End-to-end workflow

ZVDT end-to-end workflow

User roles

The following three typical types of user roles are covered. You can set up or use ZVDT according to your role.
Administrator
Someone that is knowledgeable in setting up servers, and would only set up ZVDT server components without the need of much knowledge of IBM Z.
Builder
Someone that specializes in running IBM Z and z/OS (sysadmin), or in running z/OS applications (sysprog). Expertise in these areas helps ensure good quality of the created z/OS images.
Developer/Tester
Someone that conducts z/OS application development or testing activities on target environments. z/OS instances can be provisioned from images or deprovisioned according to actual needs.

Workflow

  1. Download and validate installation packages. (Administrator, Builder)

    The ZVDT installation package contains the installers. In addition to the ZVDT installation package, the Extended ADCD package is offered by ZVDT as an optional choice of z/OS artifacts, which needs to be downloaded separately. For more information, see Downloading installation packages.

  2. Install and configure ZVDT components.
    Five product components are included in ZVDT, and they need to be set up on different machines accordingly:
    • License server (Administrator)
    • Web server (Administrator)
    • Hypervisor (Administrator)
    • Optional: ZD&T z/OS Extraction Utilities (Administrator, Builder)
    • Optional: Extended ADCD (Administrator, Builder)
    For more information about each component and how they interact with each other, see Architecture diagram. For more information about how to set up the components, see Installing and configuring.
  3. Extract z/OS artifacts from source environments to create components.
    z/OS artifacts can be extracted from either genuine z/OS on IBM Z or existing z/OS instances provisioned by ZD&T or ZVDT, where ZD&T z/OS Extraction Utilities must be installed. Extracted z/OS artifacts are reusable as components. One component can be combined with different components to create z/OS images. Creations of the following types of components are supported:
    • AD project (Administrator, Builder, Developer/Tester)

      ZVDT can be integrated with IBM® Application Discovery for IBM Z (IBM AD). If you have built your project in IBM AD, and want to transfer artifacts such as data sets from the source Z machine to the target environment, you need to configure the connection to your IBM AD web services. Then, create images from the created components, and provision a z/OS instance to the target environment from the created images.

    • CICS (Administrator, Builder, Developer/Tester)
    • Data set (Administrator, Builder, Developer/Tester)
    • Db2 (Administrator, Builder, Developer/Tester)
    • Volume (Administrator, Builder)
    For more information about how to create components through the web UI, see Creating components.
  4. Create images from the created components and Extended ADCD. (Administrator, Builder, Developer/Tester)
    An image is a collection of z/OS components that are packaged together from source environments. In addition to the extracted components mentioned in the previous step, the Extended ADCD package is offered with per-built z/OS components as an optional choice. To use the Extended ADCD components, Extended ADCD must be configured on the storage server, which is not part of ZVDT and needs to be prepared set up by yourself. When creating an image, you must select to include one component of type system residence volume and any number of other components that represent your application or application data from source environments. Creations of the following types of images are supported:
    • Combination of extracted z/OS components and Extended ADCD components
    • Extracted z/OS components only
    For more information about creating images through the web UI, see Creating images.
  5. Provision z/OS instances to target environments from images. (Administrator, Builder, Developer/Tester)

    With the created images, z/OS instances can be automatically deployed and provisioned to Linux on IBM Z target environments, where the hypervisor is installed. Multiple z/OS instances are supported on a single target environment. For more information about provisioning through the web UI, see Provisioning instances to target environments.