The Zowe Community introduced the latest Zowe LongTerm Support (LTS) Version 3.0 last week. This means V3 is the Active LTS and V2 is now the Maintenance LTS release. Both are supported by the Zowe Community and designated Zowe Conformant Support Providers. This marks a milestone and opportunity for Zowe consumers to determine which LTS release is appropriate for their organization. A review of the LTS policy and an exploration of what to expect in Zowe V3 should help you navigate your decision.
Zowe LTS, Active & Maintenance
A Long Term Support (LTS) release, by definition, is a stable release of software that is maintained for a longer period of time. The designation allows both vendors who extend Zowe and customers using Zowe to trust the solution doesn’t introduce disruptive change, i.e. APIs are not modified, functionality isn’t removed, and no significant new components are added. The ACTIVE designation associated with a Zowe LTS release indicates there will be a regular cadence (continuous delivery) of minor releases which may contain new features and capabilities as well as fixes and security patches while the MAINTENANCE designation limits releases to only critical fixes and security patches.
Zowe Version 2.0 was released in April 2022 when it became the Community’s ACTIVE Long Term Support (LTS) version. Since then, 19 combined minor and patch releases were delivered,the most recent being 2.18 in August 2024. During this same period of time Zowe Version 1.9 was designated as the MAINTENANCE LTS release. While the LTS policy provides years of stability, it also prevents warranted technology upgrades and necessary major changes from being introduced. Thus the Zowe Community has been working on the next Zowe Version – 3.0, which on October 2nd became the latest ACTIVE Zowe LTS release. This introduction triggers the following change in the prior LTS releases:
- Zowe V1 LTS Maintenance is terminated
- Zowe V2 LTS Active designation, transitions to Maintenance
Customers now have the option to determine which LTS release suits their needs best. Let’s review the major new features included with Zowe Version 3.0, and features that were deprecated in version 2 now removed in Version 3.
Zowe Explorer for VS Code
See: Big Changes coming with Zowe Explorer v3
Comparing MVS and USS files side by side in a viewer that shows differences and allows merges is now possible within and across the two file systems.
A new “Show as Table” option is available in the Jobs tree to present the list of jobs in a tabular view, with ability to filter and sort as well as cancel, delete or download spool data.
The new command “Issue UNIX Command” is available in the command palette as well as on a pop-up menu in the USS tree.
Data sets that have wildcards in their filter can be added as favourites.
For a full list of Zowe Explorer v3 features see the release notes as well as the office hours recording.
Zowe Explorer for IntelliJ
The Zowe Explorer for IntelliJ has become part of the Zowe v3 LTS release. This is a great addition to the Zowe family and follows on from the successful Zowe Explorer for VS Code to extend the reach of Zowe functionality to a new family of IDE users. More details can be found in the squad’s v3 playback video.
Zowe z/OS server
To help users with their installation and configuration of Zowe’s z/OS server a wizard, codenamed ZEN, was introduced in V2 as a GUI assistant to guide sysprogs through the different steps. This is best described as a melding of the doc information in a web page that has awareness of the live system Zowe is being installed on. This assists the workflow and reduces the time to diagnose problems launching Zowe. This wizard is now included in the Zowe v3 LTS core and has been given an official name of “Zowe Install Wizard”. Additionally, a new `zwe diagnose` command is introduced to help troubleshoot errors. More info on the wizard can be seen at the system squad office hours.
Technical Debt and Freshening up the stack
Upgrading to a major new version provides the Zowe community the opportunity to refresh some of the packages that underpin the software stack. This is done to ensure that the components on which Zowe builds are the most current releases and have a support shelf life that envelops the projected v3 LTS window. Zowe v3 LTS runs until Q1 2027, after which it will become the maintenance release and v4 becomes the Active LTS. As mentioned earlier, for the duration of an LTS release, major breaking changes to underlying components don’t occur to protect the compatibility of vendor and customer extensions, so the major version boundary is explicitly reserved for such modifications..
NetFlix Zuul has been replaced with Spring Cloud Gateway, WebPack 4 has been upgraded to WebPack 5. The Java pre-requisite is v17, increased from v8. Zowe’s Secure Services C server (aka ZSS) now runs by default in 64-bit mode although a 32 bit launch is still supported. The z/OS pre-requisite for Zowe is 2.5, and z/OSMF must be at v2r5. For customers who were using the IMS APIs, the Jobs and Data Set APIs, or the API Mediation Layer’s metrics service, these have all been archived and removed from Zowe v3 core. For more detail checkout this blog and these videos for API Mediation Layer and Zowe Desktop. The Zowe docs also includes a thorough list of what components have been updated together with all changes that might affect v2 customers upgrading to v3.
Zowe Command Line Interface (CLI)
For a great list of Zowe CLI v3 updates checkout Adam Wolfe’s great blog Zowe CLI V3: What you need to know. In this he covers a lot of the areas in detail with great animated screen shots to illustrate each new or updated featured.
The most significant breaking change, that also affects Zowe Explorer for VS Code, is that the `zowe.config.json` team configuration file is the only supported way to define profiles. The .profile files introduced in v1, and deprecated in v2, are no longer valid. Automatic promoted conversion will occur for users who are still using .profile configurations to assist with the transition. For more info on upgrading Zowe client apps see the upgrade blog.
In version 2 team configuration profiles are only able to reference a single API Mediation Layer for token based authentication using the ‘base’ profile type. Version 3 introduces a new ‘apiml’ profile type which allows multiple gateways to be specified, which in turn supports multiple tokens to be in flight across different connections. This enhancement is also supported in the Zowe Explorer for VS Code.
Improvements have been made to the error messages returned in many CLI commands. For example, rather than a user being presented with raw REST API responses when searching for a dataset that isn’t present, more user friendly messages will be displayed.
The Zowe IMS CLI has been archived, together with its accompanying z/OS IMS REST API server. This is because the IBM IMS community has released IMS Administration Foundation which provides a richer set of REST APIs on the platform. If any IMS customers are interested in the Zowe community providing a CLI that uses these please reach out to the CLI squad on github or slack.
More information on the Zowe CLI, as well as the Node SDK is available on the SDK office hours video.
Zowe Plugins
As well as providing a rich set of functionality in each of its versions, Zowe provides a set of APIs and extension points allowing vendors and customers to build plugins which exploit the platform’s capabilities. These are backed by a conformance program which has been refreshed for Zowe v3. The Visual Studio Code Zowe extensions for FTP and CICS have been refreshed to work with the core v3 Zowe Explorer, and the Zowe CLI extensions for CICS, Db2 and MQ are also available on the v3 platform. A number of vendors have day one support for their marketplace extensions built on the Zowe v3 platform, and any vendors who need help to bring their extensions into the ecosystem and get conformance badges are encouraged to connect with the squad leads and the Zowe Onboarding squad for help and guidance.
Looking ahead
During the Active LTS window of Zowe v2 from 2022 to 2024, the adoption of Zowe at IBM Z mainframe customer sites grew from 40% to 85%, reflecting the anticipated success of its founding principles to make the mainframe Open, Simple and Familiar. We believe this trend will continue as the Community strengthens partnerships with Extenders and Consumers now heavily invested in the technology.
Those of you anxiously awaiting for the arrival of this release should be aware, the Zowe v3 minor release new-feature cadence has changed. Customers expressed a desire for less frequency so instead of a new release every 6 weeks, the gap will be 12 weeks between software updates. However, if during the 12 week window a critical fix is needed, the community will release a mid-cycle update to deliver the patch. Daily drivers are still available for vendors or customers who want to preview features.
Zowe version 3.0 is available for download at zowe.org/download, where you’ll find links to more information as well as ways to get in touch with the community through slack, github, or community calls.
Read more about Zowe here. Or, ask a question and join the conversation on the Open Mainframe Project Slack Channel #Zowe-help or #Zowe-onboarding. If this is your first time using the Open Mainframe Project Slack channel, register here.
