DEVOPSdigest

Compuware Corporation announced a CloudBees Technical Alliance Partner Program (TAPP) Premier Partnership and new advancements to Topaz that together enable organizations to quickly achieve low-risk, low-cost mainframe modernization by fully leveraging their existing mainframe resources.

Business demand for faster innovation is driving organizations to increase deployment frequency by an average of 41% for new mainframe features and an average of 38% for new features to non-mainframe applications according to a recent study commissioned by Compuware and conducted by Vanson Bourne. The new CloudBees partnership and Topaz advancements enable enterprises to meet this business imperative by increasing software delivery velocity—without compromising quality and efficiency.

The CloudBees TAPP provides a formal, unified program for independent software vendors (ISVs) to align their offerings with the global Jenkins community. Participation in the TAPP enables a tighter connection between Compuware and CloudBees so customers' core mainframe systems can be more easily integrated into a cross-platform DevOps toolchain.

Compuware was invited to participate as a premier member because of the existing product integrations between Compuware ISPW, Topaz and Xpediter, and CloudBees Core, an end-to-end continuous delivery platform, and CloudBees Flow, an adaptive release orchestration platform. The integrations and plugins enable development teams to perform the following tasks within a DevOps pipeline:

- Create, promote and deploy mainframe software releases

- Coordinate mainframe software releases with releases on other platforms

- Automate unit and functional tests

- Perform code coverage analysis

- Submit jobs on the mainframe

- Retrieve mainframe source code for static analysis tools

Francois Dechery, Chief Strategy Officer and Co-founder, CloudBees, said: "Compuware has a unique understanding of the needs and goals of mainframe customers. In addition to other computing platforms, mainframe customers also successfully utilize CloudBees technologies for continuous integration, continuous delivery and application release orchestration applications. We welcome Compuware to the CloudBees ecosystem."

Compuware also announced a new version of Topaz that includes a new editing experience for COBOL, PL/I and JCL that guides even the novice developer towards optimum results with streamlined usability, native Eclipse integration and real-time COBOL and PL/I syntax checking.

In addition, the ASG-PRO/JCL integration with Topaz Workbench announced last month enables developers to seamlessly access ASG-PRO/JCL's JCL validation and runtime simulation, simplifying maintenance and support tasks with a modern front end, saving teams time and dramatically improving the experience for next generation developers.

Since Topaz was launched five years ago, it has evolved from a enterprise data visualization tool, to an Agile, force-multiplying development and testing platform with more than 15 integrations and 5 API enabled products from Compuware, empowering any developer, regardless of experience, to understand and work on any program, no matter how old or complex.

Compuware also closed on a transaction to acquire the assets of INNOVATION Data Processing, a provider of enterprise data protection, business continuance and storage resource management solutions serving the mainframe market. This acquisition is Compuware's sixth in the last four years.

"As the world becomes more digitally competitive, mainframe development expectations are increasingly being driven by rapidly evolving customer demand for innovative products and services," said Compuware CEO Chris O'Malley. "It's critical that businesses empower their next generation of developers with a seamlessly integrated, mainframe-inclusive DevOps toolchain so that they can work within Agile methods to meet their customers' expectations in the Age of Software."