AE and z/OS

You can connect the Automation Engine (AE) to z/OS which is a 64-bit operating system for IBM mainframes. It is the successor to OS/390, which in turn followed a string of MVS versions. The connection from the AE to your z/OS system is established via a z/OS Agent (OS390 Agent). This Agent communicates with the AE system via a TCP/IP interface, and with z/OS, it communicates exclusively with JES2 or JES 3. The z/OS Agent can handle and improve the processing of Jobs, File Transfers and Events, and it can be used in combination with a CallAPI.

You can also write Job outputs to message classes, or include Job Entry Subsystem (JES) statistics in your Job log. An Event Monitor allows you to communicate with the AE system through your z/OS Agent. You can use it to monitor CONSOLE events, automatic FILE events and the end of z/OS jobs. An SMF Exit is used for this purpose. The AE also supports Generation Data Groups (GDG). This type of file handling can be used in FILE Event objects and the GET_EVENT_INFO script element. A JCL Exit module is available and can be activated for each z/OS Agent. Return codes of z/OS jobs are logged in the AE activation logs.

Note: This integration capability, like all integrations of the Automic system, can support service orchestration workflows. Such workflows orchestrate automated processes that run across multiple platforms, domains, and applications to deliver a specific IT service. For more information, see About Service Orchestration.

This section includes the following pages:

See below for a short collection of terms that are used in z/OS compared to how they are referred to in UNIX/Windows operating systems:

• Dataset
  File
• Catalog system
  File system
• Job Control Language (JCL)
  Shell script
• Time-Sharing Option (TSO)
  Telnet/ssh
• Sysplex
  Cluster, a group of distinct instances of the z/OS operating system
• Started Task (STC)
  Service
• Job
  Background process