Db2 Tools for z/OS

By Bob Bersano, Kate Wheat, and Mac Gupta 

IBM Db2 Automation Expert for z/OS is a new product offering that brings intelligence and automation to Db2 maintenance, eliminating the need for deep z/OS skills. By offering a rich API library and integration into modern tool sets, Db2 Automation Expert not only provides a familiar framework to the next generation of DBAs but also helps experienced DBAs with limited time and resources.  

For example, Db2 Automation Expert provides REST APIs to generate Db2 utility statements according to best practices and shop standards. Such APIs remove the burden on the engineer to understand the intricacies of utility syntax.  Other provided APIs allow you to execute the generated utilities in a DevOps pipeline. 

Additionally, Db2 Automation Expert provides sample ansible playbooks. Ansible playbooks are blueprints of automation tasks; actions are executed with limited or no human involvement. For example, one provided playbook can evaluate objects against exception profiles to decide whether maintenance is required and if so, generate the utility JCL for that object using the parameters in a utility profile.  This playbook eliminates the need to know complex JCL. 

Here's an example of running this Ansible playbook: 

And here’s the generated JCL: