Mainframe Workbench from Compuware

Compuware are excited about their "ALL NEW Compuware Mainframe Workbench". They tell me the product is a modernized open development environment that introduces a new graphical user interface for managing mainframe application development activities currently performed in the character-based TSO/ISPF environment. It provides a common framework and single launch-point from which to initiate Compuware's mainframe products. And if your site has other products installed then don't worry, because it's extensible to support other development tooling as well.

Compuware assure me that the look-and-feel of the Workbench is familiar to users accustomed to developing in a GUI, and enables users to interact with mainframes in an intuitive, standardized, and familiar environment. Workbench makes use of Eclipse.

It seems that this initial release consists of a framework (Compuware Workbench 3.0) and modernized user interfaces for Compuware's Abend-AID, Xpediter, and File-AID. It provides:

• Mainframe fault diagnosis.
• Application data browse and edit: sequential, indexed, VSAM, DB2, and IMS (to be phased in during this year).
• Mainframe-hosted COBOL, PL/I, C Language, and HLASM debugging.

The Mainframe Workbench provides a framework that delivers additional ISPF-like functionality, including:

• Source code edit (powered by SlickEdit).
• Invocation of mainframe compiler
• JES functions: job submission, review, print, purge.
• Dataset management, ie allocation, compression, deletion.

Full details are here: www.compuware.com/solutions/mainframe-workbench.asp.

I guess the big focus of attention this coming week is the new zWow (or is that z11, zNext, etc) mainframe announcement from IBM. More on that next week!