AS/400 Shop Finds SOA Relief with Attachmate Host Integrator

Published: August 15, 2006

by Alex Woodie

When a wireless communication provider came to Afni seeking help with its AS/400-based customer service system, the business process outsourcer found a real mess. Thanks to a slow machine, difficult-to-navigate screens, and poor data validation, the client's customers were subjected to lengthy delays when they called. Instead of putting the tired workhorse down, Afni extended the customer service system's life by implementing a service oriented architecture (SOA) on top of the AS/400 app using Verastream Host Integrator from Attachmate's software, which recently updated the product.

It's a fact of life that applications (and platforms) have a finite useful life. This is painfully obvious in the case of legacy host applications, which were designed to suit the needs and practices of companies as they existed 10, 20, or 30 years ago, but which, in some cases, have failed to keep up with the pace of business and technological change. When wholesale replacement of these aging applications is neither practical nor desirable, they can get a second lease on life through SOAs.

Such was the case at the client of Afni, formerly Anderson Financial Network, a business process outsourcer (or "upsourcer," as the firm refers to itself). Founded in 1936 and based in Bloomington, Illinois, Afni today provides accounts receivable and customer care services to Fortune 1000 companies in the communications, financial services, energy, and technology industries, and employs 4,100 people across eight locations in six states.

The wireless communication provider, which was not identified, came to Afni not for outsourcing expertise, but for help in streamlining its computer systems. The company's customer service representatives (CSRs) needed access to account records that resided on "slow and difficult-to-navigate" AS/400 applications, Attachmate says in a case study available on its Web site. As a result, callers often had to wait an hour or more to get through.

What's more, because the AS/400 system's data validation rules weren't well enforced, errors such as incorrect addresses and area codes, were a common occurrence. Once callers did get through, the CSRs would often have to spend another 10 minutes or more correcting the bad data, which necessitated more green-screen navigation and delayed things even more.

Afni's solution to its client's computer woes was to create a new Web-based front-end to the AS/400 applications. In addition to consolidating the screens and providing an interface that was easier to navigate and more intuitive to its client's CSRs, the new front-end would also enforce business rules, thereby minimizing data entry errors.

Composite Applications

The implementation team, led by Afni's Matt Ernst, director of application development, and Jim McFarlin, application development manager, utilized WRQ's Verastream Host Integrator software as the "glue" between the new front-end and the back-end AS/400. (WRQ was acquired by Attachmate in 2005, and the resulting company went by the name "AttachmateWRQ" until the completion of the NetIQ acquisition this spring, after which the company resorted to using the Attachmate moniker.) Afni representatives weren't available to discuss their choice of glue.

Verastream Host Integrator utilizes "wrapper" technology to transform business processes running on the iSeries and other hosts into services based on other technology standards, such as XML, JavaBeans, Microsoft .NET components, and others. Afni's client selected Microsoft technology, including COM+, the SQL Server database, and Windows Server.

Afni, with help from Attachmate Consulting Services, modeled and mapped the client's host screens in four days. After about another month of work, Afni's developers had finished the integration between the 5250 applications and the new Windows-based front-end.

When it was finished, the client's CSRs only needed five or six screens to do their jobs, instead of navigating about 60 screens. A reduction in the time to process accounts receivable information and inputting customer orders was also attributed to the new system, which Attachmate says cut the client's customer service costs by two-thirds and saved it thousands of dollars.

Host Integrator Version 6.0

iSeries shops should find it easier to use Verastream Host Integrator following the version 6.0 release announced in late July. This release brings several enhancements, including new ways of controlling and getting more efficiency out of host resources, in particular those "rogue" sessions. For example, if a session is looping due to an expired password, the session can be automatically "quarantined" until the developer can address the underlying problem.

The tool's modeling environment has also been improved through the addition of a debugging feature that tells developers about problems their models are having with screen recognition, data reading and writing, and synchronization. This feature is most useful in VT and Hewlett-Packard environments, Attachmate says. The scalability of the tool's modeling environment has also been improved for large integration and SOA projects.

Developers will also save time using Host Integrator's Design Tool, now that they can copy existing objects, instead of creating each entity, table, and procedure individually. The Design Tool also enables developers to test a model on a Host Integrator server other than the production server, which wasn't possible in previous releases.

The Web Builder process has also been improved with this release. Attachmate says it now gives developers options for both model procedures and layout of procedure results, including the option of using a process string event handler or a prompt for an SQL statement. The Web Builder also gains support for Microsoft's .NET Framework version 2.0 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2005.

Verastream Host Integrator 6.0 is available now. Pricing starts at $55,000. For more information, go to www.attachmate.com.

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