Overview to using Cloud and Browser-based platforms

Z Open Editor and Zowe Explorer can be installed and used with various cloud or browser-based editing environments that utilize VS Code as the editor. Hosting development tools and editors in the Cloud can provide many advantages for developers as well as team leads and administrators, especially for hybrid z/OS® development projects that bring together different technologies, require different skill sets and knowledge about development tools:

• Eliminate the need for developers to install and configure all development tools locally: Instead of having every developer in a development organization install tools and prerequisites themselves on their own development machines, one lead developer can produce one or many container images with all the prerequisites as well as configuration files that load the correct versions of tools and VS Code extensions that every developer can simply use to get a full development environment. This can save a lot of time, eliminate confusion about versions, ensures that everyone is on the same and latest versions as well as help developers who are not familiar with all the tools and prerequisites and how to correctly install and configure them.
• Rapid context switching between development projects using different development tools: When you work on multiple development projects at the same time, container-based development environments enable easy switching between completely different stacks of development tools, configuration, settings and even programming languages and language versions. This is done by switching to different containers and configuration files managed by Cloud-based development tools that provides workspace templates, which can be customized for the very specific needs of each project.
• Eliminate hardware requirements and work from anywhere: As all tools are accessed through a simple web-browser, there is no need to use a specific hardware or workstations to do development work. Instead, organizations can deploy cost-effective developer hardware and can centralize and optimize resource usage in their Cloud infrastructure. Switching between working from home or the office is as easy as connecting to a network and then using the browser to sign on and open all tools.
• Standardize connectivity, integrations, and authentication to external systems and applications: Instead of connecting each developer machine to external systems such as z/OS systems, databases, or web servers through technologies such as VPNs, making each of these systems a potential security risk and target for external attacks. Cloud-based development environment brings control of connectivity and security back to the experts that maintain access for all developers in a central place. Developers access all tools and systems through the integrated development environment in the browser that is prepared for them and authentication secrets are stored in secure Cloud storage as well, there is lower risk of misconfiguring secure access to sensitive systems.

Quickstart tutorials

The following examples show you how you can get started very quickly with some of the most popular Cloud-based environments from different vendors to evaluate if such solutions work for you. There is more detailed guidance for our preferred solution, Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces, in several detailed pages of this documentation section as well.

Red Hat Dev Spaces for OpenShift

Our recommended cloud-based development environment is Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces that provides a cloud-based development environment that is fully integrated into Red Hat OpenShift. If you do not have access to an OpenShift cluster, you can try Z Open Editor for free by signing up for a 30-day trial of the Red Hat Developer Sandbox. We have a full tutorial for signing up and using Z Open Editor here.

GitHub Codespaces

(Note that this is a paid-for service, but the first usage hours are free.)

Z® Open Editor can also be used with all of its capabilities in Microsoft's GitHub Codespaces. For a quickstart, try it by using this link https://github.com/codespaces/new?skip_quickstart=true&machine=basicLinux32gb&repo=160883618&ref=devcontainer&geo=UsWest&devcontainer_path=.devcontainer%2Fdevcontainer.json that loads our Z Open Editor sample repository. When the workspace starts up, it automatically loads the Z Open Editor VS Code extension and applies several configuration options based on a so-called devcontainer specification.

To learn more about what you can do with Z Open Editor in Codespaces, go to Using Z Open Editor on GitHub Codespaces in this documentation section.

Gitpod

(Note that this is a paid-for service, but the first usage hours are free.)

Gitpod is a cloud-based IDE offering by the Gitpod company that can also utilize VS Code as the browser-based editor and integrate with all the major Git service providers such as GitLab, GitHub, and Bitbucket. After you sign in with an account from either of these Git services, you can easily start a workspace with Z Open Editor.

To try it out with our code samples repository, use this link https://gitpod.io/#https://github.com/IBM/zopeneditor-sample/tree/gitpod. Gitpod will present a New Workspace screen for the workspace to be created filled in with the values provided by the URL. After confirming these settings with the Continue button the workspace will start up.

The first startup might take a few minutes showing you a Build Image screen as Gitpod has to pull our sample docker image from "quay.io/wazi/gitpod:latest" to its server for using it for the workspace. This custom image was prepared by our team and contains Zowe CLI with the RSE API plugin as well as the Ansible CLI with the Red Hat Ansible Certified Content for IBM Z. You can find the dockerfile we used for this at https://github.com/IBM/zopeneditor-sample/blob/gitpod/.gitpod.Dockerfile. You can use it as a starting point for your own projects. The other file to review in the same repository is the "gitpod.yml" file that contains configuration options for the workspace. See the the Gitpod documentation with all the details of what else you can do.

After the editor is up you can see that VS Code extensions will be installed automatically followed by a prompt from Zowe Explorer to reload the editor to finalize its setup. After you clicked "Reload Window", Z Open Editor will show its Welcome page you are ready to open the sample programs provided with our repository. When you open the Terminal you can test that Zowe CLI, Ansible and Java 17 are available as well.

Pure web-based editing in vscode.dev and github.dev

Z Open Editor can be used as a pure web extension with limited capabilities when using Visual Studio Code in a browser, such as on vscode.dev or github.dev.

Go to https://vscode.dev/github/IBM/zopeneditor-sample and confirm in the dialog to install the recommended extensions by clicking Install. No language server capabilities are available, but provides syntax highlighting for all our supported languages.