Written on behalf of Nicole Nemec, originally published 5/1/2019 and updated 6/19/2019
The pressure of digital transformation and the need to develop agile solutions means system of record data on Z must be easily accessed by newly developed interactive applications. Integrating with assets by using traditional methods incurs significant overhead as well as limits the speed and innovation of application development teams.
z/OS Connect Enterprise Edition enables sophisticated mapping of truly RESTful APIs to existing Z data and services. CICS programs, IMS transactions, and many more z/OS assets can be called from one simple endpoint. Transformation between native language structures and JSON is handled for you, so there is no need to modify existing code.
For obvious reasons, the adoption of z/OS Connect by customers across multiple geographies and industries has been swift. With z/OS Connect powering more and more hybrid cloud applications, it was clear we needed to prioritize support in Z APM Connect so customers embracing the API revolution could have transactional visibility into their applications relying on z/OS Connect.
In Z APM Connect’s latest continuous delivery release, we have added support for customers using z/OS Connect to reach CICS & IMS. This includes the ability to track transactions downstream from CICS & IMS as well.
z/OS Connect is a server that runs in Unix System Services on z/OS. It routes requests that come from z/OS to the proper subsystem on z/OS. As part of its processing, z/OS Connect EE allows users to register interceptors that run before the transaction is sent to the subsystem, and then again when the response from the subsystem is returned.
Z APM Connect Interceptor is one of those interceptors. When installed and configured, it tracks the time that is spent within z/OS Connect EE for a transaction, and passes relevant tracking information down to the relevant subsystem so that the transaction can further be tracked and reported to AppDynamics.
Application owners using AppDynamics no longer have to bring the entire mainframe team together to troubleshoot when something has gone wrong. Z APM Connect enables them to identify the source of the problem and provides them with specific information they can feed to the appropriate mainframe SME to further expedite problem resolution.
With support in Z APM Connect, customers using z/OS Connect have a number of different ways to ensure everything is performing as it should be. Customers using CDP can stream SMF 123 audit records to Splunk or ELK, and OMEGAMON for JVM offers resource level monitoring of z/OS Connect services.
I have to offer a very special thank you to the organizations and individuals who participated as sponsor users for this support. Engagement at the earliest stages with paper prototypes to reviews of hosted betas uncovered a variety of learnings that helped us shape the solution’s final form. We have a pretty packed roadmap for the second half of 2019, and we’re eager to hear from as many customers as possible. If you’re interested in having a hand in shaping future features and direction, drop me a note (nicole.nemec@ibm.com), and we can discuss what type of sponsor user engagement might be right for you and your organization.
This also would not have been possible without the help of the z/OS Connect team out of the IBM Hursley lab. Even with a demanding roadmap ahead of them, the development and design teams were able to make time to accommodate our requirements that made this support possible. We look forward to continuing our partnership with them as they expand their product.
The Z APM development team has been hard at work so stay tuned to find out what we have coming over the next few months!