Creating z/OS images

After you create components from IBM Z® mainframe system or existing z/OS instances, you can create z/OS® images by combining the created components into a single package. Then, you can deploy the images to IBM Cloud VPC.

An image is a collection of components that are packaged together from your source environment for deploying to your target environment. When you create an image, you must select to include one component of type system residence volume and any number of other components that represent your application or application data from the source environment.

To create an image, complete the following steps:
  1. Select an IBM Z mainframe or an existing z/OS instance that you want to connect from the drop-down menu in the SOURCE ENVIRONMENT pane.
  2. Click Create images on the home page. Or, click the Images tab on the header, and click Create image.
  3. Enter a unique name that can be used to recognize the z/OS image.
  4. Optional: Enter some notes that can help you identify the image.
  5. Select the components and versions that you want to include in the image. If the data sets included in the selected components are related to user catalogs that are not part of the image, a warning message is displayed. Update components to ensure that the necessary user catalogs are extracted and included.
    Note: An image must contain at least one and only one component that contains your system residence volumes and any number of other components that might represent your application, application data, or any number of subsystems such as CICS® or IMS.
  6. Click Show number items selected to verify the components that are selected to create your image. Then, click Create image.

Configuring image properties

To deploy custom images to IBM Cloud®, you need to edit the image to match the configuration by completing the following steps:

  1. In the Images (from source environment) table, find the image that you created.
  2. Click the Edit icon , and then select Edit advanced image properties.
  3. Under IPL properties, change the LOADxx suffix to the suffix that you produced.
  4. Validate that the SYSRES device number and IODF device number are correct. The numbers are used by Wazi as a Service to build the IPL statement.
  5. Click Next to check the networking settings, and then click Save.

For more information, see Monitoring and managing the created images.