Ansible for IBM Z - Group home

IBM z/OS Ansible Core 1.7.0-beta.1 has released to Galaxy and is available in GitHub. If you are intrigued by the image used in this blog, it reflects on content in this release. In 1.7.0-beta.1, we now support  Jinja templating in both zos_copy and zos_job_submit modules and released new modules  zos_archive and zos_unarchive. In future blogs, we will be following up with media specific to these new features. I am excited to see this content release, Jinja templating and archive capabilities have been functions we wanted to deliver for some time, and I look forward to the accompanying blogs.

Jinja templating

You might be asking how Ansible templating can help your automation on z/OS. Imagine that you had to manage multiple server configurations across multiple Logical Partitions (LPARs) where the configurations had different requirements, with zos_copy's templating you could dynamically generate a text-based configuration using zos_facts, Unix System Services facts and variables. Managing server configurations is simplified and reduces any redundant code since only one template needs to be maintained and all inputs to the template will be substituted with values during the playbook execution for a managed z/OS system.

When managing Job Control Language (JCL) files, similar templating concepts can apply. Suppose you have JCL that is run on multiple z/OS managed nodes. The JCL might be tailored for that specific system, although SYMBOLS can be used, what if there is no symbol for a particular customization that is currently hard coded into JCL, such as a high-level qualifier (HLQ)? With templating in zos_job_submit, you can dynamically populate a JCL template  tailored for a system and submit it, this could reduce existing automation maintenance. 

Archiving and Unarchiving on z/OS

It's very exciting to see a solution that supports both Unix System Services (USS) and z/OS; now you can perform all your archiving and compression needs from zos_archive. You can choose from formats:

• bz2
• gz
• tar
• zip
• terse
• xmit
• pax

Naturally, we also delivered another incredible module, zos_unarchive that can unarchive all the same formats zos_archive supports. When used together, they can meet all your archiving needs and when paired with other modules in our offering, such as zos_copy, zos_encode and zos_data_set, your Ansible automation experience is second to none. 

Resources

IBM Ansible z/OS core on Galaxy
IBM Ansible Core Collection Repository on GitHub
IBM Ansible Core Collection on Automation Hub
Red Hat® Ansible Certified Content for IBM Z documentation