How Mainframe teams can handle urgent, unplanned changes

Hint: By leveraging a common toolchain across the enterprise

Delivering at speed has been the key goal for enterprises on their Agile / DevOps transformation journeys and the ongoing crisis illustrates why enterprises should continue this transformation — handling unplanned changes at speed. Traditionally, mainframes teams have excelled at delivering software at a measured pace using the tried and tested waterfall methodology. But in a constantly changing world influenced more and more by Millennials and Gen Zs who expect flawless digital experiences and immediate gratification, can mainframe organizations address urgent, unplanned business requirements, like the ones we’re experiencing during the pandemic, without sacrificing quality?

You bet!

Although in use for many decades, the mainframe is like any other platform and mainframe organizations can deliver just as quickly as the highest performing, DevOps-empowered teams. This article describes how mainframe teams can begin responding to unanticipated needs at speed by adopting purpose-built toolchains.

There are 220+ billion lines of COBOL code that run 70% of global business transactions.

This simple stat shows the importance of the mainframe platform and COBOL to consumer experiences. You cannot flip a switch and rewrite that amount of business logic and still expect the same qualities of service. Instead, enterprises can modernize-in-place by empowering their teams with off-platform tools designed for DevOps speed. An Open-first approach to the mainframe consists of two dimensions: API enablement and open source tooling.

API enablement

Enterprises should prioritize API enabling their mainframe business applications and infrastructure as part of their modernization journey. An API-driven approach provides seamless integration between mainframe-native and off-platform tooling and opens the door to new levels of automation and innovation.

API enablement of business applications allows distributed and mainframe teams to collaborate and deliver at speed to make mobile to mainframe a reality. API enablement of mainframe infrastructure drives adoption of Agile and DevOps practices and facilitates standardization of a common toolchain across the enterprise — an absolute must to be able to deliver at speed. This white paper describes how to create and manage application (business) APIs and products (infrastructure) APIs.

Open source tooling

With 87% of developers using open source tools it’s not a big secret that open source is dominating the application development world.

Open source tool chains are very widely used in the distributed application landscape. In addition to being free to use, the community-driven nature of open source facilitates faster changes to handle any unforeseen circumstances like the pandemic. Modern developers use open source tools, having learned them in school and elsewhere, so adoption will help attract the next generation to the mainframe. So, what are the open source tools to be adopted for mainframe modernization, you may wonder?

For a very long time, open source was not even a consideration on the mainframe, but Zowe, the first open source project for z/OS, changed that perception and is revolutionizing mainframe landscape. Zowe provides a modern interface to the mainframe that bridges mainframe to enterprise DevOps and makes interaction with mainframe like any other platform. Zowe enables prominent and widely-used open source technologies like Git, Visual Studio Code, Jenkins, and SonarQube to the mainframe, as well as fast-emerging and less well-known ones.

Zowe provides mainframe teams with unconstrained freedom to use off-platform tools of choice. But rather than starting with a clean slate, I recommend leveraging tools and toolchains already used by the rest of the organization for DevOps speed —and often become enterprise standards.

Zowe-powered Code4z and Che4z mainframe extensions to the open source VSCode and Eclipse Che IDEs respectively are providing the next generation of developers a single environment for developing COBOL, Java, Java script, Python etc. If you are wondering why there are two different extensions targeting two different IDEs, well they are not really two different extensions. It’s the same code base architected to target VSCode, the most popular rich client IDE, and cloud-based or hosted IDE Eclipse Che. Looking ahead, for organizations gravitating towards Enterprise ready cloud-based or hosted IDEs like Visual Studio Codespaces or Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces, the Code4z and Che4z extensions would be seamlessly available by default like any other distributed extension or stack.

The open source extensions provide developers the flexibility to work with their IDE of choice, while Enterprises can onboard new developers to change COBOL applications faster during unforeseen circumstances like the current pandemic, compared to current choices of ISPF (aka green screen) or any other point tool. Language specific capabilities like syntax highlighting, content assist, and real time validation for COBOL help reduce the learning curve. The community around the developer’s preferred IDE also helps them become more productive faster.

Zowe CLI enables scripting and automation of the z/OS platform like any other platform, including the CI/CD pipelines used for distributed applications. Simply put, enterprises can standardize on a set of common development tools and CI/CD automation for their distributed AND mainframe applications. See my colleague’s example of Continuous Integration for a Mainframe App using the CLI.

Test automation is a key element of speed. Zowe allows the use of any testing framework to script and automate different types of tests for mainframe applications. There is a new open source project, called Galasa, that facilitates the automation of deep z/OS integration testing, which can be integrated into any CI pipeline. Automation is essential for delivering quality software faster to meet unpredictable and fast-changing needs.

In conclusion, while it’s hard to predict situations like the one we are experiencing, the Open-first strategy positions mainframe teams to deliver at speed and handle any unforeseen challenges. It also gives organizations the flexibility to take advantage of cutting-edge technology and pivot easily when needed — a significant advantage over any point tools. Go ahead and try out powerful open source tools and leverage the community to discuss API enablement strategies and related best practices. We are always available and happy to help!

Stay healthy and stay safe!