Zowe LTS Version 2.0

We all know that mainframes are very good at everything they do, so it comes as no surprise to find that they are also very good at making themselves usable by people with little or no mainframe experience. That’s, pretty much, what the Zowe project is all about. Having been announced about four years ago, it’s good to see that, towards the end of May, Long Term Support (LTS) V2 was released. The second version is said to offer vendors and customers product stability, security, interoperability, as well as easy installation and upgraded features.

Before we look at the new version, let’s look at the background. The Linux Foundation is an organization that provides tools, training, and events, to scale any open-source project. One of those projects is the Open Mainframe Project, which is intended to serve as a focal point for deployment and use of Linux and open-source software in a mainframe computing environment. Zowe is one of its projects. So, it was the Open Mainframe Project that announced the LTS V2 release of Zowe.

What exactly is Zowe? It’s an open-source software framework that allows mainframe development and operation teams to securely manage, control, script, and develop on the mainframe. It was created to host technologies that benefit the IBM Z platform for all members of the Z community, including Integrated Software Vendors (ISVs), System Integrators, and z/OS consumers. Zowe comes with a set of APIs and OS capabilities that applications build on, and it also includes some applications out of the box. Zowe offers modern interfaces to interact with z/OS and allows users to work with z/OS in a way that is similar to what they experience on cloud platforms. People can use these interfaces as delivered or through plug-ins and extensions that are created by clients or third-party vendors.

The benefits of the LTS V2 include:

• Stability – organizations can confidently adopt the technology for enterprise use and upgrade when appropriate for their environment, minimizing the risk of disruption
• Interoperability – Zowe consumers can be assured LTS-conformant extensions have adapted to and support LTS features.
• Longevity – Zowe is designed for years of use and plans are in place for continued updates and support.

The Zowe framework uses the latest Web technologies among products and solutions from multiple vendors. Zowe enables developers to use familiar, industry-standard, open-source tools to access mainframe resources and services.

If you ‘ve not used Zowe yet, it’s claimed that since January 2022, Zowe has more than:

• 130,000 downloads
• 87,000 page views and 16,000 visitors to zowe.org
• 520 contributors.

The key features of Zowe LTS V2 include:

• More security features built in to ensure data and user credentials are always encrypted and safe.
• A new daemon mode delivering performance improvements for the command line interface.
• The time to value to configure Zowe is faster and easier.
•  There is more engagement and collaboration between team members using Zowe for modern DevOps at scale.
• New APIs created by the community.

Work on Zowe continues apace, and other Zowe updates include:

• Zowe Chat – a new incubator project that extends z/OS use by focusing on working with mainframes from chat clients such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Mattermost (with extensibility for other solutions). A set of commonly used scenarios will be provided, and the framework will be extensible so sites can add new scenarios. Similar to other Zowe core packages, the chat framework will be extensible by vendor tools, bringing an integrated user experience for more elaborate cross-vendor scenarios. Read more about it here.
•  Zowe IntelliJ Plugin – a new incubator project that provides access to the mainframe from IDEs like IntelliJ, PyCharm, WebStorm, and more. Launched by IBA Group, the IntelliJ IDE plug-in leverages z/OSMF to interact with mainframe data sets and USS files, which enables those familiar with these IDEs to comfortably work with the mainframe just like other projects. This integration will improve the efficiency and overall happiness of IntelliJ enthusiasts now working on the mainframe. Learn more in this blog.
• Zowe was recognized as the Best DevOps for Mainframe Award in this year’s DevOps Dozen competition. It was selected over a number of commercial vendor offerings, reflecting a widespread appreciation for the value of an open-source solution for the mainframe.

The Open Mainframe Project’s Zowe Conformance Program was launched in 2020 with the aim of building a vendor-neutral ecosystem around Zowe. So far, the program has helped Open Mainframe Project members such as BMC Software, Broadcom, IBM, Micro Focus, Phoenix Software International, and Rocket Software incorporate Zowe with new and existing products that enable integration of mainframe applications and data across the enterprise. 75 products have implemented extensions based on the Zowe framework and earned these members conformance badges.

Zowe consists of the following components:

• Zowe Application Framework – a Web user interface (UI) that provides a virtual desktop containing a number of apps allowing access to z/OS functions.
• API Mediation Layer – this provides a gateway that acts as a reverse proxy for z/OS services, together with a catalog of REST APIs and a dynamic discovery capability.
• Zowe CLI – this is a command-line interface that lets users interact with the mainframe in a familiar, off-platform format.
• Zowe Explorer – this is a Visual Studio Code extension that modernizes the way developers and system administrators interact with z/OS mainframes.
• Zowe Client Software Development Kits (SDKs) – these consist of programmatic APIs that can be used to build client applications or scripts that interact with z/OS.
• Zowe Launcher – this provides an advanced launcher for Zowe z/OS server components in a high availability configuration.
• Zowe Mobile (Incubator) – this lets users interact with their Zowe instance running on the mainframe from their mobile.
• ZEBRA (Zowe Embedded Browser for RMF/SMF and APIs) (Incubator) – this provides re-usable and industry compliant JSON formatted RMF/SMF data records.
• Zowe Workflow wiZard (Incubator) – this delivers a workflow builder which simplifies the creation of z/OSMF workflows.

I think it’s good news to see the latest version of Zowe, and I look forward to further developments of this excellent open-source project.