The Endevor plugin for Clarive Enterprise Delivery 7.4 has just been updated and we wanted to share with you how easy it is to orchestrate mainframe changes from Clarive as part of a enterprise-wide DevOps strategy.

The idea is to give our current and prospect users a general idea of how the Clarive-Endevor integration works.

For context, Broadcom (CA) Endevor is a popular mainframe configuration management tool for versioning and promoting changes across the different mainframe environments or “stages”, building and deploying changes along the way.

Steps to be performed on the Mainframe

First we need to make a change on the mainframe, so we’ll change a Cobol source file (“element”). We’ll make the change to the element from within Endevor, then we will create an Endevor package to hold that change and move it through different stages.

Step	Screenshot
Modify elements/programs in Endevor/TSO. Retrieve elements to be modified.
Modifying the element
Add/Update element into Endevor
Put new element versions into an Endevor package. First we create a package
Prepare the MOVE the modified elements
Build the package actions to MOVE the modified elements
Cast package
Finish casting package

Now, instead of moving the package using Endevor, we will orchestrate it’s promotion to production using Clarive.

Steps in Clarive

Once the Endevor package that contains the element is “cast”, it’s ready to be picked up by Clarive.

The package will be included in a Clarive changeset, which is the closest equivalent of a package in Endevor.

Clarive changesets can be deployed to production standalone or promoted there within a release. In this example we’ll not use a release, but instead just promote the changeset all the way to production using a Clarive pipeline.

Step	Screenshot
Adapt your pipeline to be able to execute Endevor actions
Create changeset/package
Select the Endevor package to attach as revision
Endevor package now show as a revision attached to the Clarive changeset
Endevor package contents are available from revision (by clicking on the package name)
Detailed element version information is available too
Promote the changeset to the next stage (depending on you Endevor configuration)
View the job execution in realtime
Clarive tracks the corresponding mainframe job spool and return codes
Back in Endevor, elements have been MOVED
Now promote the changeset to the Production in Clarive
View the pipeline job being executed in Clarive
Track the job output directly in Clarive
The Clarive changeset will reflect the package status in Endevor
The changeset is in sync with the environments/stages where they were deployed to
Endevor elements can be tracked and viewed in Clarive with realtime data
Back in Endevor, the elements are in production. Voilà!

By delivering software changes with Clarive changesets, Endevor packages can be orchestrated as part of a much larger DevOps continuous delivery practice, integrated with other tools and co-deployed with other systems, ie. based on Java or other non-mainframe languages, platforms and technologies.

Driving mainframe changes from Clarive is a key factor for building a consistent, safe and reliable application delivery pipeline that embraces the whole enterprise.

Happy DevOps to you all!