IBM Updates HATS to Support Rational 9 Tools
August 13, 2013 Alex Woodie
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IBM last week took the wraps off HATS 9.0, the latest incarnation of its Host Access Transformation Services product that delivers Web-based GUIs and Web services connections on-the-fly from 5250 and 3270 data streams. The new version of HATS, which is now available as a free download, brings the tool up to date with the latest Rational version 9 releases of the development tools that IBM shipped this summer, but not much else. HATS is a rules-based screen transformation engine that turns 5250 and 3270 screens into graphical Web clients, Java- or Lotus-based rich clients, or into Web services for functions that don’t have screens. The software includes plug-ins for IBM’s Eclipse-based IDEs, and runs on WebSphere Application Server or WebSphere Portal Server. With HATS 9.0, IBM didn’t add any major new features. Instead, it used the new version as a vehicle to bring the product up to date with the latest Rational development environments that it announced in April and shipped in June. Those applications, coincidentally, also bear the “version 9” name. Specifically, HATS 9.0 was updated to support Rational Application Developer for WebSphere Software 9.0 and Rational Developer for i and p for SOA Construction version 9.0. On the runtime side, IBM says HATS 9.0 gets support for WebSphere Application Server version 8.5.5 and Eclipse version 4.2.2, which is strange because Eclipse isn’t a runtime environment, but a development environment. The strangeness in IBM’s U.S. software announcement 213-317, which can be accessed in PDF format at this Web browser link, doesn’t end there. Astute readers will notice that the headline of the announcement says something about supporting Microsoft Windows 8. However, there’s nothing in the body of the 15-page announcement letter that mentions Windows 8. There are, however, about 10 pages in the announcement laying out the specific licensing details, terms, and conditions of using HATS, which is also curious since IBM announced back in April that HATS would henceforth be a freely downloadable product. In any event, rest assured that HATS is still alive and kicking in the Rational 9 world, even if it looks basically the same as the version 8 release that IBM put out two years ago. RELATED STORIES IBM Delivers New Mobile Development Tooling With RDi 9.0 IBM Updates i Rational Tools, and HATS Too
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