IBM z/OS Connect is a low code tool for creating RESTful APIs that can be deployed to containerized servers or native servers to modernize your core applications and data for enterprise-wide API integration.

Developers can create scalable, secure RESTful APIs in minutes.

• Confidence that APIs being built will meet company, and industry standards.
• Rich functional mapping provides control over responses to the end user.

z/OS Connect provides access to core business-critical assets (SOR Asset) on IBM Z using the z/OS Connect API provider capability.

z/OS Connect provides access from IBM Z to RESTful APIs with JSON payloads using the z/OS Connect API requester capability.

In addition, z/OS Connect:

• Provides support for native server deployments on z/OS with world-class security through System Authorization Facility (SAF), real-time monitoring capability and detailed request information in SMF 123 records.
• Is supported on OCI-compliant Container Platforms with flexible deployment options:
  • Linux on Z and zCX
  • Linux on AMD64, to integrate on your cloud provider. For example, Red Hat OpenShift, AWS.
  • z/OS/s390x

Modernizing using APIs has never been easier. Depending on the type of API to be built, z/OS Connect has the following tooling to build the API you need:

1. Develop APIs with z/OS Connect Designer - a low-code, containerized, intuitive web-based tooling that has its own built-in development server for building and testing an API project. z/OS Connect Designer runs on a local development machine or in a cloud-native environment. z/OS Connect Designer implements the ‘meet in the middle’ approach where the user has both the OpenAPI 3 document, and the native language structures from an existing z/OS application.
2. Develop APIs with z/OS Connect API provider Gradle plug-in – if you only have the OpenAPI 3 document, the z/OS Connect API provider Gradle plug-ins generate the API provider project files and the native language structures to implement the API. For example, COBOL copybooks to write a new CICS COBOL application. This option uses what is called the ‘API First’ approach.
3. Call APIs with z/OS Connect API requester Gradle plug-in – call APIs by creating a z/OS Connect API requester project using the z/OS Connect requester Gradle plug-in. Update COBOL applications running on z/OS to call the API requester using the provided Host API. This uses the ‘API First’ approach and starts with an existing OpenAPI 3.0 definition.

The API provider project WAR files generated with the first two options can be deployed to any OCI-compliant container platform of your choice and to a z/OS native server deployment. The third option, the API requester project WAR files, can only be deployed to a z/OS native server deployment.

z/OS Connect Designer enables you to develop APIs in your own z/OS Connect development environment that contains an isolated z/OS Connect development server to build and test your API project all in the same development environment.

In a nutshell, the z/OS Connect Designer provides a new, intuitive, web-based development experience that enables an application developer to:

• Iteratively develop, build, and test APIs in isolation with the z/OS Connect development environment with its integrated z/OS Connect development server.
• Start by importing from an OpenAPI 3.0 definition.
• Use JSONata, a powerful data mapping and transformation language, to supercharge your API mapping.
• Edit and refactor project files at any point with any IDE and manage API project changes across your teams using your choice of source control management (SCM) systems.

z/OS Connect Designer can be deployed locally on your machine using image registries such as Podman, Rancher and Docker Desktop. Alternatively, the z/OS Connect Designer image can be deployed in a cloud native environment using Red Hat OpenShift Wazi DevSpaces {A developer tool that makes cloud-native development practical for teams, using Kubernetes and containers to provide any member of the developmen or IT team with a consistent, preconfigured development environment.} or Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces.

It's really easy to get started. If you have a container environment installed on your machine you can pull the z/OS Connect Designer image directly. For example, if you’re using Docker or Docker Desktop run the following where 3.0.76 is the latest version. (You can check out the latest version by looking at the change history:

docker run -it -p 9080:9080 -v $PWD:/workspace/project icr.io/zosconnect/ibm-zcon-designer:3.0.76
What are containers?

To learn more about z/OS Connect Designer there are the getting started tutorials and a series of 'how to' video tutorials. The z/OS Connect Getting Started tutorials and 'how-to' videos take you through using the z/OS Connect Designer with Docker Desktop to create a Sample API, defining the operations and rich mappings between an existing API definition and a z/OS System of Record (SoR) using JSONata expressions. Iteratively run and test your API within your project and when finished, checking it into SCM.

Develop APIs starting with an OpenAPI 3.0 definition and use the IBM z/OS Connect API provider Gradle plug-in, that is available on both the Gradle and Maven plug-in registries, to create, generate and build the API provider project artifacts. This is often referred to as the ‘API First’ approach, or ‘Top Down’ approach.

To create an API provider project with the z/OS Connect provider Gradle plug-in, you start with an existing OpenAPI 3.0 definition that describes the API to be implemented. Using the OpenAPI 3.0 definition, the Gradle build generates the following ‘outputs’ (artifacts):

• A complete API provider project where:
  • Each API operation path in the original OpenAPI 3.0 definition has its associated request and response code mapping.
  • The z/OS Assets required to call the z/OS program implementing the API and to transform the request and response data structures.
• An API provider project, that along with the IBM z/OS Connect Server image, is built to create an IBM z/OS Connect API image. This API image can be deployed to an OCI compliant container platform of your choice. The generated Web Application ARchive (WAR) file can alternatively be deployed into a z/OS Connect native server to activate the API provider.
• Language copybooks that are used in the z/OS applications to read the API request data, implement the API logic, and construct the API response data. When the copybooks are created, you can use them to develop the z/OS application that will implement the API.

To develop an API requester, create a z/OS Connect API requester project by using the z/OS Connect requester Gradle plug-in. You start with an existing OpenAPI 3.0 definition that describes the API to be called by the z/OS application. The Gradle build takes the OpenAPI 3 document as input and generates the following artifacts as output:.

Click the image to see how a z/OS application calls the API requester via the Host API.

The z/OS Connect Getting Started tutorials take you through using the z/OS Connect requester Gradle plug-in and helps you understand how to call an OpenAPI 3.0 API endpoint from your z/OS applications. There are two methods to create an application that uses the API requester, from a CICS application and from a z/OS application.

Deploy API's using cloud native DevSecOps best practices to benefit from shift left development and faster time to market.

Create an industry-standard continuous integration, continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline to implement a DevOps approach for cloud native or z/OS native deployments of APIs. Treat configuration as code allowing deployments to be managed as part of your delivery process.

The z/OS Connect Server is available in a containerized form for deployment on s390x or AMD64 to integrate with your cloud provider and provide automation using OCI containers and industry standard platforms such as Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift. The z/OS Connect Server is also available as an SMP/E install on native z/OS to integrate alongside your core applications. Both deployments offer:

• Decentralized ownership of API integrations
• Role-based security caters for different user profiles.

Create a pipeline using a z/OS Connect API project from source code management (SCM) to a deployed, callable API. A pipeline allows you to customize server configuration and security according to your target deployment environment.

To learn more about building, deploying, and administering API projects in a Container Platform, see z/OS Connect Server DevOps overview. To learn more about the native server deployments, see z/OS Connect native server DevOps overview.

Integrate seamlessly with your existing CI/CD pipelines. Learn how to manage your running z/OS Connect APIs within your OCI-compliant Container Platform or, with your z/OS native server deployment.

Use Prometheus and Grafana to monitor z/OS Connect APIs using the metrics endpoints provided in any z/OS Connect Server deployment.

In addition, z/OS Connect native servers provide monitoring data that enables operational analysis, auditing and tracking of requests through deploying a third-party monitoring interceptor or using the z/OS Connect audit interceptor to capture SMF 123 records. For more information, see Monitoring a z/OS Connect native server.

Exploit flexibility to scale according to real-time demand, to handle large volumes of API requests without the need to change configuration or risk of outage. For more information on high availability with containerized deployments, see z/OS Connect Server image high availability, and for native server deployments see z/OS Connect native server high availability.

IBM z/OS Connect security can operate with Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), open standards such as Transport Layer Security (TLS), and with third-party authentication JSON Web Tokens (JWT) and, when running a native server on z/OS, traditional z/OS security such as SAF.

Implement secure, enterprise-grade APIs that utilize security schemes provided by the OpenAPI 3.0 specification to deliver granular control of user authorization at the API operation level.

Use z/OS Connect to retrieve OAuth 2.0 or other access tokens required for security on your API requester endpoints.