Guidance on Setting Up a Mainframe Environment with CICS, VSAM, and JCL

[carlinhoshk]

I would like to ask for some guidance on how to set up a Mainframe environment that includes CICS, VSAM, and JCL support for testing and learning purposes.

Is there any recommended way to access or emulate such an environment?

Also, I would like to know if it is possible to use IBM z/OS Explorer or OpenMainframe solutions to connect and work with a mainframe environment that supports these technologies.

Any suggestions, references, or documentation would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[alainlaflamme]

Hello,

I've had this issue a few times with different people. You can try to play around Hercules+zos31 (do not take TK4, it can't handle CICS). It's a free emulator of z/OS, but extremely sluggish an has a lot of limits. Hercules is the 'mainframe' and zos31 is the OS. Making CICS run on this is probably a massive headache.

I have worked with IBM Wazi sandbox before and it did the job fine and the price isvery reasonable. Set up went smoothly and quickly. Tried it another time with someone else and he could never get it to work and IBM wasn't very helpful.

There are mainframe as service providers but they are not cheap 500-1000$ a month.

You can use IBM RDP (Remote Development Program) but it's not cheap either and requires sysadmin know how.

Of course there is IBM Z Xplore but it's for educational purposes. You'll touch on CICS, JCL and VSAM but it's not a dev environment.

These are mostly the options. I think you should give Wazi a shot since the cost is not restrictive.