IBM Cloud Provisioning & Management for z/OS is continuing its journey to provide a state-of-the-art platform for cloud services on z/OS. We have delivered many new enhancements with PTF UI52347 (z/OS V2.3) and UI53092(z/OS V2.2) that enables you to leverage the strength of the z/OS cloud platform. For introduction to IBM Cloud Provisioning and Management for z/OS, refer to IBM Cloud Provisioning & Management for z/OS – Overview
- Composite templates: You can now provision instances of multiple middleware software in a single provisioning action to create connected environment of different middleware softwares. By adding each middleware template to a composite template definition, you can specify provisioning sequence and connect the various templates and then run the composite template to create your environment. For example, you can create a composite template to provision z/OS Connect connected to a CICS region, or MQ connected to CICS.
- Shared resource pool:You can now define a single ‘shared’ resource pool for the tenant and associate multiple templates with the shared resource pool removing the need to build specific resource pool for each template. At provisioning time, resources will be picked up from the shared resource pool. This enhancement will simplify the steps required to set up middleware service templates.If you want to control the number of instances for a specific template or isolate resources, you can continue to define a dedicated resource pool for the template and specify the instance limits for the template.
- Provision a software instance once and run it on any system in the z/OS cloud: This function provides better resiliency for software instances that are provisioned using IBM Cloud Provisioning and Management for z/OS. When a resource pool for a software template is configured, you can select from the following options:
- Provision the software instance on a specific system
- Allow the consumer to select on which system the software instance is provisioned
- Allow Cloud Provisioning & Management to use a round-robin style to provision software instances on different systems.
With this enhancement, you will be able to identify in a resource pool whether a software instance can be moved to any systems in the z/OS cloud domain. If the system where the instance is currently running needs to be shut down, the consumer can start the instance on a different system in the z/OS cloud domain.
- CPU Metering and Capping:
You can measure CPU utilization for a specific tenant and control how much CPU can be consumed by a specific tenant. The CPU metering function provides data that you can use to charge back a consumer’s usage. The CPU capping function can be used to prevent application developers from consuming too much CPU and limit the cost for a tenant. You can also associate a tenant to specific container pricing and significantly improve the cost of deploying new applications to the z/OS platform. To use this function, the following setup needs to be performed:
- Ensure that the z/OSMF Resource Monitor and Workload Management plug-in is configured, as described in the z/OSMF Configuration guide.
- Ensure that the workflow associated with the template uses the resource pool REST API to classify the software service instance to the WLM service Class and report class.
- Configure the tenant to use either metering or capping or both, using the Resource Management task in the z/OSMF Web UI.
- If you want to leverage container pricing for provisioned middlewares, configure the tenant with appropriate Solution ID provided to you through the IBM License Management Support (LMS) website, using the Resource Management task in the z/OSMF Web UI.
- Set up the resource pool for the template with WLM resource pool using the z/OSMF Resource Management UI task.
- Software services template enhancements: The z/OSMF UI has improved navigation to view the content of a software template definition. You can also create an action file for the template using an ‘Action Editor’. This enhancement simplifies defining actions for software templates without needing to know the XML schema for actions.
- Workflow editor enhancements: The Workflow Editor is enhanced with new capabilities such as the ability to create multiple variables, move workflows steps around, copy workflow step and variables, rename workflow steps and variables and many more. These enhancements enable workflow developers to build workflows efficiently using the Workflow Editor.