Midrange Stuff, OS/400 Edition

Companies looking to take a Microsoft .NET-centric approach to extending their OS/400 and mainframe applications as Web services, or integrating their existing apps, may want to check out the latest software from Farabi Technology. Earlier this year Farabi started shipping HostFront 3.5, a new release of its Web-to-host and integration toolset, which provides support for the .NET Framework and development tools.

Farabi is one of a growing number of Web-to-host software vendors in the OS/400 space looking to take a strong Microsoft .NET approach to their host integration and extension software. The Montreal, Quebec, software company has always run the server component of its HostFront suite on a Windows box, and has supported Microsoft's Internet technologies, such as COM, ActiveX, and Active Server Pages, in its software development kit.

Last fall, Farabi rolled out support for enterprise Java, the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) environment, with the release of HostFront 3.0. For the first time, HostFront users had the option of using either Microsoft or Java languages to manipulate 5250 or 3270 applications. The Java support was a recognition that Java had matured as a development language and was being used in enterprise-level development, company officials said. Now Farabi is giving HostFront users a third development environment to pick from, with the support for .NET in HostFront 3.5.

With HostFront 3.5, Farabi has delivered a set of pure .NET components that integrate with Visual Studio.NET, Microsoft's strategic integrated development environment (IDE) for .NET. Companies can use any .NET programming language, including C#, Visual Basic.NET, and C++.NET, to transform host business process into .NET-compatible Web services applications.

The new .NET capabilities in HostFront 3.5 will find use in Web, wireless, point-of-sale, and integrated-voice-response applications, according to the company. In addition, HostFront applications communicate with host systems in real time, without requiring changes to the host code, and can be tightly coupled with the host system (for close integration) or loosely coupled (for distributed models), the company says.

HostFront 3.5 brings several enhancements for distributed applications, including a new multithreaded .NET Connection Pool Manager. This Connection Pool Manager helps developers by accelerating the exchange of data with the host, bringing "session parking" capabilities, and providing support for Microsoft's new distributed application architecture, called.NET Remoting, when high-performance, fault-tolerant interaction among objects is required.

This release also integrates with the RSA Security authentication system. Earlier this year, Farabi announced a partnership with RSA to provide integrated security, and this is the first new release of HostFront to ship with support for the RSA SecurID token-based authentication system.

Several other enhancements have been delivered with HostFront 3.5, including the capability to generate Windows CE.NET and Windows CE 3.0 interfaces. The HostFront ActiveX client and Remote Administration Console also have been improved, as have the configuration and management of the HostFront server.

HostFront 3.5 is available immediately. Pricing ranges from $1,500 to $50,000. For more information, go to www.farabi.com.

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