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Version: Deploy 25.1

z/OS file.File Deployment

Objective​

This guide walks you through deploying text files to z/OS systems using Digital.ai Deploy. Two key tasks:

  • Automatic Text File Transcoding: Ensuring that text files are automatically converted to the z/OS-compatible EBCDIC (CP1047) encoding format.
  • Placeholder Replacement: Replacing placeholders in configuration files with actual values for z/OS environment.

Before You Begin​

Ensure you have:

  • Digital.ai Deploy running instance.
  • SSH/SFTP credentials: These credentials are essential for establishing a secure connection between your Digital.ai Deploy server and the z/OS system where the application will be deployed.

What Do You Have?​

Let's assume you have two files that need to be deployed to z/OS:

  • File with Placeholders: textfilewithphUTF8.txt – This file contains placeholders like ${APP_NAME} and ${VERSION} that need to be replaced during deployment.
  • File without Placeholders: nophutf8.txt – A simple text file without any placeholders, but still needs to be converted to the correct EBCDIC format for z/OS compatibility.

How Does It Work?​

Follow the steps below to deploy these files with proper transcoding and placeholder replacement.

Set Up Your Connection to z/OS​

To begin the deployment process, you first need to establish a connection to your z/OS environment. For more information, see Connect to a z/OS Host.

Configure File Encoding Settings​

Configure the following settings to handle file encoding during deployment:

Text File Transcoding​

In your type-defaults.properties file:

# Define which files should be transcoded to EBCDIC
udm.BaseDeployableFolderArtifact.textFileNamesRegexToTranscode=.+\.(txt|properties|xml|conf)

# Exclude binary files from transcoding
udm.BaseDeployableFolderArtifact.excludeFileNamesRegexToTranscode=.+\.(jpg|png|pdf|zip)

Placeholder Handling​

Configure placeholder scanning:

# Define which files should be scanned for placeholders
udm.BaseDeployableFolderArtifact.textFileNamesRegex=.+\.(txt|properties|xml|conf)

Here's a step-by-step.

Step 1 - Log into Digital.ai Deploy​

Step 2 - Set Up Infrastructure​

  1. Navigate to Infrastructure > Menu > New > overthere > ZosHost
  2. Configure the host:
    • Name: Your z/OS host name
    • Address: Host address
    • Port: SSH port (usually 22)
    • Username: SSH username
    • Password: SSH password
  3. Test the connection using Check connection

Step 3 - Create Environment​

  1. Go to Environment > Menu > New > Environment
  2. Configure:
    • Name: Environment name (e.g., zos-prod)
    • Containers: Select your z/OS infrastructure

Step 4 - Create and Deploy Package​

  1. Go to Applications > Menu > New > Application.
  2. Enter a name for the application.
  3. Under the application, create a new deployment package:
    • Right-click the application you created, then select New > Deployment Package.
  4. Name the package with a version number, for example, 1.0.0.

Step 5 - Create Application​

Add deployment artifacts:

  1. Right-click the application version, then select New > file.File / file.Folder / file.Archive.
  2. Your artifacts can include text files that contain placeholders.

Step 6 - Deploy Package​

  1. In the deployment package, select Deploy with environments ZosHost.
  2. Monitor the deployment to verify successful file transfer and placeholder replacement.
  3. Transcode the text file to EBCDIC before the file transfer if the target environment is z/OS.