I recently came across an open source project for z/OS platform called Zowe, I was amazed to see its community around the world and the quality of work they are putting in. It’s an OMP – Open Mainframe Project initiative and a masterpiece when it comes to integration with modern enterprise applications via API Mediation Layer and Zowe CLI. As per their web portal https://zowe.org/home/ is now production ready in less than six months after its launch.
The Zowe got tremendous community response with more than 1,700 beta downloads and over 700 members of project’s communication tool (almost 220 daily active users) and more than 50 committers.
The Big iron, is set to breathe new life into many industries, according to John Mertic, Director of Program Management of The Linux Foundation and the OMP. As he said “Zowe breathes new life into mainframes and offer innovative possibilities for next generation application. With Zowe 1.0, we are developing secure, reliable and scalable computing that will ensure the sustainability of mainframes for many years to come.”
The real fun: Any Organization, Enterprise or developer can access the Zowe source code and conveniently build and incorporate it into their own projects, products or services with the agility and scalability like a cloud platform.
At heart Zowe 1.0, enables modern interfaces for Web Applications on z/OS, a new command line interface along with the expansion of the platform’s REST APIs capabilities. This make the z/OS environment more like cloud also intended to facilitate integration in hybrid cloud environments, which is a must for next generation mainframe infrastructure.
A ingeniously designed Zowe framework provides interoperability, while using the latest web technologies among products and solutions currently available. The added advantage of using the familiar, industry-standard, open source tools to access mainframe resources and services.
As its association with Linux Foundation the OMP is getting huge support from business and academic leaders along with the SME of the mainframe community to collaborate and develop shared tool chain, toolsets, APIs and development resources.
This new framework will enable the opportunity to infuse the best of both worlds, which are intended to provide, intuitive environment, simple integration for verity of IT Professionals for performing migration, administrative, development and testing with operational task managed by API integration for maximum automation.
