

Integrating z/OS Systems to Enable a Seamless Cross-channel Customer Experience

Many industries where customer experience is the critical differentiator run on z/OS systems. That includes retail, financial services, transportation, hospitality, government, and more. As a result, integration of z/OS systems into any customer-oriented application or with front-end applications is essential.

Just how important is the issue? More than two-thirds of companies now primarily compete based on customer experience. That’s up from 36% ten years ago. Companies like Jet Blue and The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company have historically been known for their exceptional customer service. And eyewear provider Warby Parker, widely appreciated for its customer experience, is known for a legendary example of above and beyond service when an executive returned a pair of glasses to the home of a customer who had left the glasses on an Acela train ride.

Beyond multi-channel to omni-channel

Many businesses offer multiple ways for customers to interact with their company. It is not unusual for a company to support interactions via the web, in-person, mobile, voice, text, and chat. That way, every customer can use their preferred method to ask questions, review account information, check on an order status, get information, search, place orders, and more.

What differentiates one company from another is when a business offers a seamless cross-channel customer experience. Often called omni-channel, a seamless cross-channel experience is a multi-channel approach to serving customers that offers an integrated and cohesive customer experience no matter how or where a customer reaches out.

We’ve all experienced the siloed approach that treats each channel separately. You’re doing something online such as placing an order, checking the status of a service request, or inquiring about your account. An issue occurs such as a phone line dropping, your mobile phone’s screen is too small to carry out the task, or you simply want to talk to someone in person. You switch from mobile to Web, or phone to in-store, and there is no connection or carryover between what you have already done and now. You need to reenter information, answer the same questions, and walk through the same steps.

In contrast, the interaction with a business that delivers a seamless cross-channel experience is much different. An agent on the phone knows you’ve had trouble placing an order online, the in-store representative is expecting you to drop off an item for repair, and when you log into your account online, you are taken to the part of the process you were at on your mobile device.

Integration is the key

Omni-channel customer experience seamlessly integrates the different communication channels that businesses use to communicate with customers. Customer demand for a seamless cross-channel experience is pushing businesses to change. The number of companies investing in an omni-channel customer experience has jumped from 20% in 2010 to more than 80% in 2020.

As a result, z/OS users are racing to adapt to the new realities of the omni-channel customer experience. Users expect that data and applications will be as readily available on mobile devices, the web, or via phones as they are on desktop clients.

Developing a seamless cross-channel user experience can mean a significant amount of new application coding. What’s needed is a way to easily transform proven applications and system-of-record data using modern APIs to accelerate the delivery of new services and meet changing customer expectations.

To tightly integrate z/OS systems for such efforts requires the embracement of modern application development methodologies. That includes providing developers with solutions that let them retain the decades of efforts that went into the core applications running on their z/OS systems while building new applications that tap into these systems.

Businesses must make available to their developers the commonly used open-source development, workflow automation, and CI/CD tools to the z/OS environment to accomplish this. Such a strategy will help businesses speed the development of new applications to meet changing demands of their customers. It allows a business to leverage the data and applications on its z/OS systems and create innovative new applications.

Developing new customer applications while retaining the core business functions, processes, and data on the z/OS systems ensures that all front-end access makes use of a single source of truth about the customer. There is only one record associated with each customer. Such integration of z/OS systems thus makes it much easier to keep all the channels aligned and lets businesses deliver the prized and highly desired seamless cross-channel customer experience.

July 14, 2021
Discover Rocket Open AppDev for Z
Give your developers the open software they want through a system that combines an easy user experience with the security and support IBM® Z® customers demand.

Rocket® Open AppDev for Z helps you bring applications to market faster, at lower cost and with less risk. We make it easier to implement modern application development practices by automating processes while ensuring compliance to organizational standards and business rules.

Rocket Open AppDev for Z provides:
- 20 ported open source tools and languages for IBM Z, bundled for the AppDev experience (with more to be added over time)
- Secure, controlled and easy deployment, with a package management system that also serves as an environment manager
- World-class 24x7x365 global support
Rocket Open AppDev for Z is much more than a collection of software ports. Our most recent innovation is a software deployment and management system based on conda and our own Anaconda Team Edition channel server. This system combines the high security that mainframe customers demand with an easy user experience for sysprogs and end users.

Compliance and security

Many of the world’s largest banks, insurance companies and government agencies rely on Rocket Open Source Languages and Tools for z/OS. That’s why it’s essential that we check our deliverables for vulnerabilities and follow proper licensing requirements.

All of our products are:
- Continuously kept up to date against the NIST National Vulnerability Database
- Scanned for both security vulnerabilities and conformance to proper open source licensing prior to release
Secure and simple delivery, deployment and maintenance

Rocket Open AppDev for Z is based on the conda package and environment management system. Conda is uniquely suited to the mainframe world, thanks to its two levels of available security, including the most secure file channel option for air-gapped mainframes.

Dependency-safe
Conda is aware of dependency and version compatibility, protecting you against dependency and version mismatches and allowing you to run multiple package versions.

Environment support
Simple conda environment commands enable you to create, delete, activate and deactivate environments at will.

Language-agnostic
Conda features (including conda environments) are all language-agnostic, making Conda the choice for users regardless of whether they’re programming in Python or R, or simply want to download some tools completely independent of any programming language (e.g. Git).

Secure repositories with guaranteed provenance
Whether you’re using our secure channel server or your own file channels, our compliance and security system will give your team confidence that you know where your open-source technology is coming from, that it’s authentic and tamper-free and that it’s been scanned, vetted and tested. All of the open source products and packages we provide with Anaconda Team Edition are ported, built and audited by the team here at Rocket Software.

Support
Our Open Source Support packages are based on the same world-class, customer-centric principles as our other support offerings. When it comes to open source support, we’re offering support and fixes for open source development tools, as opposed to consultancy or solution engineering services.

Get more information on Rocket Open AppDev for Z.
July 7, 2021
Open Source Languages and Tools for z/OS

Open Source Languages and Tools for z/OS

Empower your developers to use their preferred open source languages. We offer many open source languages and tools—including Git, R and Python—that allow any developer to harness the power of the mainframe without having to spend months learning new skills.

Git

Git is a version control system (VCS) for tracking changes in computer files and coordinating work on those files among multiple people. It is primarily used for software development, but it can be used to keep track of changes in any files. The z/OS port of git supports automatic tagging and conversion of text files between ISO8859-1 (ASCII) and IBM-1047 (EBCDIC) character encodings.

Bash

Bash is an sh-compatible shell providing users a command-line interpreter that provides a traditional interface via text window and a script execution capability. It is the default shell on Linux and Mac OS X.

Bison

Bison is a programming utility for creating parsers. It’s commonly used in both build automation and build automation generation, and converts annotated context-free grammar into a C, C++, or Java parser. Bison is used by PHP, Bash, Ruby, and many other tools.

bzip2

bzip2 is a data compressor that compresses single files (it is not a file archiver). It typically compresses files to within 10% to 15% of the best available techniques of statistical compressors, while being around twice as fast at compression and six times faster at decompression. This version of bzip2 was not written to exploit z Systems architecture; gzip may work best for these needs.

cURL

cURL is an open source tool that can transfer data to and from servers by using one of the supported protocols (HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, TFTP, DICT, TELNET, LDAP, or FILE). This tool can work without user interaction. cURL functionality includes proxy support, user authentication, FTP upload, HTTP post, SSL connections, cookies, file transfer, resume, and more.

Diffutils

Diffutils is a package of several programs intended to find differences between files. The diff command, for example, shows exact line differences between two files.

Gzip

Gzip is a popular data compression/decompression program (our ported tools have been compressed using this utility). This version of Gzip has also been modified to exploit z/OS EDC compression hardware, if present on your system.

libssh2

libssh2 is a software library that allows developers to use the SSH-2 network protocol in an easy-to-use self-contained package. This package only contains LIBSSH2 libraries intended for use by other programs or utilities.

m4

M4 is a general-purpose macro processor. Most users require M4 simply as a dependency of Autoconf or Bison, although the language is used in other contexts such as text template re-use, text editing and text-processing applications.

Make

Make controls the generation of program executables and other non-source files from the program’s source files. Make allows users to build, install and update packages without knowing the process details.

Mktemp

The mktemp utility takes a given filename template and overwrites a portion of it to create a unique filename. Mktemp also manages the creation of temporary files and directories that allow the user to avoid the cleaning up files that are not needed permanently.

OpenSSL

OpenSSL is a software library to be used in applications that need to secure communications against eavesdropping or need to ascertain the identity of the party at the other end.

Pkg-Config

pkg-Config is a programming tool that assists with compiling applications and libraries. It helps you insert the correct compiler options on the command line without the need of hard coding values on where to find glib (or other libraries).

Sed

sed (stream editor) is a utility for parsing and transforming text. It is typically used for extracting part of a file using pattern matching, or substituting multiple occurrences of a string within a file.

sudo

sudo is a command-line utility that allows admins to delegate authority, giving certain users the ability to run commands as a super-user or another user, while providing an audit trail of the commands and their arguments.

Unzip

UnZip is an extraction utility for archives compressed in .zip format. Unzip is also compatible with PKZIP and PKUNZIP utilities for MS-DOS as well as Info-ZIP’s and supports bzip2 compression methods as well.

Vim

Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to make creating and changing any kind of text very efficient.

Zip

Zip is a compression and file packaging/archive utility. Zip puts one or more compressed files into a single ZIP archive, along with information about the files.

zlib

zlib is a general-purpose, lossless data compression library providing in-memory compression and decompression functions, including integrity checks of the uncompressed data.

Download Now Please link to https://www.rocketsoftware.com/zos-open-source/tools

Read more about Rocket Support for Open Source Tools Please link to: https://www.rocketsoftware.com/contact-open-source-tools-zos

Join the FREE Rocket Open Source Tools Forum Please link to: https://community.rocketsoftware.com/forums/forum-home?CommunityKey=1e694975-142d-4f2d-9b52-0e37e225db41?utag_campaign=ADM&utag_channel=3P&utag_platform=CS&utag_content=OpenAppDevdevopsy.kinsta.cloudmicrosite&utag_location=WW&utag_name=ADM_3P_CS_OpenAppDevdevopsy.kinsta.cloudmicrosite_2020-01_WW

June 28, 2021
Bringing z/OS Systems into Today’s Modern Application Development

Bringing z/OS Systems into Today’s Modern App Development

Modern application development is all about automation, addressing the concerns of developers and the operational side of the house, and supporting the common CI/CD (continuous integration/continuous delivery) approach needed to keep apps up to date.

Developers typically make use of a variety of open source and other tools to aid in their work. While most of these tools were created for traditional server or cloud-native environments. Some of the most powerful tools are available to run natively in z/OS environments.

One example is Ansible, an open source community project for app deployment, configuration management and orchestration. It is available for z/OS.

The IT automation engine works by connecting to your nodes and pushing out small programs called “Ansible modules” to them. These programs are written to be resource models of the desired state of the system. Ansible then executes these modules and removes them when finished.

Simply put, Ansible allows developers to automate z/OS applications. With Ansible, developers can use existing JCL, REXX and z/OSMF to automate z/OS-based software. This lets the developer take a common approach to hybrid applications and integrate z/OS into an enterprise automation strategy consistently.

A great advantage is that developers can work in Ansible and Python. These are readily available skills in the marketplace and they can be applied to z/OS applications.

Another common tool is Jenkins, an open source, server-based tool that builds and tests software continuously, supporting CI/CD. Jenkins integrates with a broad range of source code management systems such as Git and Subversion. Jenkins’ capabilities can be extended to different platforms and systems using plugins. One such z/OS connector is the IBM z/OS Connector, a plugin for connection of Jenkins CI to IBM z/OS, including integration of IBM SCLM as SCM.

With tools such as these, developers can build a CI/CD pipeline that, for example, calls open source scripting that you have running on Z. It might move some files from A to B, or it might call a compiler. It helps someone familiar with these tools carry out these tasks and incorporate them into their processes. If they are running on the z/OS platform, developers can interface and make calls right on the platform. For example, an app may take advantage of existing mainframe Rex scripting without having to rewrite it.

Accounting for Cultural Differences

In today’s always-on, instant-access-to-everything world, employees and customers demand frequent updates and new features to existing applications and services, as well as new and better offerings all the time. Meeting these demands is a competitive differentiator.

Bringing commonly used open source development, workflow automation and CI/CD tools to the z/OS environment helps businesses speed the development of new applications to meet changing demands of their customers. It allows a business to leverage the data and applications on its z/OS systems and create innovative new applications.

It’s also about providing the tooling to DevOps that they are familiar with and providing tools to build z/OS applications in the same way they build other applications. Many are building their applications off-platform with the same tools. Having tools that run on z/OS is helpful. It makes it easier. Businesses can make fewer application changes. So, there’s less risk.

If a business has 20, 30 or even 40 years’ of legacy applications running on z/OS, those applications have proven to be secure, stable and reliable. An open source application development tool for z/OS offers a way to retain those qualities and modernize application development for building pipelines and instituting DevOps principles and practices that are well-known to the new generation of developers.

June 23, 2021
Why Modernizing IBM Z Is Better Than Replatforming

Modernizers relish platform capabilities that spur innovation, lower cost, and generate more revenue.

Businesses with IBM Z are under the same pressure as all other businesses to digitally transform. Those that are fully aware of their IBM Z capabilities choose to modernize on the platform.

When Modernizing on IBM Z, What Kinds of Initiatives Do Businesses Typically Undertake?

Investments in AI go hand in hand with organizations’ increasing ability to train AI algorithms for their industry’s most important use cases and infuse the IBM Z applications with inferencing capabilities on those AI algorithms.

Hybrid cloud is the preferred cloud strategy for most enterprises and serves as a critical enabler for all other initiatives.

Internet of Things investments target the data volumes that are ingested, analyzed, and leveraged for real-time decision making.

IDC research demonstrated unequivocally that businesses that remain on what are sometimes referred to as “legacy” platforms and that take advantage of the plethora of hardware and software innovations that have been made available for those platforms have an overall better outcome, quantitatively and qualitatively, than those that move off them.

Modernizers are More Satisfied…

IDC has found that modernizers are more satisfied with their IBM Z DX capabilities than replatformers across a range of characteristics.

Modernizers Spend Less…

Modernizers spent less on the modernizing initiative (even with new IBM Z hardware) than replatformers on their replatforming initiative.

IDC’s analysis of the data shows that if both modernizers and replatformers invest the same amount in new hardware (within $400K – $2M), then modernizers pay less for software, staffing, consulting, and disruption due to the initiative than replatformers.

Modernizing Delivers Cost Savings and Drives Revenue…

Businesses that modernize on IBM Z are reaping the benefits. As a direct result of the modernization initiatives on IBM Z, organizations were able to run more cost efficiently while growing their business.

They incurred lower costs in terms of hardware capex, software opex, and staffing opex, while generating more revenue.

Examine the data derived from the new IDC whitepaper to better understand the platform capabilities that are spurring innovation, lowering cost, and generating more revenue for modernizers.

Download the IDC Whitepaper: The Quantified Business Benefits of Modernizing IBM Z and IBM i to Spur Innovation

Read the IDC InfoBrief.

Watch the IDC Modernization Video .

June 10, 2021