Automated Testing

I had never heard of this product until a few days ago and after some research was sent a link to this forum.

I work in a z/OS shop where we do lots of Cobol development, some legacy Assembler with VSAM and DB2.

Developers are always complaining about not enough MIPS for their development LPAR  plus the organisation is facing the usual problem of greying of the workforce :-(

ZD&T seemed like it might help.

1. Move some of the deevlopment work to this envirnment (even in AWS since I have seen reports that this can be done)

2. Provide an entry for the younger workforce to get interested in z/OS development (they can be charged with building and maintaining the Linux base)

But to make this work we need some ISV software which does our source code management and then presumably even if that works, to move the final tested source code back to the host for final compilation before going to production.

Does ISV software actually work in ZD&T assuming you have the appropriate licensing. Is there a way to actually move load modules from a real z/OS instance to "run" in ZD&T?

 

Sorry for all the questions but the online docs are pretty technical and don't really explain these issues.

 

 

Hi

 

You are right on the spot of what ZD&T is good for.

ZD&T is an emulation layer creating a simulated z Series hardware platform.

On top of that is a real z/OS system. Almost everything mainframish can run here, except some very obscure cryptoinstructions.

Most ISV's already have license models in place for ZD&T, but you have to ask them.

One says that if you have the license to run on the big iron, then you can also use it on ZD&T.

Another says that you can get a license to run all their products on ZD&T, but it comes with a big price tag.

There are several ways to move load modules. The usual ones are XMIT/RECEIVE or DFDSS and then file transfer.

You can look up my presentation "ZD&T Survival Kit" on Slideshare or Youtube to get more details.

 

Best rgds,

Michael Erichsen,

Xact Consulting

 

Hi Michael

 

Thanks for your note. SInce then I discovered this site

 

https://developer.ibm.com/mainframe/videos/z-systems-development-test-environment-tools-demonstration/

 

Tools to create your ZD&T instance from an existing Z instance. However it is not clear how you select the individual software components. I would have thought if you wanted to clone your entire development environment onto ZPD&T you would just use all the volumes that make up that development LPAR.  Is that what you do?  Certainly can deal with ISV licensing if we decided to head down this path.

Hi

This is a discussion we often have with our customers (Our business is to help setting up their development tools, methods, processes and culture, and ZD&T is often a part of that).

Usually you have an existing development and/or test environment, which have grown uncontrolled for over 40 years, and it contains lots and lots of unused stuff, which should have be cleaned away a long time ago.

So when we ask: "How much do you want to copy to ZD&T?", they might reply: "Everything!".

This translates in my ears to: "We do not know what is in there, so you must do the cleaning for us".

At one site "Everything" meant almost 2 TB, when we asked the storage managers.

You can do this. The underlying emulator (z1091) is a complete z series emulation. You can install it and copy your complete environment there. But to me it makes no sense. You have the same situation as before.

If you just do this to save MIPS; then you could be making a mistake. Then you should probably discuss the new pricing models for Dev & Test environments on the Big Iron with IBM.

The advantage of ZD&T is to provide a platform for flexibility and agility. We have seen development projects running many times faster on ZD&T, because the team had total control of their platform and did not have to wait for RACF, for change management, for periodic IPL's etc. But this requires an initial effort to identify, isolate, extract and transfer the specific subset of your Big Iron environment, that each Dev or Test project requires.

The ZD&T EE Tools can help with the extraction and transfer of configurations, applications and data, but the real brainwork is still up to you. (Though a tool like ADDI might sometimes help, but that requres another big initial effort too).

It is a big decision with many consequences to go down this "DevOps" road. But for many companies it might be necessary to save their business in the longer run.

Best regards,

Michael Erichsen,

Xact Consulting

Hi Michael

 

Thanks again for your response. I am getting mixed messages about the environment (on this forum and other sources).

The objective of looking at ZD&T wasn't so much to save MIPS but many fold

1. provide an environment for a our devs which has better response time (our dev LPARs is oftern starved of MIPS so response times can be quite low)

2. In the same vein be able to run their batch test jobs without having to wait long times

3. And not so important but provide an environment for our mainframe techs (not all of whom one woud consider sysprogs) to work on z/OS without impacting the "real" z/OS dev LPAR

 

I see the tools that allow you to create your ZD&T can allow you to clone the entire z LPAR and with it bring along all the stuff you don't need.  But as you say, if we can identify what exactly we want in the ZD&T environment (I would imagine it would be the full z/OS stack, the SCM plus perhaps some monitoring tools) we should be okay.

 

One area that is not clear to me is SCM. Assuming the devs do all their work in ZD&T at some point in time they will have to push the updated source code back to the host for final compile, linkedit etc. and test.   It's not clear how that is done (presuming some sort of ftp) and you have to be careful that is you've divided your devs between the host and ZD&T you don't screw up the source which is now in two places. 

 

One other feature that attracted my attention was the Sysplex option. We want to start to build our first sysplex and finding resources on the host for this is challenging (and costly). Being able to prototype on ZD&T (we would need z/VM I understand) would be great if it's not onerous.

 

Lots to consider

 

Laurence

Hi

 

Did you read/see my TechU presentation on ZD&T Survival Kit (Youtube or Slideshare)? I discuss a lot of these issues based on several customer experiences.

 

You purposes:

<quote>

1. provide an environment for a our devs which has better response time (our dev LPARs is oftern starved of MIPS so response times can be quite low)

2. In the same vein be able to run their batch test jobs without having to wait long times

3. And not so important but provide an environment for our mainframe techs (not all of whom one woud consider sysprogs) to work on z/OS without impacting the "real" z/OS dev LPAR

...

One other feature that attracted my attention was the Sysplex option. We want to start to build our first sysplex and finding resources on the host for this is challenging (and costly). Being able to prototype on ZD&T (we would need z/VM I understand) would be great if it's not onerous.

</unquote>

 

If these are your purposes, you are in the right spot.

 

//SP: A perfect platform to test and get to know the parallel Sysplex environment. Every time you have smashed everything, you just reload and try again :-)

 

About SCM: You really should consider this platform in the light of a "DevOps" strategy.

Today most people are using Endevor, Serena or Rational Team Concert (which just got a new name), but a lot of shops are considering going to some variant of Git.

 

The general direction is to:

* Move editing from ISPF to a graphical development platform (IBM Developer (my favourite) or CW Topaz or other)

* Move source code repositories from the mainframe to a distributed platform (but could still be on the mainframe with extensions to Eclipse, Git, Jenkins etc.)

* Set up a separate build and deployment process, sometimes based on Jenkins when using Git or Team Concert.

* Do the first compilation, debug and testing on ZD&T

* Use some kinds of automated testing linked to the build and promotion process

* Do the final compilation and testing on the Big Iron

 

So generally you are not talking about moving up and down between ZD&T and the Big Iron, but having the "Truth" somewhere and then copying to wherever you need it at development, build and test time. Here there is really no difference between ZD&T and any other LPAR, as seen from the process.

 

But indeed an interesting and important discussion.

 

Best regards,

Michael Erichsen,

Xact Consulting

 

 

 

Hi Michael

 

Thanks for your detailed responses.

Where I work does use a SCM (Endevor) and I have since discovered that Broadcom/CA now have integration with Jenkins. This aligns with the move of our dev shop to improved dev ops processes and potentially using some of the current dev ops processes in our digital dev area to the mainframe.

I also found this video on YT which appears to make the implemenation of a ZD&T environment quite straightforward.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkLji-5vECI&t=329s

 

I especially like how you can readily deploy an existing z/OS environment to ZD&T. However the video fails to detail how the infrastructure is established, including the Liberty Server which I think runs in Websphere. Our shop doesn't have Liberty so that is one more item to be installed.

Hi Laurence,

                     when you install the EE version of ZD&T, the Liberty Server along with a database (Derby I believe) is installed as part of that. You need  to install the license server and web based tools on separate server(s) from the ZD&T clients.

 

Sebastian

Thanks.

 

Is the Liberty server installed on x86 or on z/OS?  That is not clear to me based on the docs I have been readding.

 

Laurence

Hi,

    x86 only. All ZD&T components only run on x86 systems

 

Sebastian