IBM Ends WebFacing in Host Integration Suite, Adds EGL

July 15, 2008 Alex Woodie

Editor’s Note: This article has been corrected. WebFacing, in fact, continues its role as screen modernization technology within IBM’s HIS. Please see “Correction: WebFacing Lives On, in HIS and HATS” for more details about the error.

Developers will no longer be able to use the IBM WebFacing Tool to modernize their 5250 applications, if they obtained WebFacing through the Host Integration Solution (HIS) suite. As part of the delivery of Rational HIS for 5250 Applications version 7.1, IBM announced that HIS customers will be restricted to modernizing their applications using the Host Access Transformation Services (HATS), which converts legacy green-screen traffic to HTML at runtime. They will, however, gain access to Enterprise Generation Language (EGL), IBM’s new high-level language.

In the grand scheme of things, IBM’s naming conventions for its development tools–and in particular, its modernization tools for the IBM i OS platform–have gotten so complicated that it takes a Visio flowchart just to graph the origination, functionality, name changes, and eventual resting place for the plethora of products that have plowed these rich, blue waters.

Many of these Web enablement and modernization tools have been part of the HIS suite, at one point or another. Around the turn of the century, IBM’s go-to products for accessing 5250 screens in a browser were Host On-Demand, which provided little more than a green screen in a browser, and Host Publisher, a Java-based tool for creating composite applications.

In the 2001-2002 timeframe, IBM introduced a pair of competing green-screen modernization products. Developed by IBM was the WebFacing Tool, which was an invasive tool that required developers to modify source code by converting DDS traffic into HTML. Obtained from a French company was a technology eventually called Host Access Transformation Services (HATS), formerly called the Crys@lid Server, a less invasive tool that converts 5250 traffic into HTML at runtime.

WebFacing suffered from some serious limitations, and so in February 2006, IBM combined HATS and the WebFacing Tool into a single offering, called WebFacing Development Tool with HATS Technology, or WDHT, and sold it as part of the WebSphere Development Studio Client (WDSc) software (which has since been replaced by the Rational Developer for System i tool, or RDi, which shipped earlier this year as part of IBM’s i OS version 6.1 release).

Since that time, IBM has been shifting its Web enablement strategy away from WebFacing and toward HATS, while maintaining support for WebFacing and providing WebFacing customers with a way forward. To that end, IBM has spent the last few months upgrading its HATS-WebFacing strategy with the new crop of development tools that shipped as part of the i 6.1 release.

HIS for 5250 Applications 7.1 includes the latest releases of each of its component products. These include HATS 7.1; Rational Developer for System i for SOA Construction (RDi for SOA) 7.1; Personal Communications 5.9; WebSphere Host On-Demand 10.0; WebSphere Application Server–Express 6.1; and the latest version 6 releases of Communications Server for Windows, AIX, and Linux.

While HIS customers previously had a choice of using HATS or WebFacing to modernize their 5250 applications, they now must use HATS. “Starting in IBM Rational HIS 7.1, IBM Rational Developer for System z and IBM Rational Developer for System i for SOA Construction are restricted to HATS-related development activities only,” IBM writes in Software Announcement 208-178. “Customers looking to further extend, rewrite, or enhance their existing applications or develop new, non-HATS applications should purchase the stand-alone versions of these products separately.”

While WebFacing is out, a new addition to HIS for 5250 is RDi for SOA, the new collection of development tools designed for building next-generation Web applications. RDi for SOA is based on Rational Business Developer (RBD), IBM’s new Eclipse-based development environment that uses Enterprise Generation Language (EGL), a new high level language that generates Java code for execution on a variety of platforms, including i 6.1 and earlier releases of the i5/OS operating system.

RDi for SOA, which shipped April 11, also includes a copy of RBD (as well as HATS, just to make it complicated), and is being positioned by IBM as the go-to tool for organizations that need to develop new Web-based applications and connect them, using SOA techniques, to older RPG and COBOL apps. In many ways, HIS offers these capabilities as well, but HIS gives the customer more application integration and deployment flexibility.

Other new features in HIS for 5250 Applications 7.1, which was announced last week, are largely based on the stuff that’s been available in HATS for 5250 for the last three months. This includes support for mobile devices and PDAs; support for generating JSR-168 portlets; a new visual macro editor; the integration of the WebFacing Tool in the HATS Toolkit; and a WebFacing Bridge for exchanging data between applications that have been WebFaced and other Web apps.

IBM supports two types of users with HIS for 5250, including authorized users and concurrent users. Customers who purchase the concurrent-user version of the product do not get access to the Personal Communications terminal emulator.

IBM Weaves Together HATS and WebFacing Tools

IBM Focuses on Usability with HATS 6.0

IBM Gives HATS the Nod As Host Publisher Is Retired from HIS

HATS Off to IBM for New Rules-Based Screen Converter

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Do the Math When Looking at IBM i Hosting for Cost Savings

COVID-19 has accelerated certain business trends that were already gaining strength prior to the start of the pandemic. E-commerce, telehealth, and video conferencing are some of the most obvious examples. One example that may not be as obvious to the general public but has a profound impact on business is the shift in strategy of IBM i infrastructure from traditional, on-premises environments to some form of remote configuration. These remote configurations and all of their variations are broadly referred to in the community as IBM i hosting.

“Hosting” in this context can mean different things to different people, and in general, hosting refers to one of two scenarios. In the first scenario, hosting can refer to a client owned machine that is housed in a co-location facility (commonly called a co-lo for short) where the data center provides traditional system administrator services, relieving the client of administrative and operational responsibilities. In the second scenario, hosting can refer to an MSP owned machine in which partition resources are provided to the client in an on-demand capacity. This scenario allows the client to completely outsource all aspects of Power Systems hardware and the IBM i operating system and database.

The scenario that is best for each business depends on a number of factors and is largely up for debate. In most cases, pursuing hosting purely as a cost saving strategy is a dead end. Furthermore, when you consider all of the costs associated with maintaining and IBM i environment, it is typically not a cost-effective option for the small to midsize market. The most cost-effective approach for these organizations is often a combination of a client owned and maintained system (either on-prem or in a co-lo) with cloud backup and disaster-recovery-as-a-service. Only in some cases of larger enterprise companies can a hosting strategy start to become a potentially cost-effective option.

However, cost savings is just one part of the story. As IBM i expertise becomes scarce and IT resources run tight, the only option for some firms may be to pursue hosting in some capacity. Whatever the driving force for pursing hosting may be, the key point is that it is not just simply an option for running your workload in a different location. There are many details to consider and it is to the best interest of the client to work with an experienced MSP in weighing the benefits and drawbacks of each option. As COVID-19 rolls on, time will tell if IBM i hosting strategies will follow the other strong business trends of the pandemic.

When we say do the math in the title above, it literally means that you need to do the math for your particular scenario. It is not about us doing the math for you, making a case for either staying on premises or for moving to the cloud. There is not one answer, but just different levels of cost to be reckoned which yield different answers. Most IBM i shops have fairly static workloads, at least measured against the larger mix of stuff on the public clouds of the world. How do you measure the value of controlling your own IT fate? That will only be fully recognized at the moment when it is sorely missed the most.

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