Develop APIs in your own z/OS Connect development environment containing an isolated z/OS Connect development server. Use Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces to do this or make the z/OS Connect Designer image available in your own image registries for self-service use with Docker Desktop.

The z/OS Connect Designer provides a new, intuitive, web-based development experience that allowing an application developer to:

• Iteratively develop, run and test your API in isolation with your own z/OS Connect Development server
• Start by importing from an OpenAPI 3 definition
• Use JSONata, a powerful data transformation language, to supercharge your API mapping
• Edit and refactor project files at any point with any IDE
• Manage API project changes across your teams using your choice of source control management (SCM) systems.

Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces provides a way to provision a pre-configured z/OS Connect Designer workspace for team members to develop API projects.

Understanding open container platforms and shared workspaces

The z/OS Connect tutorial will take you through using the z/OS Connect Designer in Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces to create a sample Db2 API by defining rich mappings between an existing API definition and a z/OS System of Record (SoR) using JSONata expressions. Iteratively run and test your API within your project and when finished, checking it into SCM.

Docker Desktop provides a container runtime for developing z/OS Connect API projects using the z/OS Connect Designer.

The z/OS Connect tutorials will take you through using the z/OS Connect Designer with Docker Desktop to create a Sample API of your choosing (CICS or Db2) by defining rich mappings between an existing API definition and a z/OS System of Record (SoR) using JSONata expressions. Iteratively run and test your API within your project and when finished, checking it into SCM.

Deploy API's using cloud native DevSecOps best practices to benefit from shift left development and faster time to market.

Use Red Hat OpenShift pipelines to create an industry standard continuous integration, continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline to implement a DevSecOps approach for cloud native deployments of APIs. Treat configuration as code allowing deployments to be managed as part of your delivery process.

Create a sample pipeline in Red Hat OpenShift taking a z/OS Connect Sample API project from source code management (SCM) to a deployed, callable API with these steps:

1. Install the z/OS Connect operator and pull the z/OS Connect server image.
2. Trigger automated builds in RedHat OpenShift Pipelines after each new commit to SCM.
3. Add a pipeline step to build a .war file from the API project using Gradle.
4. Add a pipeline step to create a z/OS Connect server image layering API project .war file.
5. Define ConfigMaps and secrets to inject environment variables into the API container at deployment time.
6. Call your new z/OS Connect API.

Learn how to manage your running z/OS Connect APIs within your open container platform.

Use Prometheus and Grafana to monitor z/OS Connect APIs using the metrics endpoints provided in every z/OS Connect server.

z/OS Connect servers can leverage high availability mechanisms of an OpenShift cluster. Learn more about high availability in container platforms and how to benefit from a cloud native approach.

Take advantage of the improved security schemes provided by the OpenAPI 3 specification to deliver more granular control of user authorization at the API operation level.