I am already using Net::Telnet for running my Unix builds, currently synchronously, and my VMS builds, where I just submit a VMS batch job. The Unix side is only a small problem as they are very small bits and build very quickly. There is only modest improvement to be had by running these concurrently. I had thought using Perl threading might be a simple approach, but of course running them as "batch" jobs and going back to look at their results is probably the simplest way to go. The VMS builds take a great deal of time, both due to the amount of code being built, but also the slowness of the machines I am using. I do need to add code to go back and check logfiles for completion and success. Right now that is a manual process with the VMS builds. I am thinking Net::FTP might be the simplest way to go for checking the log files from batch jobs.

MVS poses the greatest challenge. Note that these old beasts still use block mode terminal emulations for interactive use (the infamous "green screen"). While it appears possible to telnet to the various MVS environments, the server is not a standard telnet server. It would not make sense for it to be one since there is no "command line" environment for this beast, only the block mode full screen environment. And thus my question about automating things. It is not clear to me how one goes about this, yet I am sure it is being done. One strategy that makes sense is to submit batch jobs that do the work needed, and then use FTP to fetch results. But its not even clear to me how to do even this, nor that batch jobs can perform all the necessary tasks (such as shutdown a cics partition as one example).