Play the Cloud-Mobile App Dev Game with z/OS Client Web Enablement

Is you z team feeling a little nervous that they are missing an important new game? Are business managers bugging you about running slick Cloud and mobile applications through the z? Worse, are they turning to third party contractors to build apps that will try to connect your z to the cloud and mobile world? If so, it is time to take a close look at IBM’s z/OS Client Web Enablement Toolkit.

Accessing backend system through a mobile device

If you’re a z shop running Linux on z or a LinuxONE shop you don’t need z/OS Web Enablement. The issue only comes up when you need to connect the z/OS applications to cloud, web, and mobile apps. IBM began talking up z/OS Enablement Toolkit since early this year. Prior to the availability of the toolkit, native z/OS applications had little or no easy options available to participate as a web services client.

You undoubtedly know the z in its role as a no-fail transaction workhorse. More recently you’ve watched as it learned new tricks like managing big data or big data analytics through IBM’s own tools and more recently with Spark. The z absorbed the services wave with SOA and turned CICS into a handler for Web transactions. With Linux it learned an entire new way to relate to the broader distributed world. The z has rolled with all the changes and generally came out ahead.

Now the next change for z data centers has arrived. This is the cloud/web-mobile-analytics execution environment that seemingly is taking over the known world. It almost seems like nobody wants a straight DB2 CICS transaction without a slew of other devices getting involved, usually as clients. Now everything is HTTP REST to handle x86 clients and JSON along with a slew of even newer scripting languages. Heard about Python and Ruby? And they aren’t even the latest.  The problem: no easy way to perform HTTP REST calls or handle JSON parsing on z/OS. This results from the utter lack of native JSON services built into z/OS, according to Steve Warren, IBM’s z/OS Client Web Enablement guru.

Starting, however, with z/OS V2.2 and now available in z/OS V2.1 via a couple of service updates,  Warren reports, the new z/OS Client Web Enablement Toolkit changes the way a z/OS-based data center can think about z/OS applications communicating with another web server. As he explains it, the toolkit provides an easy-to-use, lightweight solution for applications looking to easily participate as a client, in a client/server web application. Isn’t that what all the kids are doing with Bluemix? So why not with the z and z/OS?

Specifically, the z/OS Toolkit provides a built-in protocol enabler using interfaces similar in nature to other industry-standard APIs along with a z/OS JSON parser to parse JSON text coming from any source and the ability to build new or add to existing JSON text, according to Warren.  Suddenly, it puts z/OS shops smack in the middle of this hot new game.

While almost all environments on z/OS can take advantage of these new services, Warren adds, traditional z/OS programs running in a native environment (apart from a z/OS UNIX or JVM environment) stand to benefit the most. Before the toolkit, native z/OS applications, as noted above, had little or no easy options available to them to participate as a web services client. Now they do.

Programs running as a batch job, a started procedure, or in almost any address space on a z/OS system have APIs they can utilize in a similar manner to any standard z/OS APIs provided by the OS. Programs invoke these APIs in the programming language of their choice. Among z languages, C/C++, COBOL, PL/I, and Assembler are fully supported, and the toolkit provides samples for C/C++, COBOL, PL/I initially. Linux on z and LinuxONE shops already can do this.

Businesses with z data centers are being forced by the market to adopt Web applications utilizing published Web APIs that can be used by something as small as the watch you wear, noted Warren. As a result, the proliferation of Web services applications in recent years has been staggering, and it’s not by coincidence. Representational state transfer (REST) applications are simple, use the ubiquitous HTTP protocol—which helps them to be platform-independent—and are easy to organize.  That’s what the young developers—the millennials—have been doing with Bluemix and other cloud-based development environments for their cloud, mobile, and  web-based applications.  With the z/OS web enablement toolkit now any z/OS shop can do the same. As IoT ramps up expect more demands for these kinds of applications and with a variety of new devices and APIs.

DancingDinosaur is Alan Radding, a veteran information technology analyst and writer. Please follow DancingDinosaur on Twitter, @mainframeblog. See more of his IT writing at technologywriter.com and here.

2016 State of OpenStack Adoption Shows Continued Progress

Sixty-one percent of over 600 survey respondents are adopting OpenStack to combat the expense of public cloud alternatives, reports Talligent, provider of cost and capacity management solutions for OpenStack and hybrid clouds, which conducted most recent study of OpenStack adoption. Almost as many respondents, 59%, have opted for OpenStack to improve the responsiveness of IT service delivery.

OpenStack is a cloud operating system that controls large pools of compute, storage, and networking resources throughout a datacenter, all managed through a dashboard that gives administrators control while empowering their users to provision resources through a web interface. As OpenStack puts it: A key part of the OpenStack Foundation mission is to inform, and with the ever expanding ecosystem, we felt it was a good time to cut through the noise to give our members the facts needed to make sound decisions.

In that spirit, make the OpenStack Marketplace one of your first steps in planning an OpenStack effort. There you will find the technology broken down into digestible chunks with details like which components are included, the versions used, and the APIs exposed. The community has also implemented interoperability testing to validate products displaying OpenStack logos. The results are now available in the Marketplace for public clouds, hosted private clouds, distributions & appliances.

DancingDinosaur has covered OpenStack numerous times; for example here and here, IBM fully committed to OpenStack. Late last spring it announced an expanded suite of OpenStack services that allow organizations to integrate applications and data across hybrid clouds including public, dedicated and local cloud environments without the fear of vendor lock-in or costly customization.

IBM may be a bit in front of the market on this. The Talligent survey found private clouds will not be replaced by public clouds very soon, with 54% of respondents still expecting their cloud use to be ALL or mostly private five years from now.

But whether this will occur in two years or five years developers and enterprises using the IBM Cloud OpenStack Services will be able to launch applications on local, on-premises installations and public clouds hosted on the SoftLayer infrastructure, VMware, or the IBM Cloud. This can all be done without changing code or configurations. As a result, developers can build and test an application in a public cloud and use the interoperability of OpenStack to seamlessly deploy that same application and data across any combination of clouds; public, dedicated and local/private.

The Talligent survey also found OpenStack deployments, once in place, are expected to expand quickly beyond development environments, growing from 43% to 89% within 12 months. For QA/Test the expected growth will be a tad stronger, from 47% to 91% within 12 months.

Other interesting tidbits from the survey: the top three workloads currently delivered on OpenStack include: new green field applications (69%); containers (61%), web applications (58%). No surprise there.  Also, as noted above, private clouds should continue to thrive as OpenStack users expect high levels of private cloud use within the next 5 years. Fourteen percent, however, are expecting to deploy across a balanced mix of private and public clouds. At the same time, the survey suggests that PaaS, Containers, and privately managed OpenStack are expected to grow in use while proprietary public clouds and legacy virtualization are likely to decline.

Finally, the survey respondents voiced their opinions on the OpenStack providers. Although industry vendors like VMware, IBM, HPE, Cisco and more are exploring ways to support customers in a hybrid cloud mix, the respondents, as previously noted, are not quite ready to move to a hybrid model. Still, the respondents voiced a clear desire for more operational tools.

Similarly, a majority of respondents currently using OpenStack are still prepared to maintain most of their environment on-premises, with 54% saying they will continue to be more than 80% private over the next 5 years. This may reflect ongoing concerns of corporate management about security in the public cloud. The survey, however, picked up some ambivalence on this point: 30% of the respondents using OpenStack report planning to move more than 80% of their environments to the public cloud over the next 5 years. Could this be a signal that security concerns may be fading?

DancingDinosaur is Alan Radding, a veteran information technology analyst and writer. Please follow DancingDinosaur on Twitter, @mainframeblog. See more of his IT writing at technologywriter.com and here.

New IBM z13s Brings Built-in Encrypted Security to Entry Level

Earlier this week IBM introduced the z13s, what it calls World’s most secure server, built for hybrid cloud, and sized for mid-sized organizations.  The z13s promises better business outcomes, faster decision making, less regulatory exposure, greater scale, and better fraud protection. And at the low end it is accessible to smaller enterprises, maybe those who have never tried a z before.

z13s features embedded cryptography that brings the benefits of the mainframe to mid-sized organizations . Courtesy IBM

A machine like the low end z13s used to be referred to as a business class (BC) mainframe.  IBM declined to quote a price, except to say z13s will go “for about the same price as previous generations for the equivalent capacity.”  OK, back in July 2013 IBM published the base price of the zEC12 BC machine at $75,000. IBM made a big deal of that pricing at the time.

The key weasel phrase in IBM’s statement is: “for the equivalent capacity.”  Two and a half years ago the $75k zEC12 BC offered significantly more power than its predecessor. Figuring out equivalent capacity today given all the goodies IBM is packing into the new machine, like built-in chip-based cryptography and more, is anybody’s guess. However, given the plummeting costs of IT components over the past two years, you should get it at a base price of $100k or less. If not, call Intel. Adds IBM: The infrastructure costs of z13s are comparable to the Public Cloud infrastructure costs with enterprise support; significant software savings result from core consolidation on the z13s.

But the z13s is not just about price. As digital business becomes a standard practice and transaction volumes increase, especially mobile transaction volumes, the need for increased security becomes paramount. Cybercrime today has shifted. Rather than stealing data criminals are compromising data accuracy and reliability. This is where the z13s’ bolstered built-in security and access to APIs and microservices in a hybrid cloud setting can pay off by keeping data integrity intact.

IBM’s z13s, described as the new entry point to the z Systems portfolio for enterprises of all sizes, is packed with a number of security innovations. (DancingDinosaur considered the IBM LinuxONE Rockhopper as the current z entry point but it is a Linux-only machine.) For zOS the z13s will be the entry point. The security innovations include:

• Ability to encrypt sensitive data without compromising transactional throughput and response time through its updated cryptographic and tamper-resistant hardware-accelerated cryptographic coprocessor cards with faster processors and more memory. In short: encryption at twice the speed equates to processing twice as many online or mobile device purchases in the same time, effectively helping to lower the cost per transaction.
• Leverage the z Systems Cyber Security Analytics offering, which delivers an advanced level of threat monitoring based on behavior analytics. Also part of the package, IBM® Security QRadar® security software correlates data from more than 500 sources to help organizations determine if security-related events are simply anomalies or potential threats, This z Systems Cyber Security Analytics service will be available at no-charge, as a beta offering for z13 and z13s customers.
• IBM Multi-factor Authentication for z/OS (MFA) is now available on z/OS. The solution adds another layer of security by requiring privileged users to enter a second form of identification, such as a PIN or randomly generated token, to gain access to the system. This is the first time MFA has been tightly integrated in the operating system, rather than through an add-on software solution. This level of integration is expected to deliver more streamlined configuration and better stability and performance.

Hybrid computing and hybrid cloud also play a big part in IBM’s thinking latest around z Systems. As IBM explains, hybrid cloud infrastructure offers advantages in flexibility but can also present new vulnerabilities. When paired with z Systems, IBM’s new security solutions can allow clients to establish end-to-end security in their hybrid cloud environment.

Specifically, IBM Security Identity Governance and Intelligence can help prevent inadvertent or malicious internal data loss by governing and auditing access based on known policies while granting access to those who have been cleared as need-to-know users. IBM Security Guardium uses analytics to help ensure data integrity by providing intelligent data monitoring, which tracks users as they access specific data and help to identify threat sources quickly in the event of a breach. IBM Security zSecure and QRadar use real-time alerts to focus on the identified critical security threats that matter the most.

Conventional z System data centers should have no difficulty migrating to the z13 or even the z13s.  IBM told DancingDinosaur it will continue to protect a client’s investment in technology with serial number preservation on the IBM z13s.  The company also is offering upgrades from the zEnterprise BC12 (zBC12) and from the zEnterprise 114 (z114) to the z13s.   Of course, it supports upgradeability within the IBM z13 family; a z13s N20 model can be upgraded to the z13 N30 model. And once the z13s is installed it allows on demand offerings to access temporary or permanent capacity as needed.

DancingDinosaur is Alan Radding, a veteran information technology analyst and writer. Please follow DancingDinosaur on Twitter, @mainframeblog. See more of his IT writing at technologywriter.com and here.

IBM Acquires Weather Company to Supercharge Cloud Data Analytics

Last week IBM announced it would acquire The Weather Company’s B2B, mobile and cloud-based web properties, including WSI, weather.com, Weather Underground, and The Weather Company brand in a move intended to boost its data analytics capabilities. The company has big plans for the acquisition, especially for Watson but is probably not thinking of streaming weather images onto the z System.

IBM to acquire the Weather Company

Maybe it should. How many of the z Systems logistics, supply chain management, scheduling, and reservation systems rely on weather? Might be nice to get access to a couple of Weather Company APIs to pop weather data and analytics into z production systems.

Instead most of the weather goodies will go the Watson as IBM aims to improve the precision of weather forecasts by further deepening Watson’s IoT capabilities through the integration of global atmosphere and weather insights with enterprise information (hello zSystem) to create disruptive industry solutions that optimize decision-making. For instance, IBM reports that airlines can save millions of dollars annually by tapping multiple real-time and historical data sources to optimize fuel consumption, reduce delays and airport congestion, and improve passenger safety during disruptive conditions.

In short, the planned acquisition would bring together IBM’s powerful cognitive and analytics platform and The Weather Company’s dynamic cloud data platform, which powers the fourth most-used mobile app daily in the United States and handles 26 billion inquiries (more than its fair share from DancingDinosaur) to its cloud-based services each day. The plan calls to integrate real-time weather insights into business to improve operational performance and decision-making.

A few days earlier, IBM announced what it describes as a transformational approach to making the most of data, with the introduction of IBM Insight Cloud Services. Through collaboration with Twitter and The Weather Company, as well as the use of open data sets and business-owned data, IBM believes it can help clients cut through the noise of unstructured data, help turn streaming data into insights, and change critical business outcomes across industries such as retail, insurance, and media/entertainment.

As part of that announcement, IBM identified three specific actions it is taking:

1. Provide four new APIs that developers can access from IBM Bluemix, IBM’s cloud platform, to incorporate historical and forecasted weather data from The Weather Company into web and mobile apps; and two APIs that allow developers to incorporate Twitter content enriched with sentiment insights
2. Introduce new bundled data sets from IBM and The Weather Company customized for key industries and available on the IBM Cloud. The data packages can help insurers use weather data to alert policyholders ahead of hail storms that may cause property damage, help utilities forecast demand and identify likely service outages, help local governments to develop detailed emergency planning in advance of severe weather, and enable many industries such as retail to use data to help optimize their operations, reduce costs, and uncover revenue opportunities ahead of changes in weather.
3. Offer a set of pre-built solutions that leverage IBM Insight Cloud Services cognitive techniques to help enable business users to tackle very specific industry challenges. This expands a set of industry solutions IBM introduced in May 2015 that provide businesses with the ability to generate new types of insights based on customer behavior.

With the pending acquisition of the Weather Company properties IBM is able to further advance its capabilities in big data, analytics, cloud computing, and cognitive computing. These encompass what the company refers to as its strategic imperatives and, alongside the z, they delivered the only bright spot in IBM’s 3Q15 financials. As reported by DancingDinosaur here a few weeks ago: strategic imperatives revenue: up 27 percent year-to-year; Cloud revenue up more than 65 percent year-to-date.  Total cloud revenue hit $9.4 billion over the trailing 12 months. Cloud delivered as a service had an annual run rate of $4.5 billion vs. $3.1 billion in third-quarter 2014.  Business analytics revenue was up 19 percent year-to-date. With its plans for the Weather Company expect the numbers to grow in upcoming quarters. The Weather Company can also show IBM a thing or two about mobile, another top priority.

DancingDinosaur is Alan Radding, a veteran information technology analyst and writer. Please follow DancingDinosaur on Twitter, @mainframeblog. See more of his IT writing at technologywriter.com and here.

IBM z Systems at Edge2015

There are so many interesting z Systems sessions at IBM Edge2015 that DancingDinosaur can’t come close to attending them all or even writing about them.  Edge2015 will be in Las Vegas, May 10-15, at the Venetian, a huge hotel that just happens to have a faux Venice canal running within it (and Vegas is in the desert, remember).

The following offers a brief summation of a few z Systems sessions that jumped out at me.  In the coming weeks Dancing Dinosaur will look at sessions on Storage, Power Systems, cross-platform sessions, and middleware. IBM bills Edge2015 as the Infrastructure Innovation Conference so this blog will try at least to touch on bits of all of it. Am including the session numbers and presenters but please note that session and presenters may change.

Courtesy of IBM (click to enlarge)

Session zBA1909; Mobile and Analytics Collide – A New Tipping Point; presenter Mark Simmonds

DancingDinosaur starting following mobile on z in 2012 and was reporting IBM mobile successes as recently as last month, click here. In this session Simmonds observes organizations being driven to deliver more insight and smarter outcomes in pursuit of increasing revenue and profit while lowering business costs and risks. The ubiquity of mobile devices adds two important dimensions to business analytics, the time and location of customers. Now you have an opportunity to leverage both via the mobile channel but only if your analytics strategy can respond to the demands of the mobile moment. At this session you’ll see how customers are using IBM solutions and the z to deliver business critical insight across the mobile community and hear how organizations are setting themselves apart by delivering near real-time analytics.

Session zBA1822; Hadoop and z Systems; presenter Alan Fellwock

DancingDinosaur looked at Hadoop on z as early as 2011. At that point it was mainly an evolving promise. By this past fall it had gotten real, click here.  In this session, Fellwock notes that various use cases are emerging that require Hadoop processing in conjunction with z Systems. In one category, the data originates on the z Systems platform itself—this could be semi-structured or unstructured data held in DB2 z/OS, VSAM or log files in z/OS. In another category, the data originates outside z Systems –this could be social media data, email, machine data, etc.—but needs to be integrated with core data on z Systems. Security and z Systems governance becomes critical for use cases where data originates on z Systems. There are several z Hadoop approaches available, ranging from Hadoop on Linux to an outboard Hadoop cluster under z governance to a cloud model that integrates with SoftLayer.

Session zAD1876; Bluemix to Mainframe – Making Development Accessible in the Cloud; presenter Rosalind Radcliffe

Cloud capability and technology is changing the way enterprises go to market. DancingDinosaur interviewed Radcliffe for a posting on DevOps for the mainframe in March. DevOps is about bringing the entire organization together, including development and operations, to more efficiently deliver business value be it on premise, off premise, or in a hybrid cloud environment. This session promises to explore how IBM DevOps solutions can transform the enterprise into a high quality application factory by leveraging technology across platforms and exploiting both systems of record and systems of engagement applications. It will show how to easily expose your important data and customer applications to drive innovation in a nimble, responsive way, maintaining the logic and integrity of your time-tested systems.

Session zAD1620; APIs to the Enterprise: Unlocking Mainframe Assets for Mobile and Cloud Applications; presenter Asit Dan

The emergence of APIs has changed how organizations build innovative mobile and web applications, enter new markets, and integrate with cloud and third party applications. DancingDinosaur generally refers to this as the API economy and it will become only more important going forward. IBM z Systems data centers have valuable assets that support core business functions. Now they can leverage these assets by exposing them as APIs for both internal and external consumption. With the help of IBM API Management, these organizations can govern the way APIs are consumed and get detailed analytics on the success of the APIs and applications that are consuming them. This session shows how companies can expose z Systems based functions as APIs creating new business opportunities.

Session zAD1469; Java 8 on IBM z13 – An Unstoppable Force Meets an Immovable Object; presenter Elton De Souza

What happens when you combine the most powerful commercially available machine on the planet with the latest iteration of the most popular programming language on the planet? An up to 50% throughput improvement for your generic applications and up to 2x throughput improvement for your security-enabled applications – that’s what! This session covers innovation and performance of Java 8 and IBM z13. With features such as SMT, SIMD and cryptographic extensions (CPACF) exploitation, IBM z Systems is once again pushing the envelope on Java performance. Java 8 is packed with features such as lambdas and streams along with improved performance, RAS and monitoring that continues a long roadmap of innovation and integration with z Systems. Expect to hear a lot about z13 at Edge2015.

Of course, there is more at Edge2015 than just z Systems sessions. There also is free evening entertainment. This year the headliner act is Penn & Teller, a pair of magicians. DancingDinosaur’s favorite, however, is Grace Potter, who delivers terrific hard rock and roll. Check her out here.

DancingDinosaur is Alan Radding, a veteran IT analyst and writer. Follow DancingDinosaur on Twitter, @mainframeblog. See more of his IT writing on Technologywriter.com and here. And join DancingDinsosaur at IBM Edge2015. You will find me hanging out wherever people gather around available power outlets to recharge mobile devices.