Prerequisites and system preparation

Before you install and run Instana Observability on z/OS, your system must meet the hardware requirements and have the software prerequisites installed.

The latest available service is downloaded

Download the Instana Observability on z/OS latest service. Available fixes, for both host and distributed machines, can be downloaded from IBM Fix Central.

IBM Z APM Connect Distributed Gateway installation prerequisites

IBM Z APM Connect Distributed Gateway (IBM Z APM Connect DG) supports the flow of data from z/OS® into the APM solutions. This component must be installed on a Linux distributed system with connectivity to your monitored z/OS systems and to APM solutions.

IBM Z APM Connect DG offers two installation options. The prerequisites that you should prepare depend on the installation option that you choose.
Note: For production purposes, it is recommended to deploy Distributed Gateway images in either an OpenShift or CNCF Kubernetes cluster. The cluster deployment ensures optimal performance and scalability, especially when dealing with large volumes of trace data that needs to be processed.
  • Option 1: To install in a Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform or Kubernetes cluster:
    • OpenShift® V4.8/4.9 or Kubernetes 1.25+ with:
      • at least 24 cores, or 8 cores per node, whichever is higher
      • at least 16 GB (14.9GiB) ram, or 8 GB (7.45GiB) per node, whichever is higher
      Recommended resources for higher performance:
      • 48 cores, or 8 cores per node, whichever is higher

      • 100GB (93.3GiB) ram, or 16GB (14.9GiB) per node, whichever is higher

    • (Optional, but highly recommended) Helm V3.1 or higher
  • Option 2: To install on x86 based Linux with Docker:
    • Docker V13 or later
    • Linux machine requirements:
      • Ubuntu V18 or later, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) V15 or later, or Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) V7.X
        Note: RHEL V8 and later are unsupported because they do not officially support any version of Docker and the standalone Z APM Connect Distributed Gateway is currently incompatible with other container engines.
      • No less than 4 GBs of memory
      • No less than 4 cores
      • No less than 20 GBs of free disk space

Prerequisites for the z/OS systems and subsystems from which transaction data is gathered

Before installing IBM Z APM Connect components on the z/OS side, ensure that your z/OS environment meets the prerequisites. The prerequisites depend on which types of transactions you want to track and on which z/OS systems and subsystems. Therefore, assess your installation scenario and install the prerequisites that meet your needs.

z/OS system requirements:

  • IBM z/OS 2.4 or later
  • IBM CICS Transaction Server for z/OS V5.4 or later
  • IBM IMS V14 or later
  • IBM MQ for z/OS V9.1 or later
  • IBM z/OS Connect Enterprise Edition V3.0.27 or later and APAR PH09950
  • IBM CICS Transaction Gateway for z/OS V9.2 or later and APAR PH12635/PTF UI65916
  • IBM Db2 for z/OS V12.1 or later
  • (Required for JDBC-Db2 support)
    • Z Common Data Provider APAR OA63662/PTF UJ09384.
    • Z APM Connect APAR OA64079/PTF UJ92532.
Java

For CICS TG transaction tracking

  • Java V8 must be installed on both the CICS TG client application environment and the CICS TG server environment.
  • If client applications use the CICS TG resource adapter, Java EE Application Servers V6 or later is needed.

Networking prerequisites

The various components within the z/OS system, the IBM Z APM Connect DG machine, and the Instana backend use TCP/IP for communications. Make sure you have the following ports opened for communications:

If an OpenShift route or proxy is not in use, the following ports must be open:
  • Ports used from z/OS host components to IBM Z APM Connect DG machine:
    • Z APM Connect Base proc uses port 30455
    • CICS TG server and z/OS Connect EE server use port 30090
  • Ports used from IBM Z APM Connect DG machine to Instana backend machine:

    Communicating with the Instana backend requires the serverless endpoint to be enabled, which is the default behavior. The port number is automatically handled when retrieving the serverless endpoint URL from the Instana UI and no separate configuration is needed.

Attention: If using TLS, Kafka and the Connection Manager both use a Java style .jks keystore and truststore (as well as their passwords) to load certificates for TLS. Each keystore should contain a private key and a matching certificate to use for connections, and each truststore should contain the full trust chain of certificates used to validate the contents of each keystore. Java Keytool can be used to easily convert a pkcs12 keystore into .jks format.