DataDirect Mainframe Integration Developer Center
DataDirect's Mainframe Integration Developer Center serves as the clearing house for the most current, developer-oriented mainframe integration and modernization information available in the industry.
This site contains in-depth technical articles on building applications that integrate with or reuse mainframe assets. DataDirect's Shadow eliminates mainframe integration challenges by transforming mainframe assets into industry standard components. Shadow sits between your new applications and those mainframe assets by delivering an industry standard server to assist with all your development and management needs.
View the mainframe as a relational database:
Developers can elect to see the mainframe as a large relational database and use industry standard SQL statements to manage data residing in mainframe data stores. Shadow's z/Direct interface provides SQL access to DB2, IMS/DB, VSAM, and Adabas. An RPC mechanism within Shadow provides support for any other data stores.
The Shadow based RDBMS model also provides Stored Procedure access to mainframe programs. CICS, IMS, Natural, Batch, and other programs can be invoked by the Java or .NET developer by simply invoking a database stored procedure.
More about z/Direct
Review the article on Transactional Integrity
View the mainframe as a SOAP-based web services server:
As the migration to Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) continues there is a strong need to define business artifacts as web services. Shadow enables the administrator to define access to legacy assets through a web services interface. Shadow provides access to 3 types of key mainframe resources:
- data
- programs
- screens
Using SQL statements to define data operations is simple. Shadow uses the predicates in the SQL statements to publish the SOAP request interface and wraps the result set form the SQL into the SOAP response.
To access mainframe programs Shadow requires 3 things from the administrator:
- the name of the program that will be invoked
- the location of where the program will execute
- the name of the file (COMMAREA) that defines the data required to call the program
Recording microflows is a simple process that anyone familiar with the mainframe application is capable of doing. These microflows, "the logical aggregation of a multi-screen process", will be published as a web service operation. Shadow provides enhanced performance, reliability, and scalability while reducing the typical maintenance overhead by eliminating terminal emulation within microflows.
More about z/Services
Explore the article on Shadow z/Services Connectivity for Mainframe Applications.
View the mainframe as a business event publisher:
The new generation of SOA solutions (whether you think of this as SOA 2.0 or Advanced SOA) encapsulates event publish/subscribe models rather than just request/reply mechanisms. Shadow can be the source of real-time business events through the use of change-data-capture technology. The Shadow administrator, application developer or integration specialist can easily transform simple business events into sophisticated messages. The choice of message format and transport is simple. Rules processing enables augmentation (enrichment) of messages by executing additional transactions or data queries. This enables a single message to encapsulate all the contextual or meaningful information needed by subscribing applications.
More about z/Events
Review the article on Optimizing Mainframe Data in an Event Driven Architecture.
View the mainframe as a web channel:
Access to mainframe business processes used to be through a 3270 emulator. Shadow replaces emulation with Dynamic Introspection. The Shadow solution avoids tracking emulation licenses and concurrent usage. Reliability and performance are enhanced with field-level access to screen based information. Access screen information by field-name rather than field-location simplifies the developers job while improving reliability and reducing duplicate maintenance. Shadow provides browser based access instantly to all screens within your CICS, IMS, or IDMS environment. Creating microflows, to logically aggregate multi-screen processes simplifies the users view of the application.
Shadow supports browser based access, as well as programmatic access, via Java and .NET applications, to screen based applications. This simple replacement of terminal emulation enables the rapid deployment of new applications that reuse mainframe processes.
More about z/Presentation
Explore the article on Reducing the Complexity of Mainframe Integration
Review other popular articles on the re-use of mainframe based assets in new application development:
An Introduction to Mainframe Integration
Migrating Legacy Assets to a Service Oriented Architecture
Reducing the Complexity of J2EE/.NET Application Development
Strategies for Implementing Event Driven Architectures
Accelerating the ROI for Mainframe Applications
Discovering the Hidden Cost of Commodity Legacy Adapters
