Make the IDz licenses you already bought actually get used
IBM Developer for z/OS is a genuinely capable IDE — but only if developers adopt it. We handle the edition and licensing decision, the rollout, the performance tuning, and the training — instructor-led classes and self-paced videos from our own IDz curriculum — that turns shelfware into daily use.
Bought, installed, and still not used
The most common IDz outcome isn’t a bad tool — it’s an unused one. Licenses get purchased, a zip and a wiki link go out, and three months later the mainframe team is still in ISPF. The productivity case never lands because nobody owned the rollout. The IDE feels slow because the host side was never tuned, the connection setup was a fight, and no one connected IDz to the code developers actually work on.
There’s a licensing question underneath it, too. IDz, IDz Enterprise Edition (IDzEE), and Application Delivery Foundation for z/OS (ADFz) are different packages at different price points — and buying the wrong one means either paying for capabilities you don’t use or missing ones you needed. Most shops have never had that mapped to how their teams actually work.
Adoption is the deliverable. An IDE only pays back when developers reach for it by default — and that takes rollout, tuning, and coaching in the context of real code, not a one-hour demo.
IDz, IDzEE, or ADFz — matched to how you work
The names get used interchangeably and they shouldn’t be. We map the edition to your actual needs before a single license is renewed.
IDz
IBM Developer for z/OS — the Eclipse-based IDE itself: modern editing, code analysis, debugging, and host access for COBOL, PL/I, and Assembler.
IDzEE
The Enterprise Edition — IDz plus the enterprise deployment and analysis tooling (including Wazi Deploy and Wazi Analyze) for teams building a full pipeline.
ADFz
Application Delivery Foundation for z/OS — a broader bundle pairing the IDE with problem-determination tooling like Fault Analyzer, Debug, and File Manager.
Not sure which one you already own — or which you should? That’s the first thing an assessment settles. See our explainer: What’s the difference between IDz, IDzEE and ADFz?
Rollout that ends in daily use
The curriculum behind the adoption step
We don’t outsource the training — we wrote it. A modular IDz curriculum we assemble per client and per language, delivered by the same consultants who do the implementations.
The IDz course, module by module
70+ hands-on modules with labs, covering the full IDE: the editors, remote compile and syntax check, debugging in batch, CICS, and IMS, zUnit, code coverage, Fault Analyzer, and the DB2 and CICS tooling — for COBOL, PL/I, HLASM, and C/C++. Agendas are assembled per client, so your class covers your stack.
Video library, on demand
Most core modules are also available as self-paced videos — the z/OS connection, the editors, debugging, Git workflows, and user builds — so developers can learn on their own schedule and new hires can onboard without waiting for the next class.
Git & DBB, and Java on z/OS
Two sibling curricula round out the workflow: a Git and Dependency Based Build course (branching through rebase, plus setup for GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and Azure DevOps), and a Java-on-z/OS track using JZOS with the same IDz tooling.
Instructor-led training is available standalone, or included in an implementation engagement. Looking for IBM ELM training instead? That’s its own program.
We’ve run IDz rollouts where the win was measured in developers who stopped opening ISPF — because the adoption work got done, not just the install.
Tell us what you own and who’s not using it.
An adoption assessment reviews your IDz licensing, host configuration, and current usage — and lays out what it takes to get real return on the IDE you already pay for.