All about IBM Z Xplore and getting through VSC1

Hi 👋 Welcome to my blog. It's been quite some time since I have written anything over here. 

It's that time of the year again where we usually have an amazing contest opened up by IBM for students and working professionals. It's none other than  🥁 Drum roll 🥁,

MASTER THE MAINFRAME

Few things are changed. Master the Mainframe is now, The IBM Z Xplore Learning Platform. 

The IBM Xplore learning experience is your place to upskill, reskill, and learn new skills as you begin your journey and explore IBM Z and enterprise computing. 

This experience is open to all, available year-round at no charge and includes:

• IBM Z system access
• Progressive learning paths
• Hands-on challenges
• Digital badging
• Rewards
• Leaderboard

What IBM has got to say about this new platform?

Signing up to IBM Z Xplore

To sign in to IBM Z Xplore, click 👉 here. You'll be able to sign up either using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or the email ID that you used for creating an IBMid.

Once you're signed up, you will have to get through the first CHALLENGE, but hey! relax. It's like a walk in the park. You just need to answer some questions about yourself and you are done. Not just that - you get 25 brownie points for finishing the challenge and you'll also be taken to the home page of IBM Z Xplore 😎. I really love that Pixel font used in the site. 

Home page of IBM Z Xplore. 

There are 3 levels (viz. Fundamentals, Concepts & Advanced) shown at the home page and all you need to do is keep finishing challenges to climb up the ladder and move to the next level. The challenges will unlock one at a time, starting with VSC1 in the first level.

Getting started with VSC1 

Here is where you get your Z ID and Z Password to communicate directly with a Logical Partition (LPAR) on z15 Mainframe (I badly need an Emoji for a Mainframe machine). We will also use VS code to communicate with the z15 Mainframe.

In this challenge, you will,

1. Download and install VS Code and node.js
2. Login with your Z ID and set up the system
3. Submit a file as your final "check"

Grab a copy of the Challenge Instructions PDF and follow the steps listed out there to download and install the necessary softwares to get yourself connected to the z15. 

Things would be pretty easy for those who took part in Master the Mainframe 2020 as you would most probably have the softwares already installed on your local system. If that's the case, you can directly jump to 5th step in the Challenge Instructions. Else, follow all the steps from beginning. 

We need to setup a profile in the Zowe Explorer extension with the given Z ID and Password. Zowe Explorer is what we'll be using to interact with mainframe datasets and jobs. 

IBM started letting the participants use Zowe Explorer extension on VS Code to establish connection 🔌 with Mainframe, from last year (2020). In the MtM editions before 2020, we used Vista TN3270 terminal to establish connection with Mainframes. Zowe Explorer is a sub-project of Zowe, focusing on modernizing mainframe experience. Zowe is a project hosted by the Open Mainframe Project, a Linux Foundation project.

If you're at the tenth setup, Congrats 👏

You're done with the setup. Steps 11 and 12 MUST be completed to finish this challenge. In short, you must locate a file residing in a PDS (imagine it as a folder 📂) and use Zowe Explorer to submit it. That's it! The submitted job will take care of the rest and finish this challenge for you. 

Let me guide you. 

Hover your mouse pointer to the profile that you created under Data Sets.

In the search bar that pops up, type ZXP.PUBLIC.JCL and hit Enter

Under your profile in Data Sets, you will now see ZXP.PUBLIC.JCL with a folder icon and a twistie (triangle) on the left. Click on the twistie to view the contents inside the folder.

Locate VSCJCL, right click on it and select "Submit Job". 

This is what it takes to submit a job in VS Code. Just some clicks and you're done 😎. 

After a few moments, when you go back to https://ibmzxplore.influitive.com, you should see that the VSC challenge has been marked COMPLETE! 👏

You would've also unlocked 1 more challenge in this level. 

Update 📢

Looks like IBM hasn't dumped the Master the Mainframe 2020 site and associated Z ID's. You can still access the last edition's challenges from the old site. In the Home page of IBM Z Xplore, navigate to the user profile button on the top right corner and click on it. You'll see 'Master the Mainframe' under Switch to group. 

While setting up the new profile for IBM Z Xplore in VS Code, I noticed that the mtm2020 profile was still accessible. It is therefore safe to assume that different LPAR's are being used by IBM for mtm2020 and zxplore.

That's all folks!

See you on my next blog post where I will be writing about the Files challenge in Fundamentals level.