IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack uses Red Hat® OpenShift® Container Platform to integrate IBM Z assets into a hybrid cloud and connect hybrid cloud assets to IBM Z. This platform-level integration paves the way for developers to easily create and deploy APIs for z/OS applications with z/OS Connect Designer, work on z/OS applications with cloud native tools and familiar IDEs, use popular languages such as Python, Go, Node.js, and Java™ to integrate with standard, enterprise-wide CI/CD pipelines.

Each product in IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack provides an operator to Red Hat® OpenShift® Container Platform so that it can be controlled from there. An operator extends the Kubernetes API by providing a set of application-specific resources that package, deploy, and manage that application. It is essentially a custom controller. IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack delivers two types of operator: Red Hat® OpenShift® Container Platform operators, and suboperators that can be installed through the z/OS Cloud Broker operator.

IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack goes beyond the basic bundle to bring together a carefully curated set of products and deliver a flexible solution that can accelerate your modernization journey today and help you plan for growth tomorrow.

This curated set of products includes z/OS Cloud Broker and z/OS Package Manager, which are only available with IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack. z/OS Cloud Broker can help you automate z/OS resource provisioning by providing direct access to z/OS resources and services, while z/OS Package Manager can help you install products from the IBM Cloud Container Registry into a defined directory on z/OS File System. With z/OS Cloud Broker, you can then install a variety of suboperators such as z/OS Open Enterprise Languages and Z Open Automation Utilities.

To learn more about each of the products included in IBM Z and Cloud Modernization stack, follow these links to the product documentation:

Red Hat® OpenShift® is a platform that enables a cloud-like experience everywhere that it's deployed. Red Hat® OpenShift® Container Platform is a self-managed version of Red Hat® OpenShift® for automating the deployment and management of containerized applications.

IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack delivers a single flexible platform with the common tools and capabilities needed to modernize z/OS® environments and applications. Integration with Red Hat OpenShift can simplify your development, deployment, and configuration experience, while providing more control to security admins with an enhanced role based security model.

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform helps system programmers and administrators simplify provisioning while retaining full control over who can do what. For example, by using z/OS Cloud Broker, z/OS Package Manager, Wazi Sandbox, and Z Open Automation Utilities, the following features are yours to enjoy:

• Automate z/OS software management and tasks without needing complicated custom programs or deep z/OS skills
• Create personal sandbox environments on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform
• Enable self-serve access to managed z/OS develop and test environments
• Gain valuable hybrid cloud skills by learning and using modern Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform tools and resources
• Use your familiarity with Linux™ and UNIX commands to access MVS resources without JCL

When you install and manage z/OS products through Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, developers can enjoy smoother workflows and free up more time to explore new technologies. For example:

• Use Wazi Analyze to visualize and understand how your proposed code changes might affect applications written in COBOL, PL/I, Assembler, and Java
• Create, scale, and secure APIs with z/OS Connect Designer that support the Open API 3.0 specification and can access z/OS Systems of Record
• Extend the functions of familiar IDEs with Wazi Code to author solutions in popular languages such as Python, Go, Node.js, and Java, and then integrate your creations through standard, enterprise-wide CI/CD pipelines
• Get sandbox environments on demand through Wazi Sandbox to experiment with cloud native tools, new products, and promising projects

When planning your installation and configuration requirements, review the system requirements for hardware, software, and storage.

Some of the products in IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack that run on z/OS require you to have permission to run certain commands. So review the access control requirements to determine if you will need to set this up.

You can install IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack on Linux® with the supported versions of Red Hat® OpenShift® Container Platform.

The components of products in IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack are distributed differently, depending on how they are installed or whether they have additional, non-containerized components that must be downloaded from IBM Passport Advantage.

Entitlement is flexible in IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack. You pay only for what you use through a flexible mechanism called Virtual Processor Cores (VPCs). These VPCs work like entitlement tokens. Each product in IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack has a metric for the number of VPCs that it requires at different levels of consumption. You purchase a number of VPCs to gain entitlement to the products and their consumption levels but, after you are entitled, you can switch the allocation of your VPCs between products to meet your needs. You do not have to notify IBM of your allocation provided that you remain within your entitled capacity.

When you install operators for the products in IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack, you click your acceptance to the associated license. Most of the products have no license tracking.

Before you can install products in IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack, you must set up the environment in Red Hat® OpenShift® Container Platform:

1. Install Red Hat® OpenShift® Container Platform
2. Install Red Hat® OpenShift® Container Platform CLI
3. Configure persistent storage
4. Create a project (namespace)
5. Create an image pull secret
6. Configure network policies
7. Create the catalog source

After you have completed the steps to set up your environment in Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, you can begin installing the products.

In addition to system requirements, the products classified as suboperators require a specific installation sequence. Suboperators can only be installed through z/OS Cloud Broker, so you must install in this order:

1. z/OS Cloud Broker
2. z/OS Package Manager
3. Any other suboperator

For the products that are installed through z/OS Cloud Broker and z/OS Package Manager on z/OS, you set up the z/OS environment to use these products through environment variables.