Configure z/OSMF Cloud Provisioning, and set up security. Set up Cloud Provisioning by defining roles, enabling the pre-requisite plug-ins and specifying the security mode (automatic or manual). If the defaults are not appropriate, define the cloud domain (systems) and tenants (users). If you’re not already using z/OSMF, you may need to configure z/OSMF.

IBM Cloud Provisioning and Management for z/OS includes a sample template that you can use to provision and deprovision 'brand new' z/OS systems.

Cloud Provisioning roles include a provisioning administrator (z/OS system programmer), domain amdinistrator (middleware system programmer), WLM and network administrators, and consumers (application developers).

As the provisioning administrator, you define:

• The domain with the target systems to use for software provisioning. The systems can be in the same sysplex where z/OSMF is running or can be in different sysplexes. z/OSMF also provides a default domain with local system and a default tenant (the users) definitions to help you get started. You can modify default domain to add additional systems as provisioning targets.
• Whether to perform security updates manually or allow Cloud Provisioning to perform them automatically. The recommended security mode is automatic.

  As the provisioning administrator, you need to perform the following planning activity for z/OS provisioning:

  The z/OS system that you use to provision a brand-new z/OS system is known as the provisioning system. Some planning and setup is required to enable the provisioning system to drive the provisioning of brand-new z/OS systems. This work involves defining a source z/OS software instance and modification of the provisioning template’s properties file. You must plan for which logical partition (LPAR) to use for hosting the new z/OS image. You can use the Hardware Management Console (HMC) to locate an available LPAR, or use the HMC to create a new LPAR in your enterprise. If you use an existing LPAR, verify that the LPAR is not needed for any other systems at your installation. You must ensure that IODF dataset used on provisioning system includes I/O definition for the LPAR where the new z/OS system will be provisioned.

  Cloud Provisioning roles and terms How to plan for automatic or manual security How to plan for provisioning in multiple-sysplexes How to plan for z/OS provisioning

Update parmlib member IZUPRMxx to enable pre-requisite plug-ins and to specify automatic or manual security.

Work with the security administrator to set up security for Cloud Provisioning using the IZUPRSEC sample, which enables access to the Cloud Provisioning tasks in z/OSMF, Resource Management and Software Services.

Define a new domain if the z/OSMF provided default domain is not adequate.

After your z/OS system programmer has identified you as the domain administrator of either the z/OSMF provided default domain or a new domain that the z/OS system programmer has defined, create templates for z/OS software provisioning or brand-new z/OS system provisioning. Templates that are created by a user will initially be in a draft or draft pending approval state.

Obtain your workflow and related files from the software provider, and use the information included with the files to understand what you need to customize, for example: input variables, JCL, actions, and approvers.

About the template files

Obtain workflow and other files:

CICS V5 (download z/OS Provisioning Toolkit)

z/OS Connect (download z/OS Provisioning Toolkit)

Zorow

MQ V9 (included with MQ product)

Websphere Liberty Profile

Websphere Application Server

IMS

Db2 V11 & V12 (included with Db2 product)

The z/OS system that you use to provision a 'brand new' z/OS system is known as the provisioning system. Some planning and setup is required to enable the provisioning system to drive the provisioning of a 'brand new' z/OS system. This work involves some host system customization and modification of the provisioning template's properties file.

How to plan for z/OS system provisioning

To prepare a software services template and provision software, perform these steps using the Software Services task of z/OSMF:

1. Expand the Cloud Provisioning category in the navigation area, then select Software Services.
2. Select the Templates tab.
3. In the table, click Add Template, then select either Standard or Composite to specify the type of template that you want to create.If Add Template is not available, it might be because you are not a domain administrator.
4. On the page that is displayed, supply values.

The steps for creating a z/OS system provisioning template are similar to the steps that you follow for creating other types of software services templates.

z/OSMF provides a default tenant in the default domain which supports provisioning actions from any user that is in the z/OSMF users group (normally IZUUSER). If the z/OSMF provided default tenant is not suitable, identify the consumers, such as application developers, and create the tenant in a domain where the software services template or z/OS provisioning template is created. Connect the template to tenants and create resource pools. A resource pool represents a group of z/OS resources  (e.g. TCP/IP, ports, Workload Manager resources, Storage resource, LPAR resources etc.) and can be defined per authorized user group and service template. Defining and using resource pools for provisioning effectively enforces resource entitlement by policy as users and their services are limited to the predefined set of resources. When a service is run, resource requests are dynamically orchestrated from the set resource pools.

Identify the domain associated with the z/OS software services or z/OS system provisioning template where the tenant and resource pools need to be created.

If you are using the default domain, decide whether you want to use the default tenant or create a new tenant. If you are planning to use the default tenant, be aware that all users of z/OSMF can provision this template. If you are using a non-default domain, you need to create a tenant.

Determine what z/OS resources are required by the provisioning template. The z/OS software provisioning template requires network resources, where as the z/OS system provisioning template requires LPAR resources.

To make your software services template available in your marketplace, you will need to approve, test, and publish your template. Once you have defined, configured and tested your template, you can publish it and make it available for provisioning to authorized users identified in the tenant definition associated with the template. This also allows the template to be added to the marketplace that is available with Cloud Provisioning and Management. Templates can also be run multiple times to consistently create instances of softwares.

After you have created your tenants and resource pools, in many cases the state of the template that you are working with is Draft Pending Approvals. The approval must be completed by the appropriate approver before you can use the template to provision an instance. Approval records are created for a template when a workflow or action definition file contains an element that identifies a user ID under which a workflow step or action is to be performed (a runAsUser ID). Approvers can also be defined for the template in general, and for a domain. When there are no approval records, template will remain in draft state.

Approve the various approval records associated with the template.

Once the template is approved the state of template is draft approved. Test the template by driving test run action to be sure that it successfully creates a software instance. Test run creates a workflow, starts the workflow, and creates a software services instance. It leaves the template open for further changes. If changes are made to the workflow, template will go back to draft pending approval state and approval step needs to be performed again.

After successful test run, publish the template.

How to approve, test run, and publish a software services template (see steps 7 and 8)

The steps to approve, test run and publish a z/OS system provisioning template are similar to the steps that you follow for creating other types of software services templates.

How to publish a z/OS provisioning template (see steps 10 and 11)

Make your z/OS software services available to consumers, such as an application development team, through a self-service marketplace. Choose the approach that is best for your enterprise.

With an Ansible strategy to drive automation, the following can also be provisioned using z/OSMF Ansible collection:

• CICS
• MQ (queue manager and queues)
• z/OS connect
• Db2 subsystem
• Websphere Liberty Profile
Explore the 'Red Hat Ansible Certified Content for IBM Z' content solution to learn more

Determine how you want to make z/OS software services available to your consumers.

You can use:

• The z/OSMF user interface to provision and manage software services
• An enterprise self-service cloud marketplace
• The z/OS Provisioining toolkit
• Urban Code Deploy z/OSMF Plugin
• The Zowe Command Line Interface
• The z/OSMF Cloud Provisioning sample marketplace
• The z/OSMF Ansible collection from IBM

Modify an existing marketplace or create a new marketplace, begin by learning about the z/OSMF Cloud Provisioning REST APIs by reviewing the source code for the Marketplace and Marketplace Administration plug-ins to see examples of REST API invocation or by using Swagger documentation of the z/OSMF Cloud Provisioning REST APIs.

Learn more about z/OSMF Cloud Provisioning REST APIs

How to use Swagger to display z/OSMF Cloud Provisioning REST APIs

Enable the Marketplace plug-in provided with z/OSMF.

How to enable the marketplace plug-in

Enable provisioning through Ansible playbooks, by using sample playbooks provided in the Ansible Z Playbook Repository.

Get started with sample playbooks in the Ansible Z Playbook Repository

Consumers, such as application developers, can consume and manage the software services that have been made available through a self-service marketplace or other means.

Focus on your application design and development. You can determine when you need the environment.

Depending upon your environment, you can any of the following methods to provision software services and manage software service instances:

• The z/OSMF user interface to provision and manage software services
• An enterprise self-service cloud marketplace
• z/OS Provisioning Toolkit
• Urban Code Deploy z/OSMF Plugin
• Zowe Command Line Interface
• The z/OSMF Cloud Provisioning sample marketplace
• z/OSMF Ansible collection from IBM

If you are using the z/OSMF user interface to provision and manage software services, you can perform following steps:

• Run templates from Software Services Catalog. The Templates tab of the Software Services task displays z/OS software provisioning or z/OS system provisioning templates that you are authorized to run. To run a template for z/OS software service provisioning or z/OS system provisioning, select the template from the Software Services Templates table and use the Run action. This action creates an instance of z/OS software or brand-new z/OS system. Repeat this step every time you want to provision a new instance of z/OS software or brand-new z/OS system.
• Manage software instances in the Software Instance Registry. The Instances tab of the Software Services task displays z/OS software instance or z/OS system instance that you provisioned from templates. From the table of instances, you can view details for an instance, or take an action against an instance, such as de-provisioning. The actions that are available depend on the actions definition file that was provided with the template.