PopUp Mainframe Release Notes

Details of previous versions are available here.

Release Naming Convention

PopUp Mainframe release versions are made up of the following segments:

  • The first three characters define the IBM z/OS version included in this PopUp Mainframe release build (e.g. 2.4 or 2.5, etc)
  • A PopUp Mainframe instance runs on a Linux host. The fourth character designates the Linux operating system used (e.g. "U" for Ubuntu or "R" for Red Hat Enterprise Linux)
  • The fifth character uniquely identifies different builds of PopUp Mainframe which share the same base z/OS version and operating system (e.g. a, b, c, etc)

Foundation Components

Component PopUp X 3.1Rb
Sep 2025		 PopUp Z 3.1Ub
Aug 2025		 PopUp X 2.5Rc
Dec 2025
Operating System RHEL V9.1 Ubuntu 22.04 RHEL V9.7
IBM zD&T 14.2.2 14.2.2 14.2.2
IBM z/OS 3.1 3.1 2.5
Microsoft Azure MarketPlace offer MarketPlace offer

Mainframe Subsystems, Applications and Utilities

Component PopUp X 3.1Rb
Sep 2025		 PopUp Z 3.1Ub
Aug 2025		 PopUp X 2.5Rc
Dec 2025
IBM ADCD for z/OS V3R1 V3R1 V2R5
IBM CICS Transaction
Server		 6.1 6.1 5.5 & 5.6
IBM Db2 13 13 12
IBM IMS 15.4 15.4 15.1
IBM MQ for z/OS 9.3.5 9.3.5 9.2
IBM Java SDK for z/OS 8.0 8.0 7.1 & 8.0
IBM Enterprise COBOL 6.4 6.4 6.3
IBM Enterprise PL/1 6.1 6.1 5.3
IBM Rational
COBOL Runtime (EGL)		 6.0.1 6.0.1 6.0.1
IBM z/OS Connect 3.0 3.0 3.0
IBM Debug for z/OS 16.0.5 16.0.5 14.2.2 & 15.0.3
IBM Performance
Management Suite for z/OS		 5.5
IBM Z Monitoring
Suite for z/OS		 1.3 1.3
IBM DBB 2.0.2 2.0.2
IBM Wazi Deploy 3.0.2 3.0.2
Component PopUp X 3.1Rb
Sep 2025		 PopUp Z 3.1Ub
Aug 2025		 PopUp X 2.5Rc
Dec 2025
FastTrack All Versions Supported All Versions Supported All Versions Supported
Ansible 2.18.0 & Pre-built Playbooks 2.18.0 & Pre-built Playbooks 2.18.0 & Pre-built Playbooks
Python 3.12 3.12 3.12
Galasa Core Managers
available as of June
2024		 Core Managers
available as of June
2024		 Core Managers
available as of June
2024
IBM Open Enterprise
Foundation for z/OS		 1.1.0 1.1.0 1.1.0
ZTI Installed Installed Installed
DMFU (Delphix mainframe
file utility)		 3.0 3.0 3.0

PopUp Utilities and Open Source products included on the PopUp are detailed here.

BMC AMI DevX tools

Component PopUp X 3.1Rb
Sep 2025		 PopUp Z 3.1Ub
Aug 2025		 PopUp X 2.5Rc
Dec 2025
BMC AMI Enterprise
Common Components(CMSC/HCI)		 17.02 17.02 17.02
BMC AMI DevX Code Pipeline 22.01 22.01 22.01
BMC AMI DevX Abend- AID for batch 17.02 17.02 17.02
BMC AMI DevX Abend-AID for CICS 17.02 17.02 17.02
BMC AMI DevX Abend-AID Viewer (server) 17.02
BMC AMI DevX File-AID for MVS 23.01 23.01 23.01
BMC AMI DevX File-AID for Db2 23.01 23.01 23.01
BMC AMI DevX Code Debug for TSO and IMS 17.02 17.02 17.02
BMC AMI DevX Code Debug for CICS 17.02 17.02 17.02
BMC AMI DevX Code Coverage 17.02 17.02 17.02
BMC AMI DevX Total Test 23.04.02 23.04.02 23.04.02
BMC AMI Common Enterprise Services(CES) 24.02.01 24.02.01 23.04.02


PopUp Mainframe ships with utilities to help make it easier to manage your z/OS environments.

DASD Volume Creation Utility

THis utility creates Linux volumes, mounts those volumes into z/OS, initializes them and performs SMS conversion. Full step-by-step guide to using this utility available here.

V2.0 (Feb 2024) - PL/I INCLUDE member support added. Now supports more volume types including DB2, CICS, IMS etc.


Data Migration Utilities

We augment IBM's Migration Server Utility to reliably transport selected applications and data from a source mainframe onto PopUp Mainframe. IBM's Migration Server Utility is discussed in detail in Chapter 15 of IBM's zPDT Guide and Reference Redbook.

Corral & Decorral Utility

The Corral & Decorral utility simplifies the transfer of data to and from the transport volumes used by the IBM Migration Server Utility.

This utility produces jobs to be run at migration time, which streamline the copying of data onto the available transport volumes, using space efficiently.

V2.0 (Feb 2024) - Added more automation features to the corral/decorral functionality, allowing for unsupervised execution of corralling and decorralling jobs, improving transfer of data from client mainframe to PopUp.

Auto-Migration

Provides controlled execution of corralling and decorralling jobs to facilitate unattended migration of application datasets. This is particularly useful when transferring large amounts of data. This tool utilises the Volume Hot-swap facility to seamlessly transfer all files in a conveyor belt like fashion. For more details, see the Data Transfer page.


GitSync Utility

A set of tools designed to assist in integrating a mainframe-hosted SCM solution (e.g. Endevor, Changeman) with a git-based solution. GitSync translates z/OS datasets into Unix/Linux files and vice versa, taking care of the formatting conversion between EBCDIC and ASCII. GitSync also enables you to import full SCM history into git, ensuring auditability in future.


Other utilities

Additional utilities include:

  • JES Spool Utility - Monitors JES spool volumes and generates automated email alerts on user specified thresholds.
  • Log viewer - Provides a readily accessible, user filterable web interface to the Master Console log.
  • Master Console Management - Automates access to the master console from Linux at IPL.
  • IPL Monitoring - Monitors the Master Console and automates actions based on console output.


Open Source Products

PopUp comes with the following open-source products pre-installed and pre-configured on the PopUp, designed to get you up and running with open-source tools quickly.

Ansible Automation

Ansible automation and pre-built playbooks are shipped with the PopUp. For more details, see Automation.


Galasa

Galasa CLI Integration: PopUp includes support for Galasa CLI v0.34.1, to facilitate automated testing and continuous integration processes. Refer to Galasa Site for more information about Galasa.

Galasa has three major components (see below diagram):

  • The Galasa test framework
  • A collection of Managers
  • A test runner


IMON

IMON is a real-time system monitor for z/OS allowing users to quickly locate information of interest. Information is either displayed on a single panel allowing the user to select the information they are interested in, or they can navigate to a specific display with a single command string.


Showzos

Showzos makes MVS control information displayable, providing a wealth of information about your z/OS system, everything from Operating System Information to Software levels and Storage Configuration is provided in a single call. The tool can be web-enabled to allow you to display and use the information from a web browser.


IBM Open Enterprise Foundation for z/OS

IBM Open Enterprise Foundation for z/OS provides a comprehensive suite of open source tools and libraries that are designed to enhance and simplify the experience on the z/OS platform. The tools available as part of this suite are git, GNU Bash, curl, GNU Make, perl, vim, Ncurses, Less, GPG, JQ and GNU which. All these tools are available in the z/OS USS environment. In order to experience the full functionality, IBM recommends to use it in an SSH envionment rather than through TSO OMVS.

Additional information available here.


ZTI - Z Terminal Interface

Z Terminal Emulator allows you to run a 3270 user interface from within a linux environment. You can run against a local or a remote PopUp Mainframe that has appropriate network connectivity.

Additional information available here.


COBOL Check

COBOL Check is a unit testing framework for COBOL.

Additional information available here.


Delphix Plugin

Enables the Delphix Continuous Data Engine to interact and function with a PopUp Mainframe instance in order to provide data virtualization capabilities. Provides seamless integration with the Delphix Continuous Data product in order to facilitate highly efficient storage, bookmarking, re-setting and branching of PopUp Mainframe images.


Delphix Mainframe File Utility (DMFU)

Complements the Delphix Continuous Compliance Engine to provide masking capabilities for various mainframe file types including fixed length files (eg QSAM & flat files) and variable length files (eg VSAM).

V3.0 - January 2025

Updated to support Delphix Continuous Compliance version 14 onwards.

V2.0 - February 2024

PL/I INCLUDE member support added.

V1.0

Initial implementation.


Delphix IMS Mainframe Utility (DIMU)

Complements the Delphix Continuous Compliance Engine to provide masking capabilities for IMS databases.

V2.0 - February 2024

PL/I INCLUDE member support added.

V1.0

Initilal implementation.


Mainframe Masking Plugin for Delphix from PopUp Mainframe.


Page last revised on: 2025-12-17