Self-service provisioning of z/OS development environments
Overview
The IBM z/OS® Provisioning Toolkit is a simple command line utility for the rapid provisioning of z/OS development environments. Application developers can provision and de-provision z/OS applications in minutes—without requiring any z/OS specific administration skills—reducing time to delivery. System programmers can easily manage the provisioning process by preconfiguring the environments, control developer access through z/OS security and set appropriate provisioning limits. The toolkit is fully supported and available to all IBM z/OS V2 clients at no additional charge.
Enable developers to provision environments as needed with automation—reducing the burden of managing development and test systems and reliance on operations staff.
Provide pre-configured environments by using workflows, control access with z/OS security and limit the number of provisioned environments.
Enable development and operations teams to speak the same language with standard terms such as ‘image’ and ‘container’—whether for CICS®, MQ, z/OS Connect or other environments.
The elements
z/OS Provisioning Toolkit has three main elements:
z/OS PT provides commands for an application developer to build an application image, run that image, provision the underlying middleware environment, and, later, deprovision that environment. Commands provided include:
- zospt build: Build an application image.
- zospt run: Run an application image and automatically provision and start the associated z/OS middleware.
- zospt ps: List environments that are provisioned.
- zospt rm: Deprovision an environment.
zosptfile text files define the environments that can be provisioned. z/OS Provisioning Toolkit provides sample files and images to make it quicker to set up the foundation of commonly used environments such as CICS® or IBM z/OS Connect Enterprise Edition.
The toolkit uses two features of z/OS to enforce control over provisioned environments. You can define workflows in IBM z/OS Management Facility (z/OSMF) that can provision runtime environments. You can manage and control these workflows by using IBM Cloud Provisioning and Management for z/OS. The workflows can be customized to local naming standards and operating procedures. z/OS Provisioning Toolkit drives these workflows.
Features
Design environments with all the resources a developer needs to test their applications effectively. Create as many ‘images’ as you need and easily share them across your teams. These images can contain code, configuration and environment variables.
Developers can stop and restart their containers or just remove them completely using simple commands. Containers can easily be re-created from the same image. The number of running containers is limited by the operations team. System programmers can manage all the containers across the organization, regardless of who created them.
Run an image by using a single command to create a ‘container’—a provisioned instance of the image—providing a pre-configured runtime environment for a developer within minutes. Developers can stop and start the environment, then remove it when no longer required.
Access can be granted to specific users or groups by using a template. The template is used to set specific limits on the maximum number of environments that can be provisioned and the maximum for each user—enabling the system programmer to control the resources consumed by the development environments.
Design environments with all the resources a developer needs to test their applications effectively. Create as many ‘images’ as you need and easily share them across your teams. These images can contain code, configuration and environment variables.
Developers can stop and restart their containers or just remove them completely using simple commands. Containers can easily be re-created from the same image. The number of running containers is limited by the operations team. System programmers can manage all the containers across the organization, regardless of who created them.
Run an image by using a single command to create a ‘container’—a provisioned instance of the image—providing a pre-configured runtime environment for a developer within minutes. Developers can stop and start the environment, then remove it when no longer required.
Access can be granted to specific users or groups by using a template. The template is used to set specific limits on the maximum number of environments that can be provisioned and the maximum for each user—enabling the system programmer to control the resources consumed by the development environments.
Resources
Explore what z/OS Provisioning Toolkit provides to help you get started with different kinds of middleware such as CICS or z/OS Connect EE.
See how to gain ultra-fast provisioning and deprovisioning of z/OS middleware environments for development agility.
Related products
Enables developers to create new applications with support for high-transaction workloads in a secure, scalable, cost-efficient environment.
Provides a single, common way to unleash your existing market-differentiating assets on IBM with RESTful APIs.
Allows for massive amounts of data move as messages between applications, systems and services at any given time.
A feature of z/OS that allows communicating with and managing various aspects of a IBM z/OS system through a web browser interface.