Building with Rational Team Concert for System z

Rational Team Concert™ for System z® provides z/OS® build support using JCL or Ant with enterprise extensions, with several options for defining and managing your Jazz™ team builds or Rational Build Agent builds on z/OS.

In addition to the Jazz Build Engine, Rational Team Concert for System z also provides the Rational® Build Agent, which employs two additional build definition templates, the Rational Build Agent template and the Antz–Rational Build Agent template, that use the Rational Build Agent. On z/OS, the Rational Build Agent runs as a daemon process, and the Rational Team Concert for System z server communicates with it.

Notes:
  1. The capabilities described in this topic primarily support z/OS application builds. Because you can use Rational Team Concert for System z to build both z/OS and non-z/OS applications, remember that the Ant with enterprise extensions are exclusively for building z/OS applications. For all non-z/OS applications, like Java™, refer to Building with Jazz Team Build for more information.
  2. Rational Team Concert for System z supports both the Rational Build Agent and the Jazz Build Engine, but the Rational Build Agent and the Antz–Rational Build Agent templates must be used with the Rational Build Agent.
  3. Because you implement any Rational Team Concert for System z build from the foundation of the Jazz Team Build, you should be familiar with the Jazz Team Server and the Jazz build process before you begin to build with Rational Team Concert for System z. Rational Team Concert and Rational Team Concert for System z share many basic concepts and best practices related to building with the Jazz Team Server; however, the Rational Build Agent, which is specific to Rational Team Concert for System z, is different from the Rational Team Concert Jazz Build Engine in many ways, as described in various topics throughout this information center.

For more information about building with the Jazz Team Server, see Building with Jazz Team Build.

Building with the Rational Build Agent build definition template

With the Rational Build Agent build definition template, you can define the following two types of builds for z/OS:
  • Command line build. You can specify a series of commands that will perform all of the required build steps. You also can use REXX syntax for describing build commands.
  • Job control language (JCL) build. You can specify the JCL either in the file system or in the build definition. You must submit the specified JCL through Job Monitor, which you install separately.
When you use the Rational Build Agent build definition template, Rational Team Concert for System z uses the command line interface (CLI) provided by SCM to fetch the files you store in SCM.

Building with the Antz Rational Build Agent build definition template

With the Ant with enterprise extensions - Rational Build Agent build definition template, you can define builds for z/OS based on Ant with enterprise extensions, which is an extension of the Apache Ant build tool. Rational Team Concert for System z provides extensions to Ant so that you can write Ant XML script to define your build for z/OS. Individual build steps, such as compilations of different source codes, are defined in language definitions that you must configure before a build. Rational Team Concert for System z converts language definitions into Ant macros, and then Apache Ant processes the build script with those macros.

To use the Ant with enterprise extensions build definition template, you must install the Rational Team Concert for System z Build Toolkit. You do not have to run the Jazz Build Engine when you use the Ant with enterprise extensions build template, but you must use it if you want to create encrypted password files.

When you use the Ant with enterprise extensions - Rational Build Agent build definition template, Rational Team Concert for System z uses the file agent that is included in Ant Build Toolkit to fetch the files you store in SCM.


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