API connectivity to Mainframe

API connectivity to Mainframe

Shivani Raina Shivani Raina

Shivani Raina

Published May 22, 2020
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A few years ago, it was unheard of that you can connect to Mainframe via restful APIs. Comman ways to connect were CTG gateway, IMS connect, JDBC and the good old TN3270. With the emergence of z/OS Connect, everything changes and takes a spin.

z/OS connect is a simple restful call to mainframe backend environment. One stop shop for extracting data via CICS, IMS, DB2 and Batch with no additional servlets required.

Benefits:

  • Decouple Mainframe applications and align with Platform Independent API strategy.
  • API metrics and secure connectivity to mainframe environment.
  • Allows Individual level authentication and authorization
  • Simplifies the design by reducing additional development cost effort to connect to mainframe environment
  • Reduces MIPS(expensive) and transfers workload to zIIP processors(1/10th of the cost of MIPS).

Caution: 

  • While creating APIs it is very necessary to ensure it is less amount of data and can be used as small building blocks or micro services. 
  • One needs to avoid building monolithic APIs at all cost.

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