Modernizing Business Critical Applications with Open Languages on z/OS

z/OS is not just for COBOL, PL/I, and Assembler developers – organizations can also draw on open languages like Node.js, Python, and Go to write business-critical applications on z/OS to quickly respond to market changes and customer requirements. Did you know you can extend your existing core z/OS applications with Node.js?

Learn how to build new capabilities as Microservices on Node.js calling them as REST APIs and co-locate them with your existing application for near zero-latency. With Python, you can perform statistical and data analysis in real-time, automate applications and IT infrastructure using Python via Ansible, co-locate your Python applications with your business-critical workload and develop Python applications on Z the same way you would on any other platform.

You can use Go for rapid hybrid cloud development such as Microservices/RESTful APIs and application modernization with the vast pool of Go developers.

Day 1 will provide an overview of the open languages on z/OS – Go, Node.js, and Python.

Day 2 will provide a deeper dive on specific uses cases including:

• How to create a simple RESTful backend using Go internal HTTP server: Use battery-included features in Go to create standalone web servers to parse JSON format.
• How to extend core business applications with Node.js: The first demo shows how you can extend an existing CICS and IMS COBOL application by calling a microservice written in Node.js. The second demo shows how can you create a Backend For Frontend (BFF) layer with Node.js to make multiple calls – a call to CICS and a call to Db2 – and expose it as a single call.
• Exploring Binary classification with Python. This demo will show you how to perform exploratory analysis on your existing data, normalize values, generate plots and figures (heat maps, histograms, etc.), and prepare the data for classification. Execute binary classification algorithm on the pre-processed data and classify new data according to the trained model.

Consider the capabilities that the new open languages on z/OS can bring to organizations to leverage real-time access to real-time data, transactions, and functions in their existing systems of record on Z with faster time to market, zero latency, and renowned Z qualities of service (availability, security, scalability, etc).