Create a Mainframe Assessment Tool VM

Mainframe Assessment Tool is packaged as a disk image that you can use to create a virtual machine (VM) instance on Compute Engine. The VM runs a web-based portal that you can connect to and interact with to perform an analysis of the mainframe applications. The tool also includes experimental AI-powered code analysis which requires access to Vertex AI API.

This document describes how to create a Mainframe Assessment Tool VM and access the VM machine from a local Linux or Windows machine.

Before you begin

Complete the steps to prepare for discovery and assessment.

Create a VM

In the Google Cloud console, click Activate Cloud Shell.
Go to the Google Cloud console
Create a VM using the Mainframe Assessment Tool disk image:
```
gcloud compute instances create mainframe-assessment-tool-1-instance \
  --machine-type=e2-standard-4 --service-account=SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME \
  --scopes=cloud-platform --image-project=migrate-modernize-public \
  --image-family=mainframe-assessment-tool --zone=ZONE
```
Replace the following:
- SERVICE_ACCOUNT_NAME: with the name of the dedicated service account that you created.
- ZONE: the zone where you want to create the VM. All zones in all the Generative AI on Vertex AI regions are supported.
If you've configured the firewall in your project to allow IAP tunnels only for VMs with certain network tags, then you can also add the network tags using the --tags flag. For example, --tags=assessment-iap.

If your project already has a working Cloud NAT (network address translation) setup, then you just need to add the --no-address flag to the gcloud command that creates the VM.

Set up access to Mainframe Assessment Tool from local machine

After creating the VM, set up the access to Mainframe Assessment Tool from a local Linux or Windows machine:
```
gcloud compute start-iap-tunnel VM_NAME 4000 --zone=ZONE \
  --local-host-port=localhost:PORT --project=PROJECT_ID
```
Replace the following:
- VM_NAME: the name of the VM.
- ZONE: the VM zone.
- PORT: any port number on your local machine to use for the tunneled connection to the Mainframe Assessment Tool.
- PROJECT_ID: the project ID of the VM project.

What's next

Learn how to run a discovery and assessment.