Developing with IBM Wazi for Dev Spaces

IBM Wazi for Dev Spaces is a development environment that provides an in-browser IDE that you can use to code, build, test, debug, and run applications from any machine. It provides a single-click developer workspace and eliminates local environment configuration.

IBM Wazi for Dev Spaces is built on the Red Hat® CodeReady Workspaces project. The core functionality for Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces is provided by an open source project called Eclipse Che. IBM Wazi for Dev Spaces uses Kubernetes and containers to provide your team with a consistent, secure, and zero-configuration development environment that interacts with your IBM Z® platform.

IBM Wazi for Dev Spaces provides a modern experience for mainframe software developers working with z/OS applications in the cloud. Powered by the open source projects Zowe™ and Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces, IBM Wazi for Dev Spaces offers an easy, streamlined onboarding process to provide mainframe developers with the tools they need. Using container technology, IBM Wazi for Dev Spaces brings the necessary tools to the task at hand.

By using the IBM Wazi for Dev Spaces stack with custom plug-in and devfile registry support, mainframe developers can now have the all-in-one mainframe development package that includes the following capabilities:

• Rich language support for COBOL, PL/I, HLASM, REXX, and JCL using IBM Z Open Editor

• Connectivity to Z host via a command-line interface or GUI

• Building COBOL, PL/I, and HLASM programs with user build

IBM Wazi for Dev Spaces provides a custom stack with the all-in-one mainframe development package that enables mainframe developers to:

• Use a modern mainframe editor with rich language support for COBOL, JCL, Assembler (HLASM), REXX, and PL/I, which provides language-specific features such as syntax highlighting, outline view, declaration hovering, code completion, snippets, a preview of copybooks, copybook navigation, and basic refactoring using IBM Z Open Editor, a component of IBM Wazi for VS Code

• Integrate with any flavor of Git source code management (SCM)

• Perform a user build with IBM Dependency Based Build for any flavor of Git

• Work with z/OS resources such as MVS, UNIX files, and JES jobs

• Connect to the Z host with z/OSMF or IBM Remote System Explorer (RSE) API, using Zowe Explorer plus IBM Z Open Editor for a graphical user interface and Zowe CLI plus the RSE API plug-in for Zowe CLI for command line access

• Debug COBOL and PL/I applications using IBM Z Open Debug

• Use a mainframe development package with a custom plug-in and devfile registry support from the IBM Wazi stack

• Leverage the full language support for Ansible and Red Hat Ansible Certified Content for IBM Z to author and execute playbooks to configure z/OS for development. Automate the deployment and configuration of tools and dependencies such as build, test and debug, to quickly build, deploy and run your applications.

What if you, as a developer, could just join a project by getting access and logging on to a website? After you log in, the source code, access to z/OS, and the development environment that is required for maintaining the project would just be there and you can just dive in?

Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces is an open source platform built to realize this vision. It was built to make development environments uniformly accessible for development teams, by providing one-click developer workspaces and eliminating the need for local environment configurations. IBM Wazi for Dev Spaces leverages this for z/OS mainframe application development by using z/OS connectivity features, such as the ones provided by the Zowe open source project.

You can run IBM Wazi for Dev Spaces in the public or private cloud, in an OpenShift Container Platform (OCP). Built for extensibility, IBM Wazi for Dev Spaces allows organizations to create additional enhancements or features tailored to the needs of their development teams.

IBM Wazi for Dev Spaces, which is built on the Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces project, inherits existing components including Keycloak (RH-SSO) and the CodeReady Dashboard. IBM Wazi for Dev Spaces customizes the plug-in and devfile registries to deliver a modern mainframe development experience to software developers.