IBM Z and LinuxONE IBM Z

  • 1.  REST API's and IBM Z?

    IBM Champion
    Posted Thu October 07, 2021 07:58 AM
    My team is looking to use REST API's calls from our IBM Z Cobol application.  Has anyone done this yet?  

    I found this webinar helpful, but am looking for more :)

    Give your developers a REST: A look at APIs on IBM Z (on24.com)



    Thanks!
    Kari

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    Kari Nagle
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  • 2.  RE: REST API's and IBM Z?

    Posted Fri October 08, 2021 02:51 AM
    Hello Kari,

    We are doing it from PL/1, which should be equivalent. You've got (basically) two options:

    - Use z/OS Connect (IBM product) , which allows you to expose the REST API call like -more or less- a program CALL, and provides you tools to generate the needed artifacts from the swagger document describing the API call.

    - Use low level http calls via z/OS HTTP/HTTPS callable services. 

    After taking a look to the second option, we decided to use z/OS Connect. Although the low level approach is doable it requires basically to hard-code every REST call you need to make. z/OS Connect takes care of those details and can be nicely integrated into your application developement lifecycle.


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    Jordi Guillaumes Pons
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  • 3.  RE: REST API's and IBM Z?

    Posted Fri October 08, 2021 10:34 AM
    Hello Kari,
    if with IBM Z you would be interested on z/VSE (which is also an IBM Z Operating System), you can leverage Rest APIs since z/VSE 6.2 which provide Rest Server and Client.
    If you want more information here there are some links:
    Using REST for Inter-Program Communication - IBM Documentation
    Microsoft PowerPoint - zVSERestWithMQ.pptx (vmworkshop.org)
    http://vmworkshop.org/2020/present/zvsecnbp.pdf 
    Developing e-Business Applications - IBM Documentation
    Feel free to contact IBM z/VSE team or 21CSW team, if you have further questions.

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    Gonzalo Muelas Serrano
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  • 4.  RE: REST API's and IBM Z?

    Posted Fri October 08, 2021 12:25 PM
    Hi Kari,
       A good place to start will be looking at the application modernization pattern on the IBM Cloud Architecture site Extend with cloud-native pattern
    It provides an overview of the solution approach for enabling APIs for calling another application (On Z or external)  from an existing application, as well as advantages of this approach and various alternatives.  At the bottom of the page, you will find additional resource links including links to relevant  parts of the z/OS Connect EE product documentation: Calling an API from a System of Record (SoR) and sample code: GitHub sample for calling an API from a CICS and IMS application.

      Also, I would draw your attention to the broader set of API driven and other application modernization patterns: Application modernization for IBM Z architecture.



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    Asit Dan Dr
    Chief Architect, z Services API Management
    IBM
    Armonk NY
    914-374-2726
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  • 5.  RE: REST API's and IBM Z?

    IBM Champion
    Posted Mon October 11, 2021 01:25 AM
    Hi Kari,

    we did this.

    We used the Web Enablement Toolkit to call the rest services out of our Cobol Batch programs. 

    It works but we had to do a lot of preparation work. We wrote a stub for our developers becauso using the WET is not that easy.

    Regards,
    Armin

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    Armin Kramer
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