Solutions / Mainframe DevOps

One deployment tool for the mainframe and everything it connects to

IBM DevOps Deploy — formerly UrbanCode Deploy — automates releases across z/OS and distributed platforms from one workflow-driven tool. We install it, model your applications and environments, and hand it over running.

Scope your implementation See how we implement it
The Problem

Every platform deploys differently, and none of them agree

A single business release rarely lives on one platform. It’s a CICS region and a set of load libraries on z/OS, a handful of services on Linux, a database change, and a front end somewhere else. Each of those tends to deploy its own way — a JCL job here, a shell script there, a spreadsheet of manual steps that only one person fully understands.

That’s the gap IBM DevOps Deploy closes. It models an application as versioned components deployed through defined processes into managed environments, with approvals, snapshots, and a full audit trail — and it does this across mainframe and distributed targets from the same tool. The result is one release view instead of a per-platform patchwork.

Where it fits matters: DevOps Deploy is the broad, workflow-driven, cross-platform choice. If your need is purely z/OS and pipeline-native, IBM Wazi Deploy is usually the lighter fit — we’ll tell you which is right rather than sell you the bigger tool by default.

How We Implement It

From licensed but idle to deploying in production

Buying DevOps Deploy is the easy part. The value is in modeling your applications correctly — and that’s the work we do directly, not a slideware plan handed to your team.

01
Assess your release landscape
We map what actually ships together — the z/OS artifacts, the distributed components, the databases — and the approvals each one has to pass. That map, not a generic template, drives the design.
02
Install and configure the server and agents
We stand up the DevOps Deploy server and deploy agents onto your z/OS and distributed targets — sized, secured, and connected to the systems they’ll manage.
03
Model applications, components, and environments
Your releases become versioned components with real deployment processes, promoted through DEV, TEST, and PROD environments — with the mainframe steps (load-library copies, CICS newcopy, DB2 binds) as first-class actions, not afterthoughts.
04
Add approvals, snapshots, and audit
Gates and approvals encode the sign-offs your auditors already require, snapshots capture exactly what a release contained, and every deployment is recorded — so change control stops living in email.
05
Integrate the pipeline and hand it over
DevOps Deploy is triggered from the CI pipeline you already run, and your team is trained to own the processes — so it keeps working after we leave, without a standing dependency on us.
What You Get

A configured tool, not a box of parts

One release, all platforms

Mainframe and distributed targets deploy through the same tool, with one view of what shipped where — no per-platform silos.

Governance built in

Approvals, snapshots, and a complete audit trail encode your change-control requirements instead of bolting them on after the fact.

Repeatable, not heroic

Deployments run the same way every time, so a release stops depending on the one person who remembers the manual steps.

Why Strongback

We implement DevOps Deploy where most of the risk actually is — the z/OS side — with engineers who know CICS, DB2, and load-library mechanics, not just the tool’s UI.

— Strongback Consulting, mainframe DevOps since before it had a name
Next Step

Tell us how you deploy today. We’ll model the first application with you.

An implementation assessment maps your release landscape to a DevOps Deploy design — and tells you honestly whether it, or Wazi Deploy, is the right tool for your estate.

Scope your implementation Compare with Wazi Deploy