GT Software BLOG

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.

Platforms come and platforms go, and last week IBM announced the biggest and baddest mainframe on the planet, but what if you’re living in a VSE world?  I know that you’re out there and you probably feel sometimes that you aren’t getting as much attention as other platforms.   The other thing that I know, because I subscribe to the VSE listserv and regularly visit several VSE forums, is that there are many businesses out depending on VSE to run day to day operations.

The challenge for you however is that the number of software vendors committed to VSE is dwindling down every year.   But I have great news to share.  GT Software has been and continues to be committed to providing superior software solutions for the VSE platform.    All GT Software products run on VSE:

• Assist/GT – field and screen level help
• BMS/GT – WYSIWYG BMS map generator
• Ivory VisualConnect – extend and enhance 3270 applications to the web
• Ivory Data Access – SQL access to mainframe data
• Ivory Service Architect – web service enable mainframe applications

So if you want to modernize VSE mainframe applications, expose VSE data to open systems applications, or SOA enable your VSE core applications, GT Software continues to be there for you.  Visit www.gtsoftware.com for more details.

If anyone has any doubt that the mainframe is more relevant today than it has ever been, one only needs to look at the technology pages today and read about the latest and greatest IBM mainframe.   The new zEnterprise mainframe is touted as the most powerful mainframe, 40% to 60% faster than the z10, and more cost efficient than any previous model.   Developed over the last three years with the collaboration of over 30 of IBM’s top customers and $1.5 billion in R&D dollars, this new model will fundamentally change the landscape in the datacenter.   The workloads on the mainframe, Power 7, and System x blade servers can now share resources and can be managed as a single virtualized system.  The goal of this platform is to bring the disparate silos of information together under an integrated umbrella by managing up to 100,000 virtualized servers as a single system.  In addition to the added processing capabilities, the zEnterprise system has a water cooled option that could reduce energy consumption by up to 12%.

Martin Kennedy, MD, enterprise system infrastructure, Citi, says: “The new IBM zEnterprise System represents a potentially revolutionary change to the platform and the next phase in the evolution of highly efficient, scalable processing opening up the possibility of hosting entire workloads on a single highly integrated system.”

By enabling companies to manage workloads across systems as one, the zEnterprise System can drive up to 40% lower acquisition costs and reduce cost of ownership by 55%, says the vendor while also helping to make significant energy savings.

“As one of America’s greenest banks we plan to take full advantage of the additional capacity and advanced power and cooling capabilities unique to zEnterprise. Citi’s unified technology decision making model and its recent efforts to gain efficiencies prepared us to invest in these innovative technologies that benefit our clients,” concludes Kennedy.

As an IBM partner, GT Software realizes the value of the IBM mainframe and is committed to providing industry leading products for mainframe integration.

In the next IMS Newsletter, due out in the next few weeks, GT Software is featured in two different articles.   First is an article by Rob Morris titled “Returns of the Day: Banking on IMS”, and on the back cover the featured “I am IMS” article is on our own Paul Sewell. Rob highlights the long legacy that GT has with IMS expertise and experience and the trust that global customers have in GT to enable their IMS systems as service providers and consumers. GT has been fully integrating IMS with the Ivory Service Architect for IMS customers in many industries around the world. Paul Sewell , the GT Director or Marketing, is a perfect example of the next generation of young professional who “get” the power and flexibility of mainframes and especially IMS.

Look for the IMS newsletter link on the IMS Home Page in the next few weeks and see for yourself why GT Software is IMS, and Paul Sewell is IMS.

I was recently contacted by a customer who started the discussion with “I was looking at this BPMS tool that uses a BPMN 2.0 modeling with BPEL execution to create a business process and I need to include an IMS transaction, how can I do that?” Well after trying to decode all the acronyms in that question I asked him what he needed. They had started using a very powerful tool (ActiveVOS www.activevos.com) and were putting together some very interesting business processes, and inevitably he ran into process that needed information from the mainframe. After researching and talking to the guys at ActiveVOS, we realized that a web service that was created in Ivory Service Architect could easily be included into a business process (as a partner link) into ActiveVOS flows.    We created a simple IMS service in Ivory we turned the WSDL over to the designer in ActiveVOS, and in about 5 minutes that flow was invoking the service. We went on to create more complex services in Ivory that involved calling multiple IMS transactions in one service( a mainframe composite service), and again it only took a few minutes before that service was part of a business flow. So, two groups, that spoke their own languages, were able to easily and quickly create business services involving diverse architectures including the mainframe applications.

From that discussion the two companies put together a joint webinar showing how these two products and ideas were easily melded into true business solutions. So now I know that BPMS is (Business Process Management Suite), and BPMN is (Business Process Modeling Notation) and BPEL is (Business Process Execution Language) and all they need to know is that talking to mainframe is easy via a WSDL in Ivory Service Architect. That webinar is at www.vosibilities.com “Leveraging mainframes for BPM success”.

When companies and products win various awards, there is often no individual associated with the recognition. That’s why it is especially noteworthy to report that Dusty Rivers, our IMS SOA Evangelist, has been named a “data champion” as part of the IBM Information Champion Program.

Regular visitors to our blog see Dusty’s posts. At this time of distinction, I just wanted to take a few lines to introduce him and show why we agree that he is worthy of this honor.

With an extensive 33-year background in global mainframe systems integration primarily focusing on IMS, Dusty has played an integral role in the design and implementation of distributed mainframe projects for a distinguished list of FORTUNE companies throughout the finance, government, manufacturing and insurance industries. Well-regarded within the technology community, he is a frequent presenter at conferences in the US, as well as in Europe, South Africa, and Australia.

Nominated by IBM’s Ann Sheridan for his outstanding contributions to the Data Management community, Dusty has worked on the initial design of many products that integrate the IMS systems to the distributed world – first at BellSouth in the IMS and DB2 groups, then with IONA with the Orbix Mainframe Integration (IMS), then the Artix mainframe product. Dusty now works with global organizations to extend the use of IMS into the world of Web services.

A Share IMS Committee member and former relational data base project officer at Share, Dusty was one of the founding members of the Alabama DB2 users group.   Chosen for this recognition for 2010, his membership places Dusty among a small (dare we say elite?) group across all of IBM Information Management and Business Analytics communities.

Congratulations to our colleague Dusty Rivers for a well-deserved honor.

Last week at CA World in Las Vegas, GT Software formally announced Ivory 4.2.    Most prominently, in this release, you will see a major commitment from GT Software to providing support for CA Ideal, CA IDMS, and CA Datacom.   By preserving and web-service enabling CA Ideal-based applications, Ivory 4.2 allows you to derive even more business value from your investment in mainframe systems.  Features like an intelligent panel analyzer for CA Ideal panels and the ability to exploit the 3270 bridge facility in CICS makes CA integration fast, easy and efficient.

The latest version of Ivory Service Architect also contains a substantial list of other exciting enhancements.  Most notably is the ability to use the Delegate Node processing on both the Ivory Server for Windows and the Ivory Java Server.  Allowing the execution of custom .NET and Java programs greatly increases the coverage and scope of functionality by including routines like: compression, un-compression, data manipulation routines, or custom functions

Click here to read the full press release or visit www.gtsoftware.com for more details.

Maybe I shouldn’t admit this on a public technology forum, but I am not really a big Star Trek fan. I am however a HUGE fan of Linux on System z. Think about it…the hyperdrive allowed the starship to fly through space faster than the speed of light, virtually un-throttled in earthly terms. You also don’t see huge fuel tanks to power this unleashed speed, almost like it’s free. Imagine now having un-throttled speed on the mainframe that will allow you to get work done faster than on your GPP (general purpose processor) and as an extra incentive, the MIPS on the IFL (Integrated Facility for Linux) are free! Linux on System z, the Hyperdrive for the mainframe.
GT Software has extended its Ivory Service Architect product to run on Linux on System z. This means that you can now host your mainframe SOA infrastructure on the IFL. Take advantage of the power and stability of the mainframe without impacting your GPP or your bottom line. If you would like to learn more, please attend this live webcast to learn how you can save money, reduce MIPS, and expand your mainframe SOA strategy without impacting your GP. For more information, view the following Webcast: Mainframe Integration with Linux on System z

Before we start, I must acknowledge that this is in fact my first BLOG ever. I know, I know, I’m a real trendsetter, but I’ve often felt that you need to be committed to the “cause” and ensure consistent BLOGing or simply don’t do it at all. Well after much self-reflection (and prodding by some ‘friends’) – I’m ready to give it a go!

I’ve have been working in the integration space, most recently mainframe integration, for well over 15 years. The last 5 years with GT Software. We all know that the mainframe is a pricey, though extremely effective, platform and integration is key to ensuring the mainframe’s current and future viability.

Over my career, I’ve witnessed raging mainframe integration successes, and miserable mainframe integration failures. It’s always interesting to reflect on what causes success or failure and try and boil it down to a few simple ideas that are easy to understand and implement. Over the next few weeks I will do just that and provide what I believe to be the 5 guiding principles that can be the difference between success or failure for your mainframe integration projects.

Here’s the roadmap we will cover to ensure your raging success for mainframe integration projects:

Foreword: Before We Start, What is the Real Problem We’re Trying to Solve?

1. Defining the service
2. Assembling the service
3. Deployment
4. Time to deliver
5. Flexibility to change

I hope you’ll take the time to follow this thread and share your experiences and comments as we refine the integration problem to its core elements ensuring you make informed decisions about your future.

Rob

I took the Ivory Service Architect and created a very nice service based on IMS transactions. I then went into the Oracle BPEL process manager and created a BPEL process that included the aforementioned service.

So in a matter of ten minutes I had a BPEL business flow that call the IMS service as a partner-link(BPEL – Speak). I also created a composite service in Ivory that actually orchestrated multiple IMS transactions , then included that into a BPEL flow, which means the orchestration takes place on the mainframe where it belongs and does not require the BPEL tool to have to deal with multiple mainframe transactions. So yes you can easily include “ANY” mainframe artifact in a service that can be included into a BPEL flow…in minutes, not days or weeks.