Creating RESTful services

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Use IBM z/OS Connect Enterprise Edition and Data Virtualization Manager Web Services to fully leverage the value of your mainframe data without requiring application developers to be familiar with mainframe systems. Data integration using Web Services makes your mainframe data accessible to new digital technologies through fast, simple, and secure APIs.

You can use the Data Virtualization Manager studio to create RESTful services to access all Db2 objects such as Db2 tables, views, stored procedures, and user-defined table functions (UDTFs). When a RESTful API requests mainframe data, z/OS Connect communicates the request to the Data Virtualization Manager server using the WebSphere Optimized Local Adapter (WOLA). The Data Virtualization Manager server executes the requested Web Service to get and return the data to z/OS Connect as objects.

This environment includes the following components:

  • Data Virtualization Manager server – Provides mainframe data access to RESTful APIs through z/OS Connect. The Data Virtualization Manager server executes the specified Web Service to get the requested mainframe data and converts and returns that data as objects.
  • IBM Data Virtualization Manager studio– Use the z/OS Connect Configuration Wizard to generate the Data Virtualization configuration and connection settings that will be included in the z/OS Connect Server.xml file. Use the Web Services wizard to create a Web Service and to define the operations required to get the mainframe data.
  • z/OS Connect – Enables RESTful API access to existing backend z/OS mainframe services and applications. Routes the data processing requests from a mapped URL of a specific application to the Data Virtualization Manager server.
  • WOLA – Provides external access to the internal local communications component of the WebSphere server.
  • IBM WebSphere (web server) – Interfaces with remote applications to get data requests over HTTP, REST, and TCP/IP and communicates those requests to the z/OS Connect server.

Getting started

Start the IBM Data Virtualization Manager studio and connect to the Data Virtualization Manager server that will host the Web Services to begin creating Web Services and operations, including: