Glossary

Descriptions of the terms used in this documentation as they apply to z/OS® Connect.

A B C DF  G H I JKM N O  PR  S T  U  V W X Y Z

A

air gap

A security measure that consists of a physical and wireless separation between an isolated computer or network and any computer or network that is directly or indirectly connected to the internet or other insecure network.

Ansible®
Ansible is an open source software provisioning, configuration management, and application-deployment tool that enables infrastructure as code. For more information, see the Ansible documentation.

C

Container
A container is a runtime environment that runs an instance of an image.
Container Application Software for Enterprises (CASE)
A set of tools or programs to help develop complex applications.
Container Orchestration
The process of managing the lifecycle of containers, including provisioning, deployment, and availability.
ConfigMap
A ConfigMap is an API object used to store nonconfidential data in key-value pairs. Pods can consume ConfigMaps as environment variables, command-line arguments, or as configuration files in a volume.
Custom Resource
An instance of a custom resource definition. See also Custom Resource Definition
Custom Resource Definition
A customizable YAML file that defines a logically related group of objects in a cluster. Custom resource definitions enable a custom resource to be used like any native Kubernetes object in the cluster. See also Custom Resource.

D

DevOps
Development Operations A software methodology that integrates application development and IT operations so that teams can deliver code faster to production and iterate continuously based on market feedback.
Docker
An open platform that developers and system administrators can use to build, ship and run distributed applications.

F

Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN)
In Internet communications, the name of a host system that includes all of the subnames of the domain name. An example of a fully qualified domain name is rchland.vnet.ibm.com.

G

Gradle
Gradle is a build automation tool for multi-language software development. It controls the development process in the tasks of compilation and packaging to testing, deployment, and publishing. Supported languages include Java™, C/C++, JavaScript.

I

Image
For operating-system-level virtualization, an image is a read-only file that contains the source code, libraries, dependencies, tools, and other files that are needed for an application to run in a container.
Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
A set of software development tools, such as source editors, compilers, and debuggers, that are accessible from a single user interface.

J

JSONata
JSONata is a lightweight query and transformation language for JSON data. JSONata uses sophisticated query expressions with minimal syntax and built-in operators and functions for manipulating and combining data.

K

Kubernetes
An open source orchestration tool for containers. Often abbreviated to K8s.

M

Mapping
The process of transforming data from one format to another. In IBM® z/OS Connect, mapping refers to a set of JSONata expressions that define how a source JSON object is converted to a target JSON object.
Mapping file
A file that provides predefined mapping expressions used to transform data instances in the original data source to data instances in a target data source. In IBM z/OS Connect, a mapping file is a yaml file that stores mapping definitions.
microservice
A set of small, independent architectural components, each with a single purpose, that communicate over a common lightweight API.

N

Native server
A native server is a IBM z/OS Connect server installed using SMP/E and running natively on z/OS. For more information, see The IBM z/OS Connect native server.
Navigation tree
The navigation tree is located in the left panel of the z/OS Connect Designer UI, and is used to manage the artifacts in your API project.

O

OAuth
OAuth is an open standard for delegated authorization. The OAuth authorization framework allows a user to grant a third-party application access to their information stored with another HTTP service without sharing their access permissions or the full extent of their data. IBM z/OS Connect supports the OAuth 2.0 specification.
OpenAPI
An OpenAPI is a publicly available application programming interface that provides developers with programmatic access to a proprietary software application or web service. APIs are sets of requirements that govern how one application can communicate and interact with another.
OAD (OpenAPI Definition)
An OpenAPI Definition, sometimes called an OpenAPI Document is a self-contained or composite resource which defines or describes an API or elements of an API. The structure of the OAD uses and conforms to the OpenAPI specification. In IBM z/OS Connect, this term is used to describe a REST API definition document in JSON or YAML format.
OAS (OpenAPI Specification)
The OpenAPI specification (OAS) defines a standard, programming language-agnostic interface description for HTTP APIs, which allows both humans and computers to discover and understand the capabilities of a service without requiring access to source code, additional documentation, or inspection of network traffic.
Open Container Initiative (OCI)
The Open Container Initiative is a Linux® Foundation project to design open standards for operating-system-level virtualization, especially Linux containers. Two specifications are in development and in use: the Runtime Specification and the Image Specification. IBM z/OS Connect images are OCI-compliant. For more information, see https://opencontainers.org/.
Operand
An Operand constitutes all of the resource created by your Operator when a Custom Resource is created. The service component used by an Operator to execute actions.
Operation
An operation is an HTTP method that is used to manipulate a Path. For example, GET, PUT, POST, or DELETE. Paths are endpoints or resources that are exposed by an API.
Operation viewer
The operation viewer is a visual component of z/OS Connect Designer that shows a flowchart of a single REST operation.
Operator
An Operator is a Kubernetes-native set of resources, defined as a controller combined with one or more Custom Resource Definitions. The controller is custom code that is deployed to a Kubernetes cluster and is designed to watch for changes to custom Kubernetes resources and reacts to them.
Operator Controller
The engine of the Operator. It watches and reacts to create / update / delete requests on resources.

P

Path
A Path is a combination of a RESTful service endpoint or resource and an operation. A resource is exposed by an API. For example, /employees or /catalog. Each resource has one or more operations. For example, GET, PUT, POST.
Pod

A group of containers that are running on a Kubernetes cluster. A pod is a runnable unit of work, which can be a either a stand-alone application or a microservice.

Predicate
A predicate is an expression that is used as part of a filter, specified in response conditions and consisting of a data item, an operator, and a value. In IBM z/OS Connect, a predicate is used to control response conditions and consisting of a data item, an operator, and a value. In IBM z/OS Connect, a predicate is used to control responses.

R

Representational State Transfer (REST)
Representational State Transfer is a software architectural style that guides the design and development of the architecture for the World Wide Web. REST defines a set of constraints for how the architecture of an Internet-scale distributed hypermedia system, such as the Web, should behave.
Request
In z/OS Connect Designer, a REST API request is represented as a request node in the Operation Viewer. There can be only one request for an operation..
Response
In z/OS Connect Designer, a REST API response represented as a response node in Operation Viewer. An operation can have many responses, such as 200, 404, 500.
Responses
In z/OS Connect Designer, a REST operation can have different types of responses depending on underlying conditions. The Responses node in Operation Viewer shows various response conditions.
Response condition
In z/OS Connect Designer, a response condition is triggered by a defined predicate.
Repository
A persistent storage area where images are available for download.

S

SAF
System Authorization Facility A z/OS interface with which programs can communicate with an external security manager, such as RACF.
SCM
Source Code Management or Source Control Management (SCM) is a software tool that is used by programmers to track changes to a project's code base and helps to prevent conflicts. When conflicts do arise, source code management is used to resolve those conflicts.
Secret
A Secret is an object that contains a small amount of sensitive data such as a password, a token, or a key. Such information might otherwise be put in a Pod specification or in a container image. Using a Secret means that you don't need to include non-confidential data in your application code.
SMF
System Management Facilities. A component of z/OS that collects and records a variety of system and job-related information.

W

Web application archive (WAR) file
A file that is used to distribute a collection of JAR-files, JavaServer Pages, Java servlets, Java classes, XML files, tag libraries, static web pages, and other resources that together constitute a web application.
Workspace
The main panel in the z/OS Connect Designer UI that is used to show content.

Y

YAML
A human-readable data-serialization language. It is commonly used for configuration files and in applications where data is being stored or transmitted.

Z

z/OS Asset
A representation of a resource on a z/OS application that is exposed as an API by using z/OS Connect Designer. For example, a service in Db2®, getEmployee is a z/OS Asset that corresponds to an SQL Statement SELECT * from EMP WHERE EMPID={employee ID}.

Supported z/OS applications are CICS® and Db2.