AWS Partner Network (APN) Blog
Workflow Orchestration on AWS Mainframe Modernization Service Using BMC Control-M
By Karandeep Singh Sethi, Consultant, Mainframes – AWS
By Roshna Razack, Mainframe Architect – AWS
By Sunil Bemarkar, Sr. Partner Solutions Architect, DevOps – AWS
By Joe Goldberg, Innovation Evangelist – BMC
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| BMC Software |
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Many customers are looking to modernize their mainframe applications to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and innovate with leading AWS services. Mainframe systems handle core business applications which have batch job schedules that are often business-critical and time-bound. This underlines the need for a batch scheduling solution that integrates with applications migrated with AWS.
This post explores how BMC Control-M integrates with the AWS Mainframe Modernization service to orchestrate your batch applications. We will highlight the features of Control-M and how this integration accelerates the mainframe batch migration to AWS Mainframe Modernization service.
Control-M is a BMC Software product that lets you orchestrate, schedule, and monitor the batch jobs both on-premises and in a cloud environment. The integration between AWS Mainframe Modernization and Control-M enables organizations to leverage the scheduling capability of Control-M across both legacy and modernized mainframe applications.
BMC Software is an AWS Specialization Partner with the Migration and Modernization Competency. BMC offers a full suite of solutions to help you migrate to and maximize your investment in AWS.
Solution Overview
AWS Mainframe Modernization is a set of managed tools providing infrastructure and software for migrating, modernizing, testing, and running mainframe applications. Control-M workflow orchestration integrates with the below patterns in AWS Mainframe Modernization service:
- AWS Mainframe Modernization Replatform with Micro Focus: Allows preserving application assets with minimal changes, while modernizing the infrastructure and processes for enhancing agility and elasticity.
- AWS Mainframe Modernization Refactor with AWS Blu Age: Modernizes the mainframe applications and complete software stack including application code, dependencies, and infrastructure. Legacy applications are transformed into modern distributed applications.
Control-M helps to automate and orchestrate workloads and helps organizations rationalize their environment. It provides an end-to-end view of both existing and migrated workloads. Using Control-M, you can define, schedule, manage, and monitor application and data workflows. Control-M integrates, automates, and orchestrates workflows on-premise and in AWS to help you deliver business services on time.
AWS Mainframe Modernization Integration with Control-M
Control-M integrates with AWS Mainframe Modernization service for both refactor and re-platform patterns. It interacts with AWS Mainframe Modernization service using REST APIs.
Figure 1 – Control-M integration with AWS Mainframe Modernization.
In this configuration, the Control-M server is installed in a multi-Availability Zone (AZ) environment to ensure high availability. Amazon Aurora is used to store the Control-M schedules, logs, and reports. Amazon CloudWatch logs enables monitoring and viewing the job details.
Application Integrator
Control-M Application Integrator is a web-based application that helps you create custom job types which are then deployed to the Control-M environment. A custom job type using REST APIs is used to integrate with AWS Mainframe Modernization service.
To integrate with this, create a job type corresponding to AWS Mainframe Modernization service in the Control-M application integrator. Use Import job type option in Control-M Application Integrator and upload AIJOB.ctmai from GitHub to create an application integrator mainframe modernization job type.
Administration
Control-M Administration helps you to install, manage, monitor, configure, and maintain Control-M components. User and role authorizations are managed by the administration domain using connection profile.
To connect to the AWS Mainframe modernization service, create a connection profile in the Administration domain. Use the sample JSON to create connection profile and deploy it using the Control-M Automation API deploy service.
Planning
Control-M Planning domain helps you define the working environment by creating a workspace, scheduling criteria, prerequisites, and post-processing actions of your job definitions. Define job schedules for the application modernized using AWS Mainframe Modernization service in the planning domain.
Figure 2 shows a Control-M Planning domain with a batch schedule specified for an AWS Mainframe Modernization application.
Figure 2 – Planning domain with AWS Mainframe Modernization job schedules.
Monitoring
Once the scheduling is defined, run the jobs and monitor the job execution using the Monitoring domain. This helps you to monitor the job execution and control the job flow in the AWS Mainframe Modernization service. From the monitoring domain, view job logs, create alerts in case of any problems or exception, and troubleshoot the issue.
Figure 3 shows a Control-M Monitoring domain with the status for the jobs in the AWS Mainframe Modernization application, submitted using Control-M.
Figure 3 – Monitoring AWS Mainframe Modernization jobs in Control-M.
Reporting
Control-M Reports helps you create ad-hoc reports based on the data collected from your environment. Control-M generates reports like active jobs, job execution history, service-level agreements (SLAs), file transfers, and definition-related information from the Planning domain.
Solution Benefits
Control-M integrates with AWS Mainframe Modernization service Blu Age and Micro Focus runtime environments. Integrating AWS Mainframe Modernization service with Control-M provides seamless integration of workflows across different operating systems, data platforms, and environments. By automating and orchestrating these workflows, organizations improve visibility, prevent service degradation, and avoid missed SLAs.
Deploying Control-M in the AWS Well-Architected Framework ensures highly-available and resilient workflow orchestration. The integration simplifies end-to-end workflows and provide a unified view of application workload executions, leading to increased scalability and business agility.
Conclusion
This post described how to leverage BMC Control-M for workflow orchestration in AWS Mainframe Modernization service. Control-M supports distributed as well as cloud-native workflow orchestration.
- Visit the Control-M product page to see how it simplifies application and data workflow orchestration on-premises or as-a-service.
- Learn how customers unlock core business processes, gain flexibility, and innovate with Mainframe Modernization on AWS.
- AWS Prescriptive Guidance : Using Control-M workflow orchestrator integration with AWS Mainframe Modernization
- GitHub repository: aws-mainframe-modernization-controlm-integration
To review your architecture and help optimize your data transfer costs, contact your AWS account team to get started.
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BMC Software – AWS Partner Spotlight
BMC Software is an AWS Specialization Partner with the Migration and Modernization Competency. BMC offers a full suite of solutions to help you migrate to and maximize your investment in AWS.