Managing change and releases with Rational Team Concert for System z

The processes for managing change and releases with Rational Team Concert™ for System z® are nearly identical to those for Rational Team Concert. Rational Team Concert for System z provides all of the capabilities of Rational Team Concert, then builds on those capabilities to provide additional features and functions. The following topics provide information about these additional change management features, functions, and tasks for Rational Team Concert for System z.

Building with Rational Team Concert for System z and managing source code

Perhaps, to build software developed for a z/OS® runtime platform, you use either a suite of job control languages (JCL), or a combination of JCL and code written in a scripting language like REXX. Commonly, a development team uses a mixture of software for z/OS and software for other distributed platforms, especially when that team uses z/OS functionality on a Web-based client.

Perhaps, when you build on a distributed platform, you use scripting languages like MAKE or Ant to drive a build.

Rational Team Concert for System z introduces the Antz scripting language, which offers all of the functionality and syntax of Ant, but with extensions for building on a z/OS system. With Antz, you can manipulate partitioned data set extended (PDSE) members and invoke z/OS compilers so that you can unify your builds under a single scripting language.

To drive a z/OS platform build with Antz, the Rational Team Concert for System z source control component must capture and maintain many pieces of supporting information. The topics in this Managing change and release with rational Team Concert for System z section introduce this peripheral information and how it is captured and maintained, along with an introduction to more fundamental source control component constructs that Rational Team Concert for System z uses to organize z/OS artifacts. With Antz, much like with other source control component products–IBM's SCLM, for example–you specify all of this information once, and then it can be continuously used by developers or other build administrators when they build.

Restriction: You must be a build administrator to make these kinds of specifications.

Rational Team Concert for System z terms

As you read more about Rational Team Concert for System z, you will notice several terms that relate specifically to Rational Team Concert for System z. These terms represent those additional Rational Team Concert for System z concepts, features, and functions that extend the functionality of Rational Team Concert. These terms include:
  • data set definition
  • data set prefix
  • language definition
  • sandbox
  • translator definition
  • workspace
  • zComponent
  • zComponent Project
  • zFile
  • zFolder
For the definitions of these terms, see the Rational Team Concert for System z glossary at Rational Team Concert for System z Glossary.

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