WebSphere Liberty z/OS Connect Makes Business Assets Accessible to Mobile Devices

September 2014 | by Dave Sudlik

For the enterprise providers of applications and data, making those business assets more accessible to your customers and employees directly translates to new business opportunities and competitive advantage. But keeping pace with these trends has been a significant challenge in the marketplace.The advent of the mobile device, as viewed by the consumer of mobile services, has been remarkable. The availability of applications and instant access to data has provided an increase in functionality and productivity that was unimagined just a few years ago. And now, cloud applications appear to be on that same adoption curve.

In most large enterprises, a majority of enterprise transactions and data—referred to here as z/OS* assets—exist on the mainframe: CICS* transactions, IMS* trans-actions and data, z/OS batch applications and more. So the question has become: What is the best way to connect consumers and their systems of engagement with these z/OS assets in an enterprise’s systems of record? A key part of that answer was recently introduced with IBM WebSphere* Liberty z/OS Connect.

What z/OS Connect Provides

Built on IBM WebSphere Application Server Liberty profile running on z/OS, z/OS Connect is a gateway that provides a simple and secure way to discover and invoke applications and data on z/OS from mobile, cloud and Web applications. It uses standardized interfaces and data, including Representational State Transfer (REST) APIs and JSON, which makes it readily accessible to Web and mobile developers. RESTful APIs are one of the key technologies used to abstract enterprise assets and, along with an API management solution, allows for the consumerization of z/OS assets as APIs.

Using these standardized interfaces and data to communicate with existing mainframe applications is one of the challenges. z/OS Connect addresses this problem by providing the capability to transform JSON name/value pairs into the data format required by back-end programs such as COBOL COPYBOOK, PL/I and C/C++ structures. Bind files contain the data field conversion information and are generated by a supplied utility. And all of this—the z/OS Connect gateway and the data transformation routines—is written in Java*, so it is IBM System z* Application Assist Processor-eligible to be offloaded to specialty engines and does not count toward processor-based licensing.

The ability to write your own REST and JSON handler has been available for some time now. Where z/OS Connect excels against other solutions is in its common and consistent interface to, and running on, the mainframe. It is able to integrate with System z facilities and z/OS subsystems that have proven qualities of service for the enterprise. In this capacity:

• It uses System Authorization Facility for authorization checks and to control access to resources. And z/OS Connect does not expose all z/OS assets, only those identified in the Liberty Profile configuration file.
• It works with System Management Facility to write type 120, subtype 11, records that are compatible with existing monitoring and automation utilities.
• z/OS Connect instances can be clustered for availability and performance, either on the same LPAR or across LPARs.
• z/OS Connect can take advantage of connector technology that uses System z cross-memory communication mechanisms, such as WebSphere Optimized Local Adapters, that can give it a performance boost over other access technologies.
• The security and auditing functions in z/OS Connect are provided through Interceptors, which are callout points that can be invoked for each request and each response. It’s optional for other purposes, but the interface is documented and you can write your own interceptor code if you wish.

For users of WebSphere Application Server, the Liberty profile is available beginning in WebSphere Application Server V8.5, but is an independent application server in its installation, configuration and execution. It has a different set of characteristics, being dynamic and composable, which give it a small footprint and quick startup.

Fitting in the IBM Ecosystem

IBM provides several complementary products that can be used to further enable access to mainframe assets. What follows is a brief description of some of them, and how they fit with z/OS Connect.

DataPower
Besides their security, central governance and policy control, and workload optimization features, IBM WebSphere DataPower* appliances provide enterprise-wide integration to reduce the complexity of connecting an overwhelming combination of data formats and transport protocols. DataPower appliances already provide close integration with System z with features like offloading of XML processing and message validation or filtering.

Now you can configure DataPower appliances to call z/OS Connect APIs using REST and JSON, and benefit from the aforementioned advantages that z/OS Connect provides as a common and consistent interface running on the mainframe. All of this also fits in nicely with DataPower’s ability to provide intelligent load distribution, for example across a Liberty cluster, and integrate both distributed and mainframe platforms.

API Management
Providing standardized interfaces in the form of z/OS Connect RESTful APIs is only part of the picture. To make these assets consumable, an API management solution can be required. Powered by DataPower appliances, IBM API Management provides companies with the tools for creating, collecting, securing and socializing these APIs, including those provided by z/OS Connect. It is part of a unified enterprise solution, with an intuitive user interface, for managing the complete API lifecycle, enabling a company to realize the maximum value from their APIs.

IBM Worklight
IBM Worklight*, a comprehensive mobile enterprise application platform, specifically enables the development of mobile applications. But going beyond that, Worklight includes mobile-optimized middleware that serves as a gateway between the mobile application and back-end systems. It supports adapters for many different type of connection protocols, including a Worklight HTTP Adapter to invoke RESTful services such as those provided by z/OS Connect.

JSON Web services for IBM CICS Transaction Gateway V9.1 builds on the support introduced by the CICS Transaction Server (TS) Feature Pack for Mobile Extensions, and extends the support for mobile applications to the wider CICS family. It is also compatible with z/OS Connect, meaning the investment in the creation of CICS WS BIND files for JSON data transformation is reusable, enabling the transfer of these assets between z/OS Connect-compatible solutions. This allows for the option of using z/OS Connect to expand beyond CICS to cover a broader set of z/OS subsystems, as well as take advantage of some of the other benefits of z/OS Connect as a common interface.

IMS
The IMS Mobile Feature Pack offers a comprehensive solution and integrated tooling platform that helps discover IMS transactional assets, model and annotate asset metadata, and enable and publish those assets as services. These services can be used by mobile and cloud applications, which can securely access, manage and govern IMS assets on IBM z/OS. IMS Mobile leverages the Liberty profile and its z/OS Connect feature by supplying a service provider for IMS that plugs seamlessly into the z/OS Connect framework. IMS Mobile can supplement existing user-written mobile solutions as well as mobile solutions that use Worklight, DataPower or both.

IBM Bluemix
IBM Bluemix, a cloud offering for developers, is an example of a cloud-based system that could benefit from having z/OS Connect as its access point for back-end z/OS assets. While it is tempting to think that z/OS Connect is just for use with mobile devices, the ability to access back-end mainframe systems such as CICS and IMS through a REST/JSON interface makes the provisioning and configuration of a cloud system with this type of access in mind much easier.

How to Get z/OS Connect
To build on the theme of a common and consistent interface to the mainframe, z/OS Connect is available through a number of delivery mechanisms.

In April, IBM announced that it was adopting a continuous delivery model to provide new features and function to the WebSphere Application Server Liberty profile (ibm.co/1nMNrko). In June, z/OS Connect was one of the first optionally installable features to be available by download from the Liberty Repository for WebSphere Application Server for z/OS V8.5 licensed users, and includes a CICS service provider by default. An IMS service provider is also available for download from the Liberty Repository.

For IMS licensed users, z/OS Connect is also shipped with IMS Enterprise Suite for z/OS V3.1.1 as part of the IMS Mobile Feature Pack. As provided by IMS, z/OS Connect provides the same functionality as the z/OS Connect feature with WebSphere Application Server. It’s able to do this by embedding a version of Liberty profile for use by z/OS Connect.

Whether you choose to use the version of z/OS Connect from WebSphere Application Server V8.5 or IMS Mobile Feature Pack depends mainly on whether you have a WebSphere Application Server or IMS license.

Beginning with CICS TS for z/OS V5.1, Liberty profile is embedded and available for use with CICS transactions. IBM intends to provide z/OS Connect support shipped with CICS TS for z/OS.

There is no additional charge for z/OS Connect in these environments. It is or will be supplied as part of the license entitlement to WebSphere Application Server for z/OS, CICS or IMS. Once you have z/OS Connect installed and configured, z/OS Connect can be used for connection to z/OS assets for mobile, cloud and web applications.

http://ibmsystemsmag.com/mainframe/administrator/performance/z-os-connect/?page=1