On 29/11/21 4:26 am, Tom Longfellow wrote:
I dread z/OSMF as an installer.
It's my understanding that z/OSMF just uses workflows to submit SMP/E jobs. The grey beards hate using it but the young guys are ambivalent.
I am old enough to remember CA-AGGRAVATOR (i know, wrong name ) and have recently been frustrated by the Linux worlds assumption that we are all born with a native understanding of rpm and packages.
Didn't CA create the Chorus Software Manager that was generally very well received by the community. I haven't used it but I heard that installing mainframe software using SMP/E was as easy as installing a browser add-on using the Web UI. As for Linux package managers, they are so simple to use. I use debian systems and can install a complex software product such as Docker simply by using the "sudo apt install docker" command. Even Windows has a package manager now and "winget install python" from PowerShell is much simplier than downloading an MSI installer or fussy around with a GUI like Windows Store.
zCX looks to make life even more challenging.
I've been playing with zCX and had a meeting with some IBMers a couple of weeks ago. There are uses cases for zCX which can modernize your z/OS applications and save you money by offing to a zIIP.
There are challenges that are useful to me because I can leverage them to my own benefit (like pervasive encryption to head off auditors). But the z/OSMF challenges are not making my days easier. Pretty GUIs may impress gamers and senior exec, but sooner or later someone has to make the underlying software actually work (even if just a command line)
To me the most compelling reason to use z/OSMF is the REST APIs. I worked with one of our sysprogs last week to write a Lua script that calls the z/OSMF data sets API to search all of our sysplexes and removes data sets for users that have left the company. Doing this manually is by logging on to ISPF is laborious and boring. It's easy to automate and integrate into ticketing systems like Jira by creating webhooks.
I was reading that Viacom are integrating with z/OS using z/OSMF and Zowe APIs for their voice assistant device. It's not far fetched to imagine a future where you may install z/OS 3.1 by saying, "Mainframe, install z/OS 3.1!" :)
https://thenewstack.io/trash-eavesdropping-alexa-with-a-secure-open-source-alternative/
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