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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