I have always been a big fan of the human side of our business—the creative and brilliant people who work to create code that makes everyone’s’ lives that much easier. These people, the developers, work behind the scenes, and their passion for their craft is something that the rest of us have truly benefitted from, because, frankly, development is not easy. As such, it is a joy to be part of one of the latest initiatives from BMC Compuware as it morphs into BMC AMI—a concerted focus on the mainframe developer experience, which we call DevX. I feel it will be a game changer. In fact, it already is.

The BMC AMI approach to Mainframe DevX is a collective experience, not just one feature. It is a result of our focus on automation and integration, an open-borders strategy, and the reduction of development toil and grunt work to deliver a positive and engaging experience for developers—one that enhances the pleasure of being a skilled technician in the development of code, while removing or reducing the less enjoyable parts, time-consuming tasks, and above all, error.

We have doubled down on our drive for continuous DevX improvement, not only through modern integrated development environments (IDEs), modern source code management (SCM), and test automation, but also through products like BMC AMI zAdviser, along with metrics and tools that measure productivity in ways designed to enhance the life of developers and improve their experience.

Mainframe developers have always been a resilient bunch, focusing on developing and delivering reliable, high-quality code using a collection of techniques and approaches. The expectations and professional desires among mainframe developers are evolving, too, not only among those with decades of experience, but also among younger developers who are eager to make their mark and stretch their skills.

For them, and for the marketplace that benefits from mainframe technologies, the formula is quite straightforward: top-quality, leading-edge code comes from a developer environment that maximizes engagement and innovation among its professionals, and BMC AMI has stepped up to take the lead in this venture. It all gets down to this: happy developers are productive developers. Happy developers are innovative developers. Happy developers stay with their companies. If you make working at your company and developing your solutions a delight, then the sky’s the limit to what your team can accomplish.

Today, BMC has officially retired the BMC Compuware name and is adding those products to the BMC AMI family. Underneath the BMC AMI umbrella, a new portfolio of DevOps and DevX solutions are now available, called BMC AMI DevX. The new name is intended to reflect that the cultural and procedural changes that support Mainframe DevX are truly incorporated into everything the company does.

It’s new in the sense that a heightened focus on DevX has not always been front and center in the software industry (or the mainframe). But, in my observations, a better description would be “new and improved,” meaning that new approaches to DevX have vastly improved the overall process of code development and will help other organizations reach the full potential of their mainframe DevOps initiatives.

Here are some key facts on DevX:

BMC AMI DevX leverages emerging technologies and extensive automation to help developers innovate faster. The tools streamline all aspects of the developer experience—developers can easily move from coding and editing to testing, debugging, promotion, and deployment, all without leaving their preferred environment. When using our Mainframe DevX solutions, the business impacts are significant, as noted in this Forrester TEI report:

• Developer productivity increased by 175 percent
• Release frequency increased by 600 percent
• Developer onboarding time shortened by 50 percent

The evolution towards this new and improved state has been underway for some time. BMC AMI DevX is not so much the start of something, but the culmination of a great deal of work, redesign, and deployment that has already been going on in specific areas such as Virtual Studio (VS) Code, DORA Metrics, Code Debug, and many other testing tools. In fact, there are so many things that we have already delivered over the past year that the name announcement of BMC AMI DevX is an opportunity for us to show you where we have already been taking you with our innovations, and what the future is going to look like.

Some of the new features announced with BMC AMI DevX include:

• Impact Analysis Search to discover critical interdependencies when updating code
• Agile SCM in the VS Code environment to enable concurrent development without risk
• Automated CICS debug configurations within VS Code for a seamless experience without the risk of human error
• Automated Failure Alerts with diagnostics delivered directly to Slack or Teams to speed mean time to recovery (MTTR)
• Runaway Abend Alerts to notify operations teams when failures reach a critical threshold impacting multiple users
• Database Schema Change Dashboard with analytics to continuously improve the delivery of database schema changes and reduce rollbacks

Equally important benefits include:

• A modern IDE with automated analysis and an intuitive editing experience
• A modern SCM that enables concurrent development tied into continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines
• Shift-Left testing to find and fix defects earlier in the development lifecycle
• Ruthless automation to handle repetitive tasks so developers can innovate

I’ve discovered during my time working in this business that evolution is vital for any organization, and the way that BMC has done this, walking the walk and talking the talk before making the name change, demonstrates more than just a commitment to better DevX. What we are saying is, “Here’s what we have already done to make your profession even more engaging and satisfying, now come and join the party.”

This is a powerful endorsement of the capacity of mainframe developers to continue to care for the engine that drives so much of peoples’ lives today, and I am thrilled to be associated with the name change quite simply because of what it already stands for. Learn more at www.bmc.com/improveDevX or by watching this video.

The role of the mainframe as the central engine of commerce and data management in the 21^st century is without dispute. The key to mainframe modernization is the improvement of DevOps practices through modern tooling and interfaces; most specifically, through automation. As many organizations implement DevOps practices but still fail to scale adoption, many believe that automation can help.  A recent Forrester report on the state of mainframe DevOps, Developing Your Modern Mainframe Strategy, found that 71 percent of organizations agree that automation is key to mainframe modernization.

There are many repetitive tasks involved in developing code for the mainframe, and although experienced developers have been doing this manually for decades, this is not optimal, especially when there are intelligent tools to do the job. Embracing these tools has numerous benefits:

• First, it relieves developers of having to do grunt work like manual testing, manual code checks, change ticket requests, and TPS reports, and focus instead on the work they enjoy doing.
• This, in turn, makes mainframe work more attractive to the next generations of developers who are deciding where they want to apply their skills.
• Automated processes vastly improve quality control, allowing for testing much earlier in the lifecycle with more effective approaches, such as improved code coverage, ensuring a higher quality product is released into production.
• Speed is also an issue, especially when working in conjunction with developers who are creating parallel or corollary products for the distributed environment. No one wants mainframe to be the laggard in an ever-accelerating production process.

We must place greater focus on developer experience. Often with DevOps, the focus is on pipelines, and little thought is given to its effect on the developer. Tedium, paired with deadline pressure, is never a good mix. Although the power of automation does directly apply itself to the pipeline in the workflow, it is vital that management considers how it affects and benefits the developer, too.

This should be an easy connection to make. The same Forrester study found that 53 percent of decision makers are now prioritizing automation of repetitive tasks to free up time for their developers to innovate. They recognize that modernizing the mainframe means speeding things up while ensuring better quality. That’s not possible if they continue to do things the old way. But when developers see they can do more in the same amount of time, with the same or less effort, efficiency goes up. Twenty story points in one sprint becomes 25 or 30 or 35 in the next, with no need to work weekends and extra hours.

Developers love to develop—to work on solutions, create cool capabilities, and innovate on the applications. This is the passion of their work, and it is central to attracting and retaining great talent, as well as rejuvenating older talent. We’re in an era in which professionals of all ages are far more aware of their career options and career mobility, and are much more willing to move on, or “quiet quit,” than ever before. Others may feel that automation will threaten their jobs, but in reality, it lifts a burden from them rather than replacing them. They, too, become more empowered, since they get more time for innovation, while remaining fully confident that code, being overseen by automated tests, is of top quality.

This also relieves companies of the need to maximize the potential, the output, and the profitability of the developers they already have. Let them focus on more lucrative projects, and let automation handle the basic work, what some call toil, more quickly, more effectively and more economically. In short, automation fulfills the DevOps paradigm in the same way that ongoing technical innovation empowered the four industrial revolutions of recent history.

BMC AMI DevX has always been on the leading edge of automation for the same reasons. As the marketplace has evolved and as technology has evolved, so have we. We develop integration technologies such as REST APIs, command line interfaces, and native plug-ins for DevOps tools, which are open and compatible for an enormous range of systems.  Following are some of the new features now available:

• BMC AMI DevX Total Test extensions for GitHub Actions and Azure DevOps enables developers to shift left by running CI/CD test workflows immediately after updating a piece of code to deploy code changes faster while ensuring better code coverage.
• BMC AMI DevX Data Studio plugin for Jenkins ensures that developers are using the right data for automated tests to avoid test failures that slow the process of the CI/CD pipeline. Leverage repeatable and dependable test environments that enable tests to be run more frequently delivering higher quality applications.
• BMC AMI DevX Code Pipeline Source Code Downloader extension for Azure DevOps empowers developers to easily download source code from ISPW and save time by automating code quality checks.
• BMC AMI DevX Code Pipeline Operations extension for Azure DevOps enables faster setting up of CI/CD pipelines by allowing developers to easily automate common ISPW operations such as Generate, Promote, Deploy, or Regress on the mainframe.

This is part of what we call our Open Ecosystems approach, and ultimately this becomes the basis for the ongoing success of the mainframe.

Listen to our podcast, Liberate Mainframe Developers by Automating Repetitive Tasks, to hear more expertise on mainframe modernization through automation, featuring our BMC DevOps evangelists: Lead Product Manager Mark Schettenhelm, Senior Solution Engineer Manoj Singh, and DevOps Architect Tony Anter.

The mainframe is a central and vital technology for the digital global economy of the 2020s and beyond, highly valued chiefly for its performance, reliability, and security. This has been enabled by the integration of the mainframe’s DevOps practices with other computing environments as part of an agile approach to software development.

But to reach the full potential of DevOps for the mainframe, organizations must also offer a modern developer experience to the current and next generation of developers—one that provides the right tools and training to help them progress, be successful, and feel satisfied in their roles. To attract and retain developers, you must provide them with an improved developer experience we call “DevX.”

The Mainframe DevX Factor

DevX is to developers what user experience (UX) is to users and customers: it comes from a coherent functionality that creates an overall positive experience. In the business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) worlds, we often assess the quality of a product by its UX, such as the speed at which a phone or computer boots up, the ease of use of the buttons and features, and the overall ergonomic relationship between the device and the user. An excellent UX can make products enormously successful, whereas a poor UX will cause products to flounder and disappear from the market.

Regarding the future of the mainframe, DevX helps solve a problem inherent in the current DevOps toolchain: too many distinct phases and tools.

In many cases, a DevOps toolchain is a patchwork of products and services from different suppliers, and it is up to developers to build and maintain that toolchain. Ultimately, developers are pulled away from writing code—the activity they are employed to do in the first place—and must instead dedicate valuable time and resources toward understanding and managing issues associated with highly complex toolchains that are often being held together by nothing more than “duct tape and wire.” This creates a huge chasm between expectations and reality. A bridge across that chasm needs to be built for organizations to gain the complete benefits of DevOps.

This bridge is formed by tools like Eclipse and Jenkins plugins, Visual Studio (VS) Code, Azure DevOps, and GitHub extensions that enable your current mainframe solutions to fit smoothly into the enterprise DevOps toolchain.

Modernizing the mainframe developer experience for next generation developers

A recent Forrester study commissioned by BMC, Developing Your Modern Mainframe Strategy, found that organizations that focus on modernizing mainframe development tools with DevOps processes saw significant improvement in the developer experience, translating into an 18 percent reduction in costs and a 28 percent increase in development velocity. This is doubly important since we must ensure an improved overall environment for DevOps. By improving the developer experience with modern tools, organizations are better suited to attract and retain the next generation of developers and replace developers who change roles or retire.

The Forrester study found that 80 percent of respondents agreed that putting the proper tools in the proper hands and functions is essential to modernizing the mainframe. The emphasis for these organizations has clearly shifted to DevOps for the mainframe—both the organizational changes and the automated tools necessary to make DevOps work and free up time for developers and operators. Seventy-one percent cite automation, and specifically automating repetitive tasks to free up time for developers and operators, as their organizations’ top priority to further their modernization efforts.

Mainframe development is complex; no single tool does everything; and many new developers aren’t familiar with the platform and its languages and tools. To attract the best people, it is necessary to offer them an optimal environment in which to perform the tasks, empower them with the tools they prefer, and deliver an attractive and intuitive integrated developer environment (IDE).

Drudgery may have been both expected and accepted by previous generations; but in the era of the Great Resignation and Great Reshuffle, “quiet quitting,” and the desire among many to work from home, employees’ awareness of and confidence in determining their careers is both an opportunity and a threat. If it takes a company six or nine months to train new hires to a state of productivity, the risk of them growing frustrated and leaving is high. However, an environment that leverages more recent tools and allows new recruits to work on satisfying projects more quickly is better suited to deliver an engaged and dedicated upskilled team.

Creating better DevX will influence your ability to attract new people and enhance your ability to hold on to, empower, and upskill the teams you already have.

DevX is not a single tool—it’s a concept that helps developers achieve DevOps and perform their tasks more quickly and efficiently by easily accessing a feature to help with debugging or performance testing and making tasks repeatable with less chance of human error. Similarly, the DevX experience from BMC is not a single tool but a collection of tools and processes that will help developers connect to VS Code, Git, and other best-in-class tools, and provide an all-inclusive dashboard to access everything easily without assembling manually. It will also enable organizations to align the DevOps toolchain and share distributed and mainframe application development tools across their entire infrastructure—which is a goal for more than 80 percent of the organizations surveyed.

As just one specific product example, BMC AMI DevX Workbench for VS Code empowers developers to create programs, investigate issues, and debug code to support business drivers efficiently. It integrates with key distributed and mainframe platform tools and allows developers to move seamlessly from task to task. With DevX Workbench for VS Code, mainframe teams can extend the value of every program across the organization by making them more maintainable.

Ultimately, DevX is about achieving the primary goals of DevOps by delivering a critical future-forward component. To hear more about the developer experience and BMC AMI DevX Workbench for VS Code, tune in to “The Modern Developer Experience, Part 1” on the Modern Mainframe podcast.

The history of the mainframe is a long one, and it’s far from over. While today’s computing industry is largely focused on cloud- and web-based apps, the mainframe has continued to act as both the backbone and muscle. The platform has continuously improved and modernized its development and testing processes to equal or surpass those on the distributed side, and now it’s doing it again in a big way.

While the mainframe has been reliably supporting data processes in the background, the developers and specialists on the distributed side have increasingly turned to Git as their environment of choice. Now, mainframe development organizations are choosing Git, which is good news for developers and customers alike.

Welcome to the world of Git

Git has already proven itself as practical and worthwhile for version control and colocation of assets; it’s also extremely popular—almost universally adopted—and is also well-known among the latest generation of IT specialists. Mainframe applications have also found a suitable place within this dynamic Git environment, making the next transformation of the mainframe straightforward and extremely practical.

In addition to being an optimal repository for source code management (SCM), Git offers the mainframe culture the opportunity to emerge from “behind a wall,” better reflecting its position as a central driver of modern industry, joining in with other IT players including cloud, mobile, web, and back-end Java, which all have Git in common.

Git is not a one-stop solution, of course. Out of the three distinct “pillars”—SCM, build management, and deployment management, Git only serves the first. But this is where further good news happens. BMC AMI DevX Code Pipeline has long been a key asset in the mainframe software development lifecycle. As a software configuration management solution, it is central to continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD). Instead of leaving people out in the cold when completing the remainder of the development lifecycle, ISPW coordinates the other two pillars with a simple right-click of the mouse. This pairing of BMC AMI DevX Code Pipeline addresses the very real priority of moving to Git while also completing and protecting the existing development lifecycle.

One size does not fit all

We find this to be doubly ideal, since it not only capitalizes on the respective strengths of both solutions, it also helps address the varying needs of customers where one size does not fit all. For example, in some cases, you might have a development team that understands Git, already knows what it is going to do with the application code, and has a software delivery lifecycle to deploy to production. For this group, Git is an ideal option.

However, there may also be situations where a team monitors a batch application in maintenance mode. This team will not want to check out a Git repository of two-and-a-half million components to make a single-line JCL change. It would not make sense to have this in Git. Instead, they can choose from a range of options to ensure they can work at their own pace.

A best of both worlds scenario

Using Git with ISPW does not mean replacing the latter. Instead, Git works in conjunction with ISPW to provide a complete solution, not only for the build and deploy, but also for managing secure synchronization with the system of record. Although Git is holding all the library books, there is still a need for an engine to publish them and make them available through build and deploy.

The cultural shift

As with many significant technological developments, the humans who work with them will need to acclimate to this new way of doing things. Although Git is a better way—a modernization of the software delivery lifecycle (SDLC) for the mainframe—the various people involved, such as developers, development managers, security specialists, and legal professionals, all need to understand how this new approach will work and what it will mean for their specific areas of work, their organization, and their customers.

Once all parties recognize that the solution pairing covers the whole process, the change involves reliable Git and ISPW components that are simply dovetailed together, and the transition process is customizable and manageable, it will be easier for them to accept. The easy customization and management are also important to note, especially if any of the groups’ first exposure to this process was the “wholesale shift” approach put forward by others. No one likes to leap blindfolded off a cliff.

A complete solution for choice and flexibility in Git implementation

As organizations look for the benefits of mainframe DevOps, our new Git integration with BMC AMI DevX Code Pipeline gives mainframe development teams the flexibility to fully adopt Git or use the ISPW feature-branching sandbox for a controlled and isolated environment to create and change code. With a simple right-click, Git users take full advantage of the ISPW mainframe build, test, and deploy capabilities in their CI/CD pipeline.

Each team can choose to go 100 percent Git or have the option to use ISPW with feature branching for SCM. Both options provide an agile and flexible mainframe developer experience, giving organizations the ability to use Git workflow and the flexibility to choose the SCM tool that works best for their development teams while leveraging the best of ISPW for mainframe build, test and deploy.

Moving mainframe DevOps to the next level

This is a new era, and mainframe technologies remain as dependable and battle-ready as ever. Pairing Git with BMC AMI DevX Code Pipeline opens new doors for more reliable and practical development activities while also securing the future of data with versatile techniques that are immediately familiar to the next generation of mainframe pros.

To explore these concepts in greater detail, download our eBook, Git for the Mainframe.

Success in the modern digital economy demands innovation and adaptability. Enterprises must meet and exceed customer expectations, offering new services and applications faster than ever before. And as innovation in mobile, web, and distributed applications accelerates, so too must development on the system of record supporting them—the mainframe. So, what can your organization do to ensure that development on the system of record keeps pace with that of front-end applications?

The recent IDC Market Glance for Mainframe DevOps found that embracing a mainframe-inclusive DevOps toolchain enables faster, more frequent delivery of code. Co-author Katie Norton, IDC senior research analyst, DevOps, states in the study, “We have observed forward motion in the mainframe DevOps market as of late, making available the tools and technology needed to make mainframe agility realizable for the organizations that depend on it.”

This statement is underscored by the fact that, for the first time, IDC decided to focus specifically on mainframe DevOps. Coming from such an influential analyst group, we see it as further validation of the growth and investment in the mainframe for current and future business operations, and of the need for organizations to start saying “yes” to DevOps on the mainframe. In fact, IDC survey research indicates that 73 percent of DevOps influencers believe that mainframe DevOps is critical to digital business success.

IDC’s take was that organizations committed to digital transformation should consider the following:

• The mainframe continues to play a central role in mission-critical applications for public and private enterprises, such as banking, finance, and insurance.
• Owing to today’s “mobile-to-mainframe” applications, two-speed application delivery is not enough. DevOps toolchains that incorporate the platform enable more frequent delivery of mainframe code, giving them a competitive advantage.
• Mainframe DevOps helps organizations modernize in-place by reducing time-to-market and improving application quality and security.
• Mainframe DevOps is considered critical to business success by three-quarters of mainframe DevOps influencers.
• Advancements in mainframe DevOps tools make mainframe agility easier and faster.
• New integration solutions allow teams to leverage and share best-of-breed DevOps tools.

Where BMC AMI DevX Fits In

The IDC Market Glance breaks down mainframe DevOps into six market segments: Plan, Integration Solutions, Develop, Quality, Deliver, and Operate, each of which is then further subdivided into 24 key areas. BMC AMI DevX mainframe DevOps solutions was recognized in 17 of these areas:

Integration solutions

• Data Access – Enabling access to mainframe data and make it consumable in modern and distributed tools

Develop

• Source Code Management (SCM) – Version and revision control systems for tracking changes in source code files
• Integrated Development Environment (IDE) – Facilitates software development in a unified interface and contains a source code/text editor, debugger and compiler
• Build Tools – Automate the packaging of source code into a usable or executable form, and manage dependencies and unit test.
• CI/CD Tools – Ensure that all the code committed to the SCM is automatically built and tested in a production-like environment

Quality

• Functional – Tests software functionality via unit testing, system testing, user, integration, regression testing
• Performance – Verify quality attributes of the system such as responsiveness, speed, scalability, and stability under a variety of load conditions
• Test Data Management – Facilitates the process of planning, designing, storing, and managing production-like test data
• Code Inspection – Observes, measures, and evaluates application source code
• Application Analysis – Gain an understanding of application architecture through a visual representation of the components, logic, and dependencies

Deliver

• DevOps Platform (orchestration and connection of processes, teams, and technologies via integration, automation, and seamless exchanges along the software delivery lifecycle)
• Automation – Coordinates automatic delivery and operation of application configuration, provisioning, compliance, or workflows
• Release Orchestration – Connects tools, teams, and processes enabling centralized management of the overall release management process
• Deployment – Orchestrates and automates the deployment of applications and configurations into development, test, and production environments

Operate

• Monitor – Examines an application’s performance at run-time to ensure service levels are being maintained
• Troubleshoot – Fault management tool that analyzes and corrects application and system failures through abnormal ending (ABEND) diagnostics
• Event Management – Uses automation to orchestrate the response to production incidents and events.

Where to Get Started on Your Mainframe DevOps Journey

These are all vital components of the process, but your organization may wonder just where to get started on your mainframe DevOps journey. BMC recommends the following when choosing modern mainframe development tools:

• A modern, integrated development environment (IDE) for editing and debugging code and automating testing – including Test Data Management
• Modern source code management for better version control and deployment capabilities
• The ability to provide process metrics, such as velocity, quality, and efficiency

BMC addresses these needs with a mainframe-inclusive toolchain to enable DevOps across the enterprise. The solution includes:

• BMC AMI DevX Code Pipeline​, a mainframe SCM, build, and deploy tool enabling CI/CD to ensure a secure, stable, and streamlined mainframe code pipeline throughout the DevOps lifecycle
• BMC AMI zAdviser​, an advanced analytics tool leveraging machine learning (ML) to continuously measure and improve mainframe DevOps processes and development outcomes based on key performance indicators (KPIs)

Assessment

Overall, the IDC Market Glance demonstrates that DevOps for the mainframe is vital to the success of organizations of all sizes. IDC recognizes how a mainframe-inclusive toolchain is a key step toward improving software development and delivery with quality, velocity, and efficiency, and that mainframe DevOps is already making a significant positive impact.

The great news to extract is that even though there is more road ahead before the mainframe fully modernizes itself with the help of DevOps, the path we all tread leads to great results. And of course, BMC is proud to be a major player in the journey.