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The DBB WebApp gets a modern UI

Development and Pipeline|Stephen Hancock|Dec 15, 2021

  
Strings of data on a computer display screen



IBM’s Dependency Based Build (DBB) technology is available primarily as a component of IBM Developer for z/OS Enterprise Edition or as a standalone offering. It also has integrations with other IBM offerings. DBB provides the capabilities to build traditional z/OS applications developed in languages such as COBOL and PL/I as part of a modern CI/CD pipeline. The DBB 1.1.2 release features a new user interface for the DBB web application (WebApp). In this post, I want to introduce you to the new UI by taking you through access, search, and delete operations. Let’s take a look at the UI and see how the DBB WebApp can help you track and manage your z/OS application builds.


Graphic of an ID badge symbolizing authentication

After DBB is fully installed, you can access the WebApp by opening a browser and pointing to the DBB Server. You will use a URL that is customized for your installation (typically https://<server name>:<port number>/dbb). Once the server is reached, you will be prompted to enter a user ID and password. This ensures only authorized users can access and work with your build data.

After you successfully log in, you will see a table of dependency collections.

User interface display of dependency collections

DBB makes metadata created and stored during the build process easily accessible to help you be more productive with your build work. The two types of metadata are dependency information and build results. The WebApp organizes the metadata into dependency collections. These collections are repository containers for logical files that were built.


A magnifying glass over data storage
You can now search for a dependency collection in the field just above the table of collections. Search results begin to change as soon as you start typing, so you don’t have to enter a full name to narrow down the list of possible matches.

Tip: At the lower left corner of the collections table, set the number of items per page to a high number to reduce the number of pages you need to look through. Even with search, you may have to page forward to find the result you are most interested in seeing.

When you find a collection of interest, expand it by clicking the toggle control (down arrow) which is shown just before the collection name.

User interface display of build results and collection details



Build results highlight the final build status, such as CLEAN, WARNING, or ERROR. Clicking each build link leads you to a separate build report. These reports contain build logs and may contain error messages. They also contain a list of the individual build commands used for each program.

When you click the Logical Files: View button, you can access a list of logical files included in that collection. Hovering over the file icon displays a pop-up with path information. Dependencies for each logical file may be identified as well. On the right side of the table, if you click the link displayed as the number of dependencies, a pop-up table shows the logical dependency file names along with related data that may be helpful including the associated Library name.

User interface display of logical files and dependencies



Having this information quickly retrievable from your browser can help you as you work through issues with your builds. After you’re finished with a particular build and no longer wish to keep it, you now have a new option to dispose of the data from directly within the WebApp.


Graphic representation of an X as a symbol for deleting data
Notice that the new UI allows you to delete builds and collections. Permission must be granted by the administrator, so not all users may have this option. The delete option allows permitted team members to delete individual builds, a group of builds within a collection, or even to delete an entire collection. Having this option within the WebApp saves time and optimizes data storage resources. You don’t have to funnel delete requests to an admin and you don’t have to wait for delete requests to be processed before you free up the storage space.


In this post we took a brief look at the new UI and how z/OS application build engineers and developers can use the DBB WebApp to track and manage their builds. There is more to see in the new UI. I encourage you to try it out, explore the build reports in depth, and see how using this technology could simplify your work to build COBOL and PL/I applications on Z. If you would like to read more about IBM Dependency Based Build 1.1.2 and the WebApp capabilities, see the online documentation available here.



Special thanks to Dan Bruce for contributions to this blog post.