IBM Z for Gen Z — part 2
how can modern applications interact with IBM Z?
Introduction
In IBM Z for Gen Z — part 1, I tried to make the case of why the mainframe is as relevant today as it was since the 70’s. IBM continues to invest heavily on its flagship IBM Z platform to bring to it’s customers the best technology can offer. IBM Z16, the latest machine on the block boasts of these and other capabilities from the IBM Research Labs:
- a 7nm Telum processor (AIU) that facilitates on-device AI inferencing
- quantum-safe cryptography
- multi-cloud support
But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. In this edition of “IBM Z for Gen Z”, I will present some scenarios which will resonate with the developers of today and how Gen Z’ers can leverage what the IBM Z platform has to offer, to develop modern applications.
Cloud Native Applications and IBM Z, are you kidding?
Cloud native applications are the buzz words of today. Most commonly, they are built on the microservices architecture. Simply put, a large application is broken down into small, independent units of work, each of which is called a microservice and created / managed by a very small group of people. The key to the success of the microservices architecture is a well designed API structure and efficient communication between the constitutent micro services. Most commonly, sources of data are separated from business logic.
If the data source, like a traditional DB2 data base on the IBM Z, is behind the firewall in a proprietary IBM Z datacenter, why should things be any different? Absolutely! You as a cloud native programmer must be able to reach out to data wherever it is.
Let us explore some scenarios here.
Scenario 1. A frontend application in the cloud needs to query data on a DB2 Database on IBM Z. The application developer can be totally agnostic about where the data lives, as long as the data is accessible via an API Call. z/OS Connect allows applications and services on IBM Z expose RESTful APIs that applications on the cloud can consume to support the business logic.
Scenario 2: If the application architecture calls for a data-warehouse / data lake to be available in the cloud, the application environment can be setup with an “Integrated DataSync Protocol” to cache data from IBM Z into a Data Warehouse in the Cloud as depicted in the picture below
Scenario 3: If developers are required to “write or update existing application code on the mainframe”, they can use their favorite IDE, with appropriate programming-language extensions, on their workstation to telnet/ssh in. The ZOWE from the Open Mainframe Project provides more details on how a developer can quickly get started.
Scenario 4: Creating and managing a Dev/Test environment on IBM Z can be very time consuming and become prohibitively expensive from the licensing perspective. How about if you get your “very own” Z Sandbox? You can use WAZI Developer to run a “z/OS image” on a simulated x86 platform. It helps you to play around and do unit-testing on your own for your application code.
Scenario 5: The simulated z/OS sandbox on the x86 platform provided by WAZI Developer is very restrictive because it can only handle standard z/OS images that are no close to what a production z/OS system looks like. This can lengthen the development cycle by forcing a large portion of the testing to be done on IBM Z that is tightly controlled by the operations team.
As of 2Q2022, you can take a quantum leap by subscribing to “IBM Cloud WAZI as a Service”. This is the most integrated solution to date, which gives you access to a “Real IBM Z machine”, with a z/OS image that closely resembles a running production system. The WAZIaaS sandbox will provide the tooling to actually “capture” an image of a production IBM Z environment and use that for application maintenance / development. Code development, unit testing and integration testing, plus the ability to integrate into a real code-pipeline will improve productivity like never before.
What next?
Any modern application development discussion will not be complete without incorporating security into the pipeline right from inception. Every hack / malware attack you hear in the news is never on the IBM Z platform. The security of the platform is well known and because of the sensitivity of the applications that are supported, most IBM Z environments are behind firewalls and any access is protected by the security technologies that are unmatched. That is one of the reasons why enterprises would want development to happen outside of their security enclaves.
In the next iteration of the “IBM Z for GenZ” series, I will discuss the Hyper Protect platform, which addresses most, if not all of the security concerns that keep Security Architects and CISO’s up at night. Teaser: the Hyper Protect platform brings the RAS (Reliability, Availability, Security) capabilities of IBM Z to the Cloud.
