Till just lately, the phrases “mainframe” and “Git” gave the impression to be a mismatch. Nonetheless, elevated adoption of DevOps practices on the mainframe, the will to combine the platform in enterprise-wide steady innovation/steady deployment (CI/CD) pipelines, and its familiarity amongst next-generation builders have made Git a well-liked answer for mainframe supply code administration (SCM).
Git’s characteristic branches, distributed growth, and pull requests facilitate an agile workflow, encouraging builders to share smaller modifications extra incessantly. In consequence, modifications transfer by the deployment pipeline quicker than the monolithic releases widespread with centralized model management programs. Moreover, its strong collaboration options permit a number of contributors to seamlessly code, overview, and merge modifications into one supply.
Utilizing Git as a mainframe SCM encourages widespread growth practices throughout platforms and breaks down silos, enabling the combination of the mainframe into CI/CD pipelines. Whereas this mixing of applied sciences throughout platforms may pose challenges, it doesn’t need to. Git’s success in distributed growth might be duplicated on the mainframe, if deliberate for correctly.
As you strategize your Git adoption, the hot button is to keep in mind that whereas it’s an SCM, it doesn’t deal with advanced construct and deploy processes that require sourcing the proper copybooks and related applications. To deal with this, take into account integrating Git along with your present mainframe SCM answer, which probably already oversees these duties, somewhat than changing it. Your SCM may even act as a dependable deployment mechanism to coordinate seamlessly with any associated distributed purposes.
Following is extra recommendation for these contemplating Git on the mainframe:
- Clarify the rationale—A part of planning for Git is to supply the rationale. Why would groups wish to take into account transferring to Git? Assist builders perceive the problems and the advantages to make an knowledgeable determination for his or her groups.
- Transition step by step—Work in your schedule. Groups can transfer over to Git when they’re prepared (and a few groups could by no means go to Git—an necessary level). Resistance is comprehensible if all purposes should transfer at one time, which might be disruptive. As an alternative, the advisable method is a gradual one, the place purposes are moved to Git when crew members are prepared.
- Automate builds—Ensure you have an automatic technique to create the relationships crucial in your builds, guaranteeing that all your compile parameters and impacts might be leveraged. The construct also needs to combine along with your deploy technique.
- Handle deploy configurations—Keep away from deploy disruptions by ensuring your mainframe deploys will likely be configured and out there to work with GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, Jenkins, Digital.ai, CloudBees Stream, and HCL Launch.
- Make use of associated tooling—One of many causes to modify to Git as an SCM is to leverage the associated answer ecosystem, like superior code overview instruments that permit builders to construct pipelines to automate their duties.
It’s good to have choices as you propose your future. Transferring to Git could be a problem, however there are rewards, so long as you propose correctly. Retaining tempo with the most recent improvements gives your builders with what they want, once they want it, supplying you with the flexibility to maneuver ahead in your mainframe transformation initiatives with confidence.