IBM z/OS Cloud Broker Everything you need to get started quickly. Get started - Play overview Transcript
IBM® z/OS® Cloud Broker provides access to z/OS® resources and services from Red Hat® OpenShift® Container Platform, which enables you to integrate your z/OS infrastructure with hybrid multi-cloud environments and strategies. By using z/OS Cloud Broker, cloud administrators and system programmers can expose z/OS resources in the OpenShift Container Platform catalog, so that developers can interact directly with z/OS resources. IBM z/OS Cloud Broker is packaged in the IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack™ which enables application owners and IT architects, in both medium to large mainframe enterprises, to jumpstart application modernization and IT automation faster, with less cost and risk. Related solution IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack

A single flexible platform with the common tools and capabilities to modernize z/OS® environments and applications.

Big picture 1. Install z/OS® software into your system from Red Hat® OpenShift® Container Platform. 2. Manage z/OS® software from a single control plane in Red Hat® OpenShift® Container Platform, while utilizing modern dev-ops practices, and without needing extensive z/OS knowledge. 3. Maintain full visibility and control of your z/OS® resources through z/OS Cloud Broker, while never losing oversight of your system. 4. Enable application developers to easily access z/OS® resources from the OpenShift® Container Platform catalog, regardless of their experience level with mainframe development. How to get started
What is IBM® z/OS® Cloud Broker?

IBM® z/OS® Cloud Broker is a software product that provides access to z/OS resources and services from Red Hat® OpenShift® Container Platform, which enables you to integrate your z/OS infrastructure with hybrid multi-cloud environments and strategies.

Learn more about z/OS Cloud Broker architecture
How does IBM® z/OS® Cloud Broker work?

IBM® z/OS Cloud Broker provides an operator, which is built from the Red Hat® and Kubernetes Operator Framework. Operators are pieces of software that ease the operational complexity of running and maintaining applications and services in a Kubernetes cluster.

z/OS Cloud Broker leverages Red Hat® Ansible automation to enable the implementation of stateful management of z/OS® resources and operations through a single control plane in Red Hat® OpenShift® Container Platform.

By using z/OS Cloud Broker, cloud administrators and system programmers can expose z/OS resources in the OpenShift Container Platform catalog. Application developers can then access, the z/OS resources from the catalog, without deep mainframe expertise. In this way, z/OS Cloud Broker allows for direct interaction with z/OS resources, and it empowers developers to use z/OS in a cloud-native way.

Learn more about Red Hat® OpenShift® Container Platform Learn more about operators Learn more about Ansible for z/OS Cloud Broker
System requirements

Before you install IBM® z/OS® Cloud Broker, you must meet the system and deployment requirements for OpenShift® Container Platform:

  • x86 or Linux on IBM Z server that runs OpenShift Container Platform
  • EC12 or higher IBM Z hardware
  • OpenShift Container Platform 4.9 or higher
  • z/OS 2.3 or higher
Learn more about z/OS Cloud Broker system requirements
Deployment requirements

Make sure you have installed the OpenShift® command line tool. If you are using an OpenShift cluster that was deployed with the IBM Kubernetes Service, follow the instruction to install the OpenShift Origin CLI (oc) that includes a matching version of the Kubernetes CLI (kubectl).

Read about how developers can create and work with a service instance here:

How to install the OpenShift CLI How to install the OpenShift Origin CLI
Install IBM® z/OS® Cloud Broker

Install the z/OS® Cloud Broker operator by using the administrator role in the Red Hat® OpenShift® Container Platform web console. To install z/OS Cloud Broker, you must be granted the cluster-admin ClusterRole by using a ClusterRoleBinding. Only a cluster-admin role user can grant other users the cluster-admin access.

After you've installed z/OS Cloud Broker, set up your storage by creating a persistent volume claim (PVC), then create an instance of z/OS Cloud Broker by creating a ZosCloudBroker custom resource (CR) in OpenShift Container Platform.

How to grant role based access control authorization How to install z/OS Cloud Broker How to create OpenShift Container Platform storage for z/OS Cloud Broker How to create a z/OS Cloud Broker instance
Configure IBM® z/OS® Cloud Broker

Before you can begin creating and managing z/OS® resources from OpenShift® Container Platform, you need to configure z/OS Cloud Broker to use Ansible by doing the following:

  1. Create your z/OS endpoint(s)
  2. Import your operator collection
  3. Map your z/OS endpoint(s) to your operator collection

Note: An SSH key is required when you import an operator collection into IBM z/OS Cloud Broker and map the collection to z/OS endpoints. The SSH key is used to authenticate connections to the specified endpoints.

How to import an operator collection How to create SSH keys for z/OS Cloud Broker
Use z/OS® resources and services

With z/OS® Cloud Broker, you can install and manage z/OS resources by creating instances of z/OS software on RedHat® OpenShift®. Through the z/OS® Cloud Broker user interface, a system programmer can import and configure an operator collection. Using the administrator role on OpenShift® Container Platform web console, a system programmer has access to more detailed information about z/OS Cloud Broker and the “sub-operators“. With the administrator role, system programmers can also access the z/OS Cloud Broker URL and install z/OS software onto z/OS by creating an instance.

How to create and use z/OS resources on OpenShift Container Platform How to manage z/OS resources on OpenShift Container Platform
Documentation IBM Documentation

Learn more about how to get started with z/OS Cloud Broker.

Read the documentation.
Technical resources Community page

Become part of the z/OS Cloud Broker community and join in the discussion.

Explore the community page
Operator collection tutorial

Experience a guided walk-through of how to build a new operator collection that performs RACF user management against a z/OS environment.

Try the tutorial
IBM modernization blog

Learn about how modernizing and innovating on IBM Z just got a lot easier with the new release of the IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack.

Read the blog post
IBM modernization blog

Learn about how to harness the potential of the IBM operator collection SDK and Ansible Lightspeed with IBM Watson Code Assistant.

Read the blog post
Operator collection tutorial videos

Watch the two-part tutorial video on how to build a new operator collection that performs RACF user management against a z/OS environment.

Watch the video
z/OS Cloud Broker Overview

See an overview of how z/OS Cloud Broker gives application developers access to z/OS resources for rapid, cloud-native, development.

Watch the overview video
z/OS Cloud Broker Db2 Use Case

Learn about running digital banking applications on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform with Db2 for z/OS, accessible through z/OS Cloud Broker.

Watch the video
z/OS Cloud Broker CICS Use Case

Learn about creating a z/OS CICS Region to run Banking applications on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform through z/OS Cloud Broker.

Watch the video
z/OS Cloud Broker WLP Use Case

Learn how to create a WebSphere Liberty Profile (WLP) server from OpenShift Container Platform through z/OS Cloud Broker.

Watch the video
z/OS Cloud Broker z/OS Connect Use Case

Learn how to use the z/OS Cloud Broker to create a z/OS Connect instance and manage z/OS resources with a modern Continuous Integration pipeline.

Watch the video
Related solutions IBM Z and Cloud Modernization Stack

A single flexible platform with the common tools and capabilities to modernize z/OS® environments and applications.

Red Hat Ansible Certified Content for IBM Z

Automate IBM Z applications and IT infrastructure.

What's new

New blog posts and tutorial added to technical resources section.

New overview video added.

Page has been updated to reflect z/OS Cloud Broker version 2.1.

A link to the z/OS Cloud Broker community page was added to the 'Other resources' section.

Links to z/OS Cloud Broker documentation were changed to reflect the migration from Knowledge Center to IBM Documentation.

Transcript added for z/OS Cloud Broker overview video.

The Big Picture section has been modified for accessibility.

The link for Learn about how z/OS Cloud Broker enables z/OS resource consumption, on the Other resources tab in the Technical resources section, was updated to find the article in the archives of the new IBM Z Hot Topics website.

A new overview video was added. Watch the video here.

In the Technical resources section, a link was added to the Journey to Hybrid Cloud with IBM Z content solution.

z/OS Cloud Broker version 1.3.0 is now available. Page content has been updated to reflect version 1.3.0. Read the announcement letter here.

Added z/OS Cloud Broker z/OS Connect Use Case video to the multimedia tab in the technical resources section.

Added z/OS Cloud Broker WLP Use Case video to the multimedia tab in the technical resources section.

z/OS Cloud Broker version 1.2.0 now available with support for Cloud Foundry.

Overview video added to overview section.

OpenShift documentation now available in Knowledge Center.