Question about ZD&T.

[Piggy Chop]

Hi,

If for cost cutting, for the lower environments, like development and testing, we start making use of ZD&T from IBM. Is it worth the shot? I read about it but I am not very sure on this yet. Any opinion would be appreciated. 

[Anuj Dhawan]

The simplest answer is: ask IBM, especially if you’re evaluating one of their own product offerings.- Putting it into context - yes, ZD&T is worth considering for development and testing environments, particularly when the objective is cost control without compromising developer agility. It gives you a full z/OS stack running on x86 Linux - COBOL, CICS, IMS, DB2, RACF—all included. It fits well for unit testing, code compile, training, and even CI/CD integration with tools like Git, Jenkins, DBB, or Azure DevOps. Where it doesn't fit is performance testing or production-like volumes - it's not licensed or technically built for that. Also, licensing, while cheaper than actual MIPS usage, needs to be factored in. In many setups, ZD&T is used for dev/unit test, Micro Focus or shared LPARs for integration test, and mainframe LPARs reserved for UAT or prod. In short, ZD&T won’t replace your mainframe, but it will help you reduce your reliance on it where it makes sense, just my two cents.