What is IBM z/OS Container Platform?
IBM® z/OS® Container Platform (zOSCP) allows you to run containerized z/OS UNIX applications. Developers can build applications and consume resources in a self-service model, while in a secure and isolated environment on z/OS. It includes z/OS implementations of the industry-standard tools that you need to work with containers, from building images through to advanced orchestration.
For help with container terminology, see Terms to understand about containers
or get an overview from What are containers?
from IBM.
Containers: the currency of cloud
To make an application self-contained and cloud-ready, you must identify and package all the dependencies and configuration information that the application relies on. Then the application can be deployed into an on-premise private cloud infrastructure that can be configured and managed.
Achieving this self-contained packaging and flexible deployment relies on containers.
- Portability: Applications become more portable across development, test, and production environments because the containers contain all the application dependencies.
- Isolation: Containers allow multiple instances of an application to run on the same server. This is especially useful in development and testing environments.
- Reduced complexity: Integrating containers into a DevOps pipeline reduces the complexity of managing applications across multiple environments and increases the possibility of automation.
IBM z/OS Container Platform for building, running, and managing containers on z/OS
zOSCP has a container runtime to allow an image to run in a container on z/OS. The container runtime follows the Open Container Initiative (OCI) standard and is based on the open source technologies of IBM z/OS for runC (runC). To facilitate a common look-and-feel across hybrid cloud platforms, zOSCP includes z/OS-enabled versions of industry-standard container management tools. For example, zOSCP uses an implementation of Podman for IBM z/OS (Podman) to manage the container lifecycle.
- Consistency: Use of a consistent set of tools and skills during the application development and deployment process helps both application developers and administrators of IT infrastructure. For developers, it supports a familiar and agile development process. As a result, your organization can implement changes and new applications more quickly.
- Standardization: zOSCP follows Open Container Initiative (OCI) standards. One standard defines how container images are built (image specification). Another defines how these images should behave when they run as a container (container runtime specification). These standards enable zOSCP to integrate into an open source orchestration framework.
- z/OS qualities of service: zOSCP is a fundamental part of the z/OS platform. It retains IBM Z qualities of service: performance, privacy, availability, reliability, and security.
Find out more in Components of IBM z/OS Container Platform.