Connect on z/OS¶

Confluent’s certified version of Kafka Connect for IBM’s z/OS operating system allows you to run certified premium connectors on the z/OS operating system. For more information about the premium connectors certified on z/OS, see the Certified Connectors on z/OS section in this page.

Note

Confluent’s Kafka Connect for z/OS requires an additional subscription for the premium connectors which are certified on IBM z/OS.

Connect on z/OS and Apache Kafka Compatibility¶

Connect on z/OS Version	CP Version	Connect on z/OS Release Date	Apache Kafka	Standard End of Support	Platinum End of Support
7.5.0	7.5.0	August 25, 2023	3.5.0	August 25, 2025	August 25, 2026
7.4.0	7.4.0	May 3, 2023	3.4.0	May 3, 2025	May 3, 2026
7.3.0	7.3.0	November 8, 2022	3.3.0	November 4, 2024	November 4, 2025

Connect on z/OS and Kafka Broker Compatibility¶

Kafka Connect workers that are included in Confluent Platform 3.2 and later are compatible with any Kafka broker that is included in Confluent Platform 3.0 or later.

Certified Connectors on z/OS¶

The following connectors are certified on IBM z/OS and require a premium subscription.

Connector	Supported Version
Confluent’s IBM MQ Source connector for z/OS	12.1.1
Confluent’s IBM MQ Sink connector for z/OS	2.1.2

Certified z/OS Version¶

Connect on z/OS is certified with z/OS version 2, release 4. For more details, see IBM z/OS Version 2 Release 4

Get Started With Connect on z/OS¶

This section helps you get started with Connect on z/OS. Before you begin, ensure you meet all the following requirements.

Prerequisites¶

Download the IBM MQ Source and Sink connectors for z/OS from Confluent Hub.
Download the Connect on z/OS tar file.
Access to z Systems Integrated Information Processor (zIIP). Ensure you have SSH and SFTP access enabled on the z/OS environment. You will need this to upload the Connect TAR file for z/OS.
Java compatibility with z/OS. For more details, see the IBM Support documentation.
z/OS UNIX (USS).
Install Bash. The user performing the following steps must have access to the Bash command with privileges to run scripts. You can install Bash from Rocket Software or Anaconda.
Ensure a dedicated user in USS has a bash shell and permissions to read, write, and execute the untarred connectors downloaded from Confluent Hub.

Note

Confluent’s IBM MQ Source and Sink connectors will access IBM MQ in bindings mode by default. Bindings mode is more secure than client mode.
The default port for Kafka Connect in distributed mode is 8082. You must ensure this is open so the connector can communicate. To specify a different port, set the rest.port configuration property in the connector’s configuration properties file.
The default port for Kafka Connect in standalone mode is 8083.

Quick start¶

This quick start shows you how to integrate mainframe data with Kafka. Use the following steps to set up Confluent’s IBM MQ connectors on Confluent’s Kafka Connect certified for z/OS.

Architecture Diagram: Mainframe Offloading

Step 1: Download and extract the TAR file¶

Download and extract the TAR file containing Confluent’s Kafka Connect worker node for z/OS from https://packages.confluent.io/archive/7.5/confluent-connect-7.5.0-zOS.tar.gz.
Run the gunzip command to remove the compression:
```
gunzip confluent-7.5.0-0-zOS.tar.gz
```
This will result in a confluent-connect-7.5.0-0-zOS.tar TAR file.
Upload the TAR file to the z/OS machine.
Untar the TAR file by running the following command:
```
tar -xvf confluent-connect-7.5.0-0-zOS.tar
```

Step 2: Convert files to EBCDIC encoding¶

Log into the z/OS machine with a SSH terminal:
```
ssh -p <port> username@<ipaddress>
```
Navigate to the z/OS folder:
```
cd confluent-connect-zos
```
Convert the following files to EBCDIC encoding by running the iconv command. For example:
```
iconv -f ISO8859-1 -t IBM-1047 ./connect-standalone.properties > connect-standalone2.properties
```
- bin/connect-standalone.sh
- bin/kafka-run-class.sh
- ./config/connect-standalone.properties
- <path_to_ibmmq_source_config_file>/<name_of_ibmmq_source_config_file>
- <path_to_ibmmq_sink_config_file>/<name_of_ibmmq_sink_config_file>

Step 3: Set path to dependent libraries¶

Export the following environmental variable:

export LIBPATH=$LIBPATH:<path_to_client_library>

This is a path to the bindings shared object–it is important to run the connector in bindings mode so the connector can find all the native libraries.

Note

If you are setting up the IBM MQ Source and IBM MQ Sink connectors, ensure you follow the steps listed in the Client Libraries section.

Step 4: Download the IBM MQ Connectors¶

Download the IBM MQ Source and Sink connectors for z/OS from Confluent Hub.

Step 5: Run the connector worker node¶

Run the Connect standalone worker node by running the following command:

./bin/connect-standalone.sh ./config/connect-standalone.properties ./ibmmqconnector.properties

For more details on the connector configurations, see the IBM MQ Source or the IBM MQ Sink connector documentation.