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Volume 4, Number 8 -- February 24, 2004

Sterling Commerce Brings Gentran Integration Suite to OS/400


by Alex Woodie

OS/400 shops searching for enterprise-strength integration software may want to check out the Gentran Integration Suite, which Sterling Commerce recently made available as a native program for the OS/400 and z/OS platforms. A slew of plug-ins gives Java-based GIS Version 3.0 an abundance of capabilities, ranging from business process design and enterprise application integration connectivity to classic electronic data interchange translation and UCCnet compliance. With its older electronic document interchange software in maintenance mode, Sterling is banking on customers upgrading to GIS.

Sterling, a subsidiary of SBC Communications, has been in the electronic document interchange (EDI) and enterprise application integration (EAI) business for years. More than 3,000 OS/400 shops use its Gentran:Server electronic document interchange software, which runs natively on OS/400 and other major platforms.

Three-and-a-half years ago, Sterling started developing a new Java-based integration product that could "wrap" around existing Gentran installations and provide a modularized upgrade path to support the new wave of e-business protocols and services being built around XML. The result, called Gentran Integration Suite, first shipped on Unix in late 2002, and supported Windows soon after.

Like IBM's WebSphere, it's a little difficult to grasp Sterling's Gentran Integration Suite in one sitting. Even Keith Shafer, the company's vice president of software development, admits that it's a "huge product," which is why it's sold in a modular fashion. But application and data integration is complex stuff, and Sterling has set its sights high with this offering.

 

At its core, GIS is all about automating business processes, Shafer says. "We built the solution on J2EE [Java 2 Enterprise Edition], which allows it to support high volumes," he says. "Sterling provides services and adapters that can be used to write these automated business processes. Sterling Commerce also ships pre-defined business processes for certain applications."

 

GIS users can expect Sterling to add new features as their integration needs change. "We continually add new business processes, wizards, and interfaces," Shafer says. "What we are trying to do long-term is ship complete solutions out of the box, so customers don't need to deal with the technical details."

THE FOUR COMPONENTS OF GIS

There are four component categories for GIS. These include the Integration Broker, EAI Adapters, B2B Adapters, and Web Enablement/Extensions. Here's a quick rundown on these parts:

  • Integration Broker is the core GIS component, providing business process modeling and management capabilities. The content-based routing capabilities are particularly powerful in Integration Broker, because they allow users not only to accept and convert data from external sources but also to act on it--to automate responses, analyze data, and filter out errors--Sterling says. Getting this server component to run on OS/400's Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and to support DB2/400 were key to iSeries-enablement.

  • Sterling says it offers more than 200 EAI adapters and connectors with GIS, including some that the company has written itself, as well as some that it has access to through a partnership with EAI connector specialist iWay Software. Sterling offers application connectors for the ERP applications from J.D. Edwards, SAP, Oracle, and PeopleSoft, as well as adapters for the WebSphereMQ and MSMQ messaging software, JCA, JDBC, SNMP, and LDAP.

  • The B2B Services component allows users to connect with partners using protocols such as EDI-INT (AS1/AS2), Web services (via SOAP), UCCnet Version 2.2, RosettaNet, and others.

  • Sterling says its Web Extensions component adds the element of human interaction to all these data transactions flowing in bits and bytes. For example, Sterling says, The Web Extensions component could let a user enable B2B communications with small partner that only needs occasional connections. Rather than deal with XML or EDI, these partners could use GIS to create electronic documents by filling out simple Web forms, which are translated and routed behind the scenes.

One of the biggest drivers of GIS sales on Unix and Windows platforms has been AS2 connectivity, Shafer says. AS2 is a standard that allows organizations to securely send EDI messages via HTTP, thereby allowing users to turn off their expensive value added network (VAN) lines. Sterling also offers a separate UCCnet module that has sold well, Shafer says. Both UCCnet and AS2 have seen rapid adoption in the consumer goods supply chain, due in large part to mandates by retail chains, such as Wal-Mart, for their suppliers to support the new technologies.

"It will be interesting to see how GIS is used by [AS/400] customers," Shafer says. "IBM has been pushing customers away from the green screen, and you don't need a green screen with GIS."

Performance is something that all GIS users, not just OS/400 shops, should take into consideration. Shafer emphasized that GIS is brand new on OS/400, and its performance on this platform hasn't been fully tested on all configurations. It took a couple of releases to get GIS sizing completely nailed down on the Windows and Unix platforms, and customers should expect the same with OS/400, especially with the changes IBM is making to its sizing methodologies, Shafer says.

GIS 3.1, now in development, will feature an integrated Web application server. With GIS 3.0, customers need to have a Web application server. Sterling will ship GIS 3.1 on April 23. (This can be considered a solid date, as the company has not missed a release date yet, Shafer says.)

GIS 3.0 is available on OS/400. Some GIS capabilities, such as UCCnet connectivity, are also offered as a service, through the hosted model. For OS/400 shops, the base price for GIS starts at $20,000, and adapters cost about $2,000 each. For more information, go to www.sterlingcommerce.com.

Sponsored By
ARCAD

ARCAD Software:
Optimizes your software supply chain across multi-platforms

THE PROBLEM

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A large number of iSeries customers, if not all, work not only with native development but also with many other development platforms such as Windows, UNIX and more recently Linux. These applications are very often connected with the database or other iSeries objects. This brings with it many problems, all related to the complexity of administrating heterogeneous environments:

  • Is it possible to manage all developments centrally?
  • Can we implement the same level of methodology on all platforms?
  • How can we measure the impact of a modification on a native component on other external components?
  • How can we synchronize the transfer to production process for inter-dependent components and platforms?

THE SOLUTION

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The solution to these problems is provided by combining:

  • The IBM iSeries Integrated File System capability, which stores all component types on a single machine.
  • The ARCAD-Skipper suite to catalog all components, native and heterogeneous, and all changes to components, according to the same methodology.

At ARCAD Software, our mission is to provide concrete and workable solutions for iSeries centric software configuration management. Initiated twelve years ago, the ARCAD Software solutions benefit from a totally innovative approach and a unique architecture.

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AN INTEGRATED APPROACH

Putting in place a change management toolset is a prerequisite for evolving an information system with maximum productivity and security. But alone it is still far from sufficient, a cross reference tool is both complementary, and indispensable to the developer. The two requirements are closely linked. ARCAD Software is the only vendor to propose a global approach to this dual need: via its integrated repository, it offers full registration of software components and also complete cross-referencing down to the field level and the source lines.

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A UNIQUE INFORMATION SOURCE

Supported by the ARCAD-Open Repository, ARCAD-Skipper brings to the developer both a constant information source and a controlled structure. It offers:

  • An high-granularity impact analysis system,
  • Up to 100% automation of compilation phases.

Furthermore, the repository will also be used to carry out automatic integrity checks on versions. The consistency of relations such as source/object, file/program, COPY clause/program is automatically checked before any transfer to test or transfer to production. In the same way, ARCAD will check relations with IFS components. Thus, even in a multi-platform configuration, it is possible to guarantee the same level of consistency.

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A TOTALLY MULTI-PLATFORM APPROACH

Thanks to the invaluable operating system advance, the Integrated File System (IFS), you can transform your iSeries platform into a "sentry", securing your entire application set. ARCAD-Skipper uses the IFS as the foundation for its version management functions. This approach guarantees:

  • Referencing of your entire set of software components (iSeries, Windows, UNIX/Linux) in a single and shared repository,
  • Physical security of components,
  • Versioning of components with integrated archiving,
  • Organization of the change process,
  • Management of synchronized deployments in heterogeneous environments.

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UNIQUE CUSTOMIZATION FEATURES

Another important aspect of the product is its customization capability. In the change management domain, high flexibility is needed to adapt to an existing organization. Each customer has their own standards and configuration particularities. We have overcome this problem at ARCAD with the help of our internal macro language. This internal language is unique in the market. All transfer to test and transfer to production processes, and also distribution and installation on remote machines, are defined in the form of macro-commands. Standard macros are provided with the product and can be adapted to the customer's particular needs.

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SIMPLE TO IMPLEMENT

At the same time as being highly customizable, ARCAD-Skipper is extremely simple to put in place. This is achieved by delivering with the product a complete pre-configuration corresponding to the large majority of customer needs.


STRONG POINTS AND BENEFITS

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Integration

One of the major characteristics of the ARCAD-Skipper suite is to offer at the same time a functional and a technical view of the information system. In this way it brings both security to the change cycle of software components, and also complete control over the knowledge of an information system. Being totally integrated in this way, ARCAD-Skipper reaps the benefits of any integrated product:

  • Total consistency and non-redundancy of its database,
  • A single and consistent user interface,

Reliability

It is not worth spending large sums of money to ensure high availability in terms of hardware and data if, at the same time, we cannot guarantee high availability of the application itself. ARCAD-Skipper acts as the guarantor of this high application availability.

Consistency

ARCAD-Skipper allows software change to be tackled in a more controlled and systematic manner. The integration, even temporary, of new team members will not destabilize the project, since successive developers working on the IS will all work in the same structured methodological framework.


A PROGRESSIVE SOLUTION

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ARCAD-Skipper is an open solution that can be complemented by other software suites in our range:

ARCAD-Observer: application MINING and retro-documentation

This suite offers a toolkit to facilitate the understanding of the internal architecture of your applications, and allows the same information to be synthesized into technical documentation. It ensures methodology in the update of this documentation, thanks to an integrated project management and the identification of modified components.
The documents in HTML format can be transferred to an intranet for easy sharing.

ARCAD-Observer is an indispensable and complementary tool to the ARCAD-Skipper change management solution.

ARCAD-Customer: management of technical support, 100% internet/intranet

ARCAD-Customer will increase the efficiency to your technical support, as it is the first Help-Desk solution to be both intranet/internet and oriented towards application maintenance. Thanks to its integration with the ARCAD-Skipper version management, you can fully customize your communication with users. With ARCAD-Customer, interaction with users becomes transparent.
This product benefits from original features such as preventive maintenance and "patch" management.

ARCAD-Qualifier: Control of test phases

This suite consists of three solutions key to the success of your application testing:

  • A non-regression test robot, or record and play tool, allowing the definition of functional scenarios, and the automated replay of these scenarios at each version change.
  • A dynamic code analyzer, capable of revealing which parts of the code have not been tested, and ensuring that code modifications are tested.
  • A test data extractor, allowing extracts of the production database to be taken while preserving referential integrity. With this solution, you control:
    o The disk space required by your tests,
    o The regular renewal of test data,
    o The reproduction of errors in production.

ARCAD-Transformer: 100 % automated impact analysis

This software suite allows you to undertake large database transformation projects in complete confidence.

It will produce a detailed impact analysis down to the source line level and offers an automatic source transformation mechanism

This suite will bring both productivity gains and greater reliability to your software evolutions.

For additional information, call 800-676-4709.
Visit Arcad at www.arcadsoftware.com
Editor: Alex Woodie
Managing Editor: Shannon Pastore
Contributing Editors: Dan Burger, Joe Hertvik,
Shannon O'Donnell, Timothy Prickett Morgan
Publisher and Advertising Director: Jenny Thomas
Advertising Sales Representative: Kim Reed
Contact the Editors: To contact anyone on the IT Jungle Team
Go to our contacts page and send us a message.

THIS ISSUE
SPONSORED BY:

Aldon Computer Group
California Software
ARCAD
BCD Int'l
SABRATEC


BACK ISSUES

TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Lakeview Launches MIMIX network1 IP Accelerators

LANSA Ramps Up for RFID, Joins EPCglobal

Sterling Commerce Brings Gentran Integration Suite to OS/400

M-Tech Simplifies Discovery of User IDs Across Disparate Systems

News Briefs and Product Shorts



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