We’ve all heard of ChatGPT, DeepAI, and Microsoft Copilot. A lot of you have probably used these applications before, maybe even as recently as today. While those applications are great for day-to-day needs, they’re not the best at answering mainframe-related questions, like if an ALTER table in Db2 always needs a REORG. Luckily, there is a conversational AI assistant that can help with those niche mainframe questions.

By the way, an ALTER table in Db2 doesn't always need a REORG. Source: watsonx Assistant for Z.

What is watsonx Assistant for Z?

watsonx Assistant for Z…

     ·      Is a conversational AI with real-time context driven actions, has pre-built and custom automations, and is a highly configurable assistant.

     ·      Provides accurate and current information that leverages all IBM domain-specific knowledge.

     ·      Uses granite-3-8b LLM (large language model) that meetings stringent governance and compliance.

     ·      Is meticulously trained with an extensive dataset of over 12 trillion tokens, including IBM Z-specific content.

     ·      Leverages a RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) to ground responses with both IBM Z and client’s enterprise knowledge.

What is a use-case of watsonx Assistant for Z?

Imagine you’re an early-tenure systems programmer and have been assigned to renew your company’s SSL certificate when it expires, but you don’t really know when it’ll expire or how to check for that.

So, you go to watsonx Assistant for Z and ask “I have an SSL certificate on z/OS expiring soon. How do I check when my certificate is going to expire?”

The assistant responds with information about how we can check the expiration date using the RACF command and goes into details on the command as well as an explanation. The assistant shows an example output and what the user should expect to see.

An exciting feature of watsonx Assistant for Z is that it offers to run the skill for you, so you go ahead and say yes.

A feature to keep in mind is that if you press the arrow under the assistant's answer, you are shown the sources that were used in the answer, directly showing you exactly where the assistant found the knowledge that you were looking for. This ensures that the information was not made up just to give you an answer, but came straight from documentation.

After pressing “yes” to retrieve your certificate's expiration date, you are prompted to enter your certificate label, which in this example will be “mytestsite.” Once we type that in, we’re given the certificate’s expiration date which is June 1^st, 2025.

The assistant asks you if you want to renew the certificate, so you say yes since June 1^st is coming up soon and you don’t want the SSL certificate to expire.

You input a date that’s 6 months out, due to company policy, and the assistant runs the skill to renew the certificate. After waiting a minute, you can verify that the certificate has been renewed and has a new expiration date for December 1^st, 2025.

Within 5 minutes, you, a new systems programmer, checked your company’s SSL certificate expiration date and renewed it. A process that could’ve potentially taken 30 minutes or more if you had fallen down the Google rabbit-hole, was instead streamlined in a quick chat with the assistant.

Who can use watsonx Assistant for Z?

Now, the assistant isn’t just for new mainframers; it can be used by people of all skill levels. Up to 30 assistants can be created – personalize by persona, department, function, application, project, organization, etc.

Are you ready to modernize your processes?

Saving time, saving energy, and increasing convenience are all features of watsonx Assistant for Z. It enables you to go to one place to get answers to your questions, on demand. 

If you’d like to learn more, please reach out and let’s chat about how watsonx Assistant for Z can change the way you engage and interact with IBM Z.