Midrange Stuff, OS/400 Edition

Farabi Technology has added Java capabilities to the Version 3 release of HostFront, its flagship software for extending and integrating OS/400 and mainframe applications. In previous iterations of HostFront, Farabi primarily supported Microsoft development technologies, giving companies the capability to extend 5250 and 3270 applications as COM, ActiveX, and Active Server Pages components. Now the company has added enterprise Java technologies, such as JavaServer Pages, to the software.

HostFront 3.0, which became available in late August, now supports the two primary development environments for Internet-connected applications: Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM) environment and the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) environments. Farabi changed its development strategy because it recognized that Java has matured as a development language, said Charles Machalani, a vice president at the Montreal, Quebec, company. "A few years back, Java was in its early stages, just out of the woods, with no indication of where it was going," he said. The support for Java in HostFront 3.0 "is a recognition that today there are two players that have established themselves."

Being able to sell software that lets companies tap into their OS/400 and mainframe without requiring them to use Microsoft development tools, such as Visual Basic, C++, and C#, will open the door in sales situations, Machalani said. "For us, the big advantage, now that we have support for both environments, is that when we go up to a company, and they say they have Java developers in-house, we say, 'You can run whatever application server you want,' " he said.

The new Java-enabled software has already paid dividends with one Farabi client, a large bank that needed to connect its Cisco Systems-based integrated voice response system with its OS/400-based application. Without the new Java API in HostFront 3.0, the bank wouldn't have been able to use HostFront to connect the integrated voice response system with its midrange server. Farabi's J2EE-compliant API is an Enterprise JavaBean that contains a set of Java classes that give companies the same level of integration as they enjoyed with Farabi's Microsoft-based COM interface, Machalani said.

Other new features in HostFront 3.0 include new fault-tolerance capabilities for higher availability and secure FTP, as well as support for Advanced Program-to-Program Communications (APPC), an SNA-based file transfer protocol for OS/400, and IND$FILE, a mainframe file transfer protocol. This version also includes some new backup Telnet server configuration facilities, new log report-generation capabilities, and the capability to impose different password complexity settings, based on the Windows password complexity schema.

The release of HostFront 3.0 marks the first addition of major functional enhancements to the product since June 2001, when Farabi shipped HostFront 2.2. Like many software companies these days, Farabi has been forced to cut back on spending in some areas because of poor economic conditions throughout the United States and the decreased technology spending the recession has brought. The company made significant staff reductions in its marketing department, but made comparatively minor reductions in research and development.

Despite the low profile that the company has kept over the last 18 months (the company has elected to spend marketing dollars on visits to customers, instead of purchasing advertising and attending conferences such as COMMON), the company's professional services division has been quite active in the last nine months, Machalani said.

One such client Farabi has recently been working with in a services engagement is BAE SYSTEMS, the giant British defense contractor. BAE needed a better interface to the OS/400-based maintenance application that keeps the Canadian navy's fleet of submarines ship-shape. This particular engagement required two technicians about four months to convert 300 of the application's native 5250 green screens to GUIs, to fulfill a Canadian government mandate for graphical interfaces.

Farabi's R&D department is also working on the next release of HostFront, which will introduce a third development environment--Microsoft .NET framework--to the software. Until then, companies can purchase all HostFront 3.0 components--the Windows-based HostFront Server, a software development kit, and a license for five concurrent user sessions--for $1,500. Companies can purchase additional concurrent user licenses in blocks, at a price of about $50 each. For more information, go to www.farabi.com.