GT Software BLOG

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.