Development and Pipeline

Development and Pipeline

Development and Pipeline

Connecting mainframe application developers to discuss efficiently creating and maintaining z/OS applications

 View Only

  • 1.  Distribution of IDz images to developers?

    Posted Fri February 04, 2022 06:45 PM

    Getting IDz installed with the correct components is involved enough that I'd like to not repeat it for each developer.  There are also new releases to keep up with.

    Can someone tell me where to get information about centrally locating the install files--that is, assuming there is such information.  Alternatively, I've wondered about installing into Virtual PC images or perhaps Docker images and allowing users to copy an image to their PC and run from that.  But I wonder about performance in those cases. 

    How are companies setting up IDz for multiple developers? 



    ------------------------------
    Wendell Lovewell
    Information Technology Manager
    MacKinney Systems, Inc
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Distribution of IDz images to developers?

    Posted Mon February 07, 2022 01:18 AM
    Edited by Armin Kramer Mon February 07, 2022 01:18 AM
    Hi,

    we are using VM Ware. So I install IDz once on the master with all of the necessary plug-ins. Every developer is using this installation for work.
    So it is a blessing and a curse, because it is good, that IDz is already installed for every user, but I have to be very careful installing a new version of IDz. Either the new version still has bugs or I failed while installing it. So we always have two IDz versions availabe on the master.

    At the moment I try to use the push to client option. We still have problems with codepages, so I want to set up the encoding at the server. This seems to work, but the options are bundled, so I will have to set them carefully, too.


    ------------------------------
    Armin Kramer
    DATEV eg
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Distribution of IDz images to developers?

    Posted Tue February 08, 2022 11:24 AM
    Hi Wendell,
    I have seen companies using VDI (Virtual desktop infrastructure) images, similar to what Armin already mentioned. And the use of push to client is great to keep the same settings, connections and preferences for all developers.

    For those that are installing IDz on each developer's computer, I have seen two approaches so far:
    - Installation Manager local repositories + silent install + a tool like SCCM = hosting a local repository to be used by Installation Manager helps ensure no one will be going to a different version when it's available on the internet, then you can use what is called "silent install" to install IDz from the command line, with the same features every time, more details here: Managing packages in silent mode with Installation Manager. With the silents install developers don't need to go through the IM panels and make all the selections. Later, using a tool like SCCM to manage/run the silent install, you can make the process as easy as possible with minimal user intervention. For this option you can download a zip with IDz and all other products, from https://ibm.github.io/mainframe-downloads/downloads.html, and use it as your local repository. One step further would be to use IBM Packaging Utility to create an even smaller (as in space usage) local repository.

    - P2 local packages + scripting = P2 packages are basically ready to be used and can be downloaded from the website I mentioned earlier as well. Companies can add extra plugins/products if they want and then keep a zip file like IDz 15.0.3 + other products. Users could simply download that customized zip file and unzip it, or a step further could use Powershell scripting to create standard folders, unzip and move the files, etc., to make everything consistent across the team.

    ------------------------------
    William Dias de Sousa
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Distribution of IDz images to developers?

    Posted Tue February 08, 2022 11:35 AM

    Thanks for the tips guys.

    I think I'll look into the "push" technology--'tho I don't exactly know what that is! :)

    Installing IDz once multiple times is one thing, but Installing updates multiple times on multiple machines is mostly what I'd like to automate. 



    ------------------------------
    Wendell Lovewell
    Information Technology Manager
    MacKinney Systems, Inc
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Distribution of IDz images to developers?

    Posted Tue February 08, 2022 11:46 AM
    You can find more details about push to client here: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/adfz/explorer-for-zos/3.2?topic=configuration-planning-push-client-environment

    And here our tech lead wrote a nice article as well: https://community.ibm.com/community/user/ibmz-and-linuxone/blogs/blog-entry1/2015/09/16/getting-started-with-rdz-push-to-client

    ------------------------------
    William Dias de Sousa
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: Distribution of IDz images to developers?

    Posted Sun February 13, 2022 09:35 AM
    Hi Wendell
    Foe several years we've been installing IDz on each workstation. I made a silent install script (and then a silent update script) and each user ran this script on his machine when needed. I had all the installation files located on the central file server.
    Now we publish IDZ to the programmers using CITRIX. so I have only one installation and IDz doesn't run on user's workstations any more but on central CITRIX servers. This solved many other issues and problems we had, too.
    Eran.

    ------------------------------
    Eran Lotan
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


Related Content