Over the past several years, I’ve had the opportunity to see what a lot of different organizations are doing to create mainframe web services. Something that just baffles my mind is how many people are creating web services by hand coding them…..and think that it’s the only way.
You must be kidding me? I didn’t think people actually wrote code for anything anymore. Heck, even COBOL, that “ancient” language has tooling to generate the code for you. So why are you still coding your mainframe services?
Deep breathe, stop ranting. Good. Let’s get back to web services, one of the more recent things to come to the IT world. Certainly, there would have to be a slick interface for creating these web services. There must be a better way. NEWS FLASH — THERE IS! If you want to create simple or complex SOAP, REST or JSON services without writing any code, you must explore Ivory Service Architect from GT Software. Web services of any level of granularity, done. Our customers have quit coding and so should you.
JavaScript Web Designers Can Now Easily Integrate with the Mainframe Using Ivory Service Architect
ATLANTA, June 20, 2011 – GT Software, a global provider of mainframe integration and data access solutions, today announced that its flagship product, Ivory Service Architect, now supports JSON as an option for web service processing. 
“This latest enhancement makes Ivory Service Architect easier for developers to use, and opens the door for JavaScript web designers to access the IBM mainframe — enabling more people than ever before to leverage mainframe applications and data,” said Wes Young, Senior Vice President of Sales for GT Software.
“This reinforces Ivory Service Architect’s position as the most cost-effective, flexible mainframe integration tool on the market today.”
Read the full press release here.
Yes, those immortal words take me back to a high school stage in 1978 when life was easy and I really didn’t “pay no mind” to the words being sung. Irving Berlin may not have really known how those words would ring true even today, but I digress.
The possibilities for a play on words here are just too easy. But seriously, what isn’t that easy is trying to take Natural applications and integrate them with modern web applications. It’s just plain hard. Adabas data access can be difficult too. Fortunately, GT Software is also doing what comes naturally and that is making integration easy by extending the powerful capabilities of Ivory Service Architect to also include inbound and outbound web service enablement for Natural applications and Adabas data.
If you have Natural applications that need to call web services, or if you want to web service enable your existing Natural apps and data, give GT a call. You can also view a rebroadcast of our last webinar titled “Boost Development Initiatives with Native Access to Natural / Adabas“ or read the full press release here.
IMS has been around and in production for over 40 years as the backbone system of many world class organizations in all industry verticals. Now with some of the new technologies and systems many are looking to try and replace those tried and true systems. Why replace something that is tried and true, why not just incorporate the new technologies and let them drive the existing IMS systems (without changing the IMS systems).
Already companies are using web-services to drive IMS transactions or sets of transactions to create composite business services needed by the new business initiatives. Now it is also possible to create RESTful services (RESTful interfaces typically require less development effort and use less runtime overhead) and include those in many new technologies easier that using the WSDL or Web service protocol. Also as many systems move to Web 2.0 interfaces they can be used there also with mash-up tools to create the new user facing systems. You can also use both Web Services and RESTful services in mash-up tools depending on designer preferences.
If you are using Microsoft tooling like SharePoint 2010 those services can be easily incorporated into the design of the SharePoint 2010 applications also. In SharePoint 2010 you can also use either service (REST or WSDL).
In all the scenarios mentioned, the underlying IMS applications (transactions) do not need to be changed; they just continue to work as they have for decades. The important part is to focus on the business need required to drive the use of the new technology, and not replacing existing software just because it’s been running for awhile. Use IMS with the new technology, it will be a lot easier and less painful.
For Information on using IMS with REST, Web Services, SharePoint 2010 see www.gtsoftware.com.
If you are building web services and are looking for an alternative to SOAP and WSDL, RESTful services are something to be seriously considered. REST, Representational State Transfer, was introduced back in 2000 and is gaining acceptance as a lighter weight alternative to SOAP and WSDL based web services.
Although SOAP can be powerful, some feel that it is a bit heavy or verbose for certain applications. Web 2.0 launched REST into the forefront, led by service providers like Facebook, Google, Yahoo and others. RESTful services allow for the creation of HTML based applications using Java Script, XSLT, Ajax, and other non-traditional code based methods without having the formal contract using a WSDL. RESTful interfaces typically also require less development effort and use less runtime overhead.
So if you are concerned about the time, complexity, or overhead of using SOAP based web services, then you should give your brain, and your applications, some REST. If you’re tired of building systems where data needs to be easily combined (mashups), REST can provide the relief that you need. SOAP still has its place in integration projects, but sometimes you just have to stop and take a REST.
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Click to learn how you can use REST to solve your services needs.
Customer testimonials give credibility to the power, usability, effectiveness, value, and many other attributes of a product or company. A good review can often times make a good product great.
How would you like to hear directly from the senior executives that rely on Ivory Service Architect for their mainframe integration projects? Learn from the decision makers why they chose Ivory, how they evaluated Ivory, how they measure success, why they didn’t just pick something free, and the value derived from Ivory.
Steve Craggs, founder of Lustratus research and former IBM Worldwide MQSeries executive, recently interviewed eight Ivory Service Architect customers to learn how and why they chose Ivory, how they are using Ivory and the value derived from using Ivory for their mainframe integration projects. The results have been published in a new Lustratus research paper called User Experiences with Mainframe Integration.
Please join Steve Craggs and our own Rob Morris on October 26th at 12PM EST for a webinar as they discuss the results of Lustratus Research’s latest survey. Rob will interview Steve live over the web regarding the findings of this break-through survey and both will be available to answer your questions.
You should not miss this exciting event! Sign up today for “Mainframe Modernization – Actionable Experience from Real Implementations” and as an added bonus for attending you will receive the research paper free of charge.
Every once in a while, a product comes along that makes a significant impact on how enterprises share information. Microsoft SharePoint is a family of products that provides enterprises collaboration, file sharing and web publishing capabilities. Web sites, portal, content management systems, search engines, blogs, wikis and other tools can be built using the SharePoint product family.
One constant remains no matter what development environment is chosen for information sharing. The ability to include your most valuable information assets, the mainframe, cannot be over looked. Ivory Service Architect allows SharePoint applications to quickly and easily include mainframe programs and data using standard web services. The best part is that the code free development models of SharePoint and Ivory Service Architect dovetail nicely together.
So if you need to includes the mainframe into your SharePoint application, please visit www.gtsoftware.com for additional details on “SharePoint and the Mainframe”.
A recent Proof of Concept got me thinking that there might be a “Silver Bullet” being overlooked by our Ivory customers. Ivory Service Architect provides not only SOAP based Web Services, but Callable Services. Callable services were created to provide clients a method for legacy applications to access external Web Services using Ivory projects. Added at the request of a premiere customer, this option provides flexibility when planning new projects, because the process can be prototyped and fully tested using Ivory tooling for web services and then via a simple export function the service provides a simple Callable API interface that can be used by most any COBOL, PLI or assembler programmer without the need to understand the complexities of XML, SOAP or SOA.
Once the Callable Service API is in place, the backend processing for the service can be changed on demand to match business requirements. Several clients have extended their batch and online transaction processing transactions to the “Web Cloud” using Ivory Callable Services. So when the time comes to change vendors in the “Web Cloud”, there is no need to make modifications to their application code, the Ivory “Silver Bullet” (Callable Services Project) is modified and the application is now using a new vendor with no application level impact. Callable Services provides real time “On Demand Processing” for Ivory Clients.
Ivory also provides “Delegate” processing with all the various Ivory project types. Ivory “Delegates” that are provided by clients or GT business partners provide an interface point between Ivory and any client or software vendor process. So if Callable Services are the “Silver Bullet” for clients, then “Delegates” would be the “Golden Hammer”, because it will allow Ivory to nail down any business interface requirement. Ivory Delegates have been used to extend Ivory into almost any mainframe database, IDMS/DC, Batch Job Submission, EMAIL and even User Written Compression routines.
Why the magic references? The magic of Ivory allowed us to easily complete the proof of concept mentioned above. By simply adding one Ivory Custom Delegate and a couple of Ivory Callable Services, we were able to exceed the expectations of the client as well as provide the Batch Event processing required.
Ivory Callable Services and the Delegate extensions provide clients with the tooling they need to meet and exceed the ever changing demands of their enterprise.
Companies that implement SAP have an interesting and sometimes challenging dilemma. What to do with the information that is still on the mainframe?
Having the ability to integrate mainframe data and applications with SAP is a better alternative than replication of data and business logic. It is also more effective and cheaper. If you don’t believe me, believe our customers that have done it.
- A major payroll processing company to needed a solution that would bridge its legacy VSAM-based CRM system to its new SAP CRM platform. Using Ivory, the company now has access to its legacy CRM data on the mainframe from SAP as well as single sign-on capabilities, which eliminated the need for multiple logins to disparate systems, saving time, reducing risk, and increasing productivity.
- A major US based defense contractor moved a majority of core business functions to SAP preserving the investment of thousands of mainframe apps and business logic. By deploying Ivory, the company integrated its disparate mainframe applications, including CICS, IMS, and CA IDMS, while others were migrated to SAP preserving its mainframe services for reusability.
- A European management agency deployed SAP to its divisions for a new system of records for land parcels, and was challenged to synchronize its CA IDMS data with SAP. Using Ivory, the company built a service that automatically updated SAP Oracle each time an update is made on the CA IDMS mainframe system, in addition to delivering nightly batch updates.
Visit www.gtsoftware.com for information on SAP or other application integration solutions.
