Do you need to make it easier for your developers and systems programmers to integrate scheduling into their applications and business processes? Is your enterprise exploiting the Open Mainframe Project’s Zowe™ tooling platform for z/OS ? Well now you can! By leveraging IBM Z Workload Scheduler RESTful API, that are now exposed in the Zowe API mediation layer, and workload automation commands add-on to Zowe Command Line Interface (CLI).
You haven’t heard of Zowe?
Well, Zowe is an open source software framework that offers modern interfaces to interact with z/OS allowing you to work with z/OS in a way similar to what you experience on cloud platforms today. You can use these interfaces as delivered or through plug-ins and extensions that are created by clients or third-party vendors, and consists of three main components:
- The Application Framework: A web user interface (UI) that provides a virtual desktop containing several apps allowing access to z/OS function. This allows users to interact with z/OS tooling from their browser without any additional software installed on their laptop and includes a 3270 emulator as well as rich GUI applications for working with Data Sets, USS and JES.
- The API Mediation Layer: Provides a gateway that acts as a reverse proxy for z/OS services, together with a catalog of REST APIs and a dynamic discovery capability.
- And the CLI: Provides a command-line interface that lets you interact with the mainframe remotely and use common tools such as Integrated Development Environments (IDEs), shell commands, bash scripts, and build tools for mainframe development. It provides a set of utilities and services for application developers that want to become efficient in supporting and building z/OS applications quickly.
IBM Z Workload Scheduler allows customers to use a single point of control and monitoring of complex workflows on hybrid-cloud environments, while making the most out of predictive capabilities, automatic resolution of interdependencies and out-of-the-box integrations such as SAP, PeopleSoft, DataStage, Hadoop and more (check out the new Automation Hub for more information on all the integrations available). IBM Z Workload Scheduler is the ultimate meta-orchestrator for continuous automation, leveraging containerization for the distributed components with an intuitive user interface, while offering the lowest TCO on the market
The IBM Z Workload Scheduler Zowe CLI plugin provides a new set of commands under the main group workload automation|wa as follows:
- get Retrieve the specifics of resources in plan.
- list | ls Monitor of jobs (operation), jobstreams (application) and resources in plan, list jobstreams in model (database).
- submit | sub Submit/add dynamically a jobstream into the plan.
- update Update resources in plan.
- execute | exec Execute “Workload Automation Programming Language” (WAPL) commands.
WAPL is a programming language that provides users with easy access to the features of the IBM® Z Workload Scheduler Program Interface (PIF)
These commands rely on a set of REST API, that are now exposed in Zowe API Mediation Layer for modelling and planning, which enable the add/update/delete actions on the DB resources as well as the possibility to retrieve list of resources or models. These actions can be executed on the following DB resources:
- JobStream
- Job
- Workstation
- Calendar
- Period
- Resource
- Variable Table
- Run Cycle Group
- Event Triggering
- Operator Instruction
The Workload Automation REST API for plan also enable the add/update actions on the Scheduling Plan resources as well as the possibility to retrieve list of resources or models. These actions can be executed on the following resources:
- Critical Job (list, info about risk level and list of predecessors on the critical network)
- Job (list, submit, update properties, HOLD, NPO, release, set dependencies)
- JobStream
- Joblog
- Dependency (successor, predecessor, resource, not completed predecessor)
- Resource
- Workstation
Want to learn more?
“The Zowe Conformance Program aims to give users the confidence that when they use a product, app, or distribution that leverages Zowe they can expect a high level of common functionality, interoperability and user experience. “
IBM Z Workload Scheduler got the Zowe conformance badges for API Mediation Layer and CLI.
Learn more about how IBM Z Workload Scheduler Zowe integration and other enhancements just made available here.
Zowe is a registered trademark of the Linux Foundation