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"I can do it myself!" Wazi as a Service for z/OS Dev and Test in the cloud

  



Self service is the key to agility in Cloud DevOps platforms, but often for z/OS clients, developers and testers have not had this ability.  Waiting for dev and test time/environments has been a barrier to rapid application development and digital transformation.  IBM has recently removed this barrier for z/OS by enabling personal development and test environments that can be accessed by individual or teams of developers.


On February 14th, IBM issued a statement of direction announcing IBM Wazi as a Service, z/OS dev and test on IBM Cloud.  In order to get the environment as quickly as possible into the hands of sponsor users and to do benchmarks,  we enabled the VSI (Virtual Server Instance) creation on IBM Cloud using an "allow list" feature flag to control access.


As you may know we made this capability generally available on June 30th.  Now that our sponsor users have completed their evaluations, we are very excited to share that we are removing the allow list requirement effective September 23rd. This means that anyone with an IBM Cloud account will be able to access and create a virtual server instance for z/OS development and test in less than 6 minutes!*
With IBM Wazi aaS, clients can accelerate cloud-native development and testing of z/OS applications with a z/OS Virtual Server in IBM Cloud® Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). It's your own protected space in the IBM Cloud with the security of a private cloud and the agility of a public cloud.
 
IBM Wazi aaS also provides experimental capabilities to enable customers to get started with exploring the IBM Cloud Continuous Delivery offering through Integration templates based on DevSecOps practices. The service offers a unified user experience for z/OS and cloud-native applications in the IBM Cloud to create and use toolchains, with security and auditability at its core.
It is also worth noting that we continue to add regional data centers (aka multi zone regions) for clients who need cloud services in their geography for security or compliance reasons.  Wazi aaS was first available in Tokyo, Toronto, Sao Paulo and London.  In July we added the Washington DC center and we will continue to add zones as capacity become available.


Discover IBM Wazi as a Service in the Virtual Server for VPC cloud catalog. https://cloud.ibm.com/vpc-ext/provision/vs   Select IBM Z s390x architecture and you will see the IBM z/OS Operating system as an option for Wazi as a Service. (Login to IBM cloud account required)


Benefits of z/OS Dev and Test in IBM Cloud  
As IT Infrastructure changes, the DevOps tools follow the same trend to accelerate digital transformation.   Now is the time to exploit the benefits of hybrid and cloud native development.  By providing an isolated development and early test environment, wait time is removed and developers do not need to worry about breaking the system. That level of flexibility and independence will change the way the developer works. 
Think about software and middleware upgrades. You will be able to test the infrastructure in all combinations, without impacting your on-premises system, because you will be doing it in isolation. Once tested,  if the proper automation is in place, it's going to be deployed back on-premises. 
Give your developers (both experienced and new to Z) flexibility with education. You may have huge number of developers who need to be trained. Can you give them on demand access? Can they just bring up the system and start training?  If organizations have this solution, they can give easy access to z/OS systems for their z/OS programmers and developers in a scalable pay as you go model. By experimenting with the

Continuous Delivery services and Z toolchain templates you can get started with a unified user experience for z/OS and cloud native applications in the IBM Cloud to create and
use toolchains, with all the security and auditability needed by your compliance teams.

As several of our customers have expressed, this is really going change the way innovation happens on IBM Z. Not only will you have IBM Z infrastructure with operating system and software pre-installed, customized and available on-demand, you will have total flexibility to connect with other innovative services available in the cloud.

Try it today and explore our
video demo collection and technical documentation to see the ease of use and understand the power of this service.  You'll be able to "see clearly now" the future of IBM Z hybrid development leveraging the latest in DevOps technology.

Join the
Z DevOps Community and send us your feedback!


* On average, creating an experimental IBM Cloud z/OS Virtual Server Instance (VSI) of a z/OS 2.4 stock image and a mz2o-2x16 VSI profile takes 1 minute and it is ready for user login (SSH) in 5.5 minutes. 
 Disclaimer: Measurements were done across two different IBM Cloud production sites using an experimental version of z/OS 2.4 stock image and a mz2o-2x16 VSI profile. Measurements were performed with Ansible automation based on the examples at https://github.com/ibm-hyper-protect/linuxone-vsiautomation-samples . Results may vary.