The Great API Highway to Mainframe Modernization
By Samantha Buhler, Andrew Badgley, and Toine Michielse
Millions of people rely on interstate highways every day to take them from point A to point B. Typically, an easy search for directions on their map yields the optimal set of interconnected highways leading to their destination.
Most people opt for the fastest route without considering the relative safety of the path. This is because highways can withstand decades of active use and are subject to strict scrutiny to ensure public safety.
In many ways, the mainframe is much like these trusted highways, with overpasses and ramps that drivers take for granted every day. Just like highway interchanges, ripping and replacing is expensive, so updates are done in patches during periods when traffic is lightest. Major upgrades need to deliver significant value with minimal disruption because the mainframe supports critical enterprise business operations. This doesn’t mean modernization is out of reach for the mainframe, however. Planning should consider the mainframe’s critical role in online transaction processing, as well as the need to preserve security and stability in the face of change.
For these reasons, Broadcom recommends an approach to mainframe modernization that builds on targeted customer use cases and exposed through application programming interfaces (APIs).
APIs are the Building Blocks for Modernization
APIs are the connective tissue that enable underlying microservices to be consumed by software solutions. They essentially serve up responses to requests made by supported clients. In the case of the mainframe, APIs provide a window into select capabilities that previously were only accessible to the administrator who was well-versed in using 3270 terminals.
To ensure the mainframe continues to support critical business operations without issues arising, enterprises are increasingly looking to modernize their environments, while the baton for mainframe systems and database administration gets passed on to the next generation of professionals. Broadcom’s approach to helping enterprise customers address this challenge is with the “Embrace Open” initiatives that are enabled through APIs. To that end, Broadcom is delivering APIs that expose system and business data from mainframe databases, such as IDMS and Datacom, to help give customers timely insights into their systems. Broadcom has also architected REST services on top of the popular Db2 solutions to address the most common use cases for Db2 administration and performance management.
Many choices are available when it comes to API architecture and protocols. Broadcom decided to standardize on a microservices API architecture based on REST protocols to optimize for performance, while providing flexibility and scalability. In addition, by leveraging the Zowe API Mediation Layer (“API ML”)[1], guardrails are in place to provide stronger security posture as well as superior user experience for the API consumer. Figure 1 illustrates how API ML authenticates clients who want to call on mainframe services and then handles the routing of any ensuing client API requests to those API services.
Figure 1
Figure 2 depicts Broadcom’s DBM Data Service Architecture–the linchpin to delivering information mainframe Db2 administrators require to view and take actions as needed on their dashboard of choice. REST services along with networking, execution, and security management features are built on top of Db2 data management solutions to expose those capabilities for consumption by a host of Data Service clients. These clients include any supported web browser, Swagger, standard REST clients, Grafana dashboards, Zowe API catalog, and Zowe CLI. Under the continuous delivery model, we look to extend REST API coverage across our Db2 Tools portfolio and make them available at regular intervals.?
Figure 2
What Can You Build with Broadcom’s APIs?
As mentioned earlier, Broadcom’s Embrace Open approach has led to a proliferation of APIs that enables the API consumer to build interactive dashboards. These dashboards can provide mainframe administrators with insight at their fingertips to help ensure their databases and systems are operating at optimal conditions.
Let’s focus on the DBM Data Service Architecture. The REST Services run on USS, enabling the integration of Broadcom Db2 for z/OS solutions to be used with your choice of modern DevOps tooling. Our example will look to leverage multiple management and data retrieval endpoints provided by SYSVIEW for Db2 with Grafana to build robust and customizable Db2 performance dashboards. RESTful APIs can be easily consumed by various web-based applications with the potential requirement for some integration code. In the case of SYSVIEW for Db2, however, the performance data can be directly leveraged with Prometheus and Grafana open-source tools.
While many dashboard solutions are provided by the open-source community–e.g., Freeboard, Grafana, Moza?k, Kibana, Tipboard–we selected Grafana given its popularity and ease of use. Grafana runs on distributed platforms such as Linux, Windows, and Mac, but it can also run in a docker container. The power of Grafana resides in its visualization capabilities. Equipped with intuitive widgets to graph the performance data, the user can easily build and customize dashboards. Grafana does not include a data store, so an external repository is required. We chose Prometheus, an open-source time series database, for its robust capabilities and ease of integration with Grafana.
Prometheus collects the Db2 performance metrics provided by SYSVIEW for Db2 RESTful API at one-minute intervals. It stores the data locally in files or, if configured, can use external data targets such as PostgreSQL, Splunk, InfluxDB, and so on. Prometheus also provides a powerful Query Language to select and aggregate time series data in real time. The results of such query expressions are then used for the dashboard visualization.
In essence, our sample dashboard has three key components:
Figure 3 outlines how the three key components of our sample solution are integrated.
Figure 3
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On the mainframe side, we have SYSVIEW for Db2 data collectors that provide Db2 metrics to DBM Data Service. This is the REST API server that feeds performance data to the clients (see Figure 2). The service is Zowe conformant, and API ML can be used to consolidate multiple different API providers at the same URL location.
On the open-source side, we have Prometheus to regularly retrieve and store Db2 metrics and Grafana to visualizes the collected Db2 statistics. When we configure the three components together, the resulting dashboard is what you see in Figure 4. This example focuses on buffer pool statistics to help you determine when the different relevant thresholds are hit and require attention.?
Figure 4
How About Db2 for z/OS Schema Management?
Another area in which the DBM Data Service provides important APIs is schema management. The schema management APIs drive services provided by Broadcom’s RC/Migrator and RC/Compare programs, which are part of the Db2 Administration Suite.
To enable ease of consumption without coding, these REST APIs have been harnessed in the dbm-db2 Zowe plugin. Using the Zowe plugin, the services provided can now be invoked from a command line or a shell environment. Commands provided by the dbm-db2 plugin include generate ddl, check ddl, prepare migration, execute migration, and deploy.
So how can these “harnessed” REST APIs be used efficiently? An obvious use case is self-provisioning. The commands provided by the Zowe plugin enable developers to provision Db2 objects in their test environment in milliseconds. Furthermore, they can do so without waiting for a database administrator. The developer can simply determine which objects are needed and execute the commands from within the development environment–e.g., VSCode.
Figure 5 below illustrates what that process might look like.
Figure 5
Another common use case is to include Db2 for z/OS schema management in modern DevOps automation. For instance, by including deployment of schema changes in an orchestrator. A popular choice for this is Jenkins. The beauty of such automated processes is that they are robust, fast, and can be shaped to meet the needs of your IT operation.
The figure below shows an example implementation in which the impact of routine work on the database administrator’s valuable time is significantly reduced, freeing them up for higher value projects.
Figure 6
It is important to note in the above diagram that the database administrator will have the final decision in the review process. Of course, such a sample pipeline can be integrated with all kinds of verification like functional tests, compliance to standards, performance verification, and so on.
Keeping up with an Evolving IT Landscape
The mainframe’s ability to reinvent itself to meet the needs of an evolving IT landscape, while maintaining undisputed leadership in secure online transaction processing, is key to its ability to remain relevant for over seven decades. With the maturity of APIs, along with Broadcom’s approach for ensuring security, performance, and scalability of its API strategy, enterprise customers have the pieces they need to modernize in place.??
So, don’t wait to modernize. Contact your Broadcom representative and let’s work together to find the best route for your travels on the API highway to modernization.
Samantha Buhler is a Product Manager at Broadcom.
Andrew Badgley is a Product Owner at Broadcom.
Toine Michielse is a Solutions Architect at Broadcom.
Account Director, Broadcom Software | Modernise. Optimise. Protect.
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