Attachmate Ships New Release of Terminal Emulation Software
Attachmate, a legacy-to-SOA vendor, has begun shipping Reflection for the Web 2008, the latest edition of company’s flagship browser-based host access offering. Reflection is terminal emulation software that connects browser users to applications on IBM, HP, Unix, OpenVMS, Unisys and Airlines hosts. This latest release provides beefed-up authentication and encryption capabilities to more safely deliver host applications across the public Internet, the vendor said.
“We added a new feature, called the secure token authorization feature, which adds an additional layer of security for those users that use LDAP access control,” Damon Dreke, product marketing manager for Attachmate, told 5 Minute Briefing. “Reflection for the Web is able to authorize those users through the customer's existing access control. Then in our security proxy feature, which is a security server, we are able to then check to make sure that the end-user is actually authorized before putting them through to the legacy host application.” This additional layer of security to terminal emulation sessions, he said, makes “the legacy host applications themselves that live on a mainframe - or an AS400 or an HP or a Unisys machine - more secure.”
The company also has recently previewed Reflection 2008, an upgrade to Reflection for IBM 2007. Reflection 2008, scheduled for release in the fourth quarter of this year, is also the upgrade product for both the heritage EXTRA! as well as heritage Reflection users, said Dreke. “We’re bringing all those customers together in Reflection 2008.” The product has been re-architected on the .NET Framework and “is optimized for the Windows Vista and Office 2007 platform,” he said.
Reflection for IBM 2007 only included 3270 and 5250 emulation, the classic emulation types for IBM mainframes and IBM System i-AS/400. With Reflection 2008, Attachmate is "adding VT emulation, which is the classic emulation type for Unix and open systems,” Dreke said. With the VT emulation feature included, Reflection is not only comparable to what the EXTRA! and heritage Reflection product lines provided in terms of functionality, but also now adds support for Unix and OpenVMS platforms, he added. For more on Attachmate terminal emulation products, go here.
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Serena Offers Web 2.0 Mashup to Automate Mainframe Development
Serena Software, a software change and configuration management tools vendor, has launched a new “business mashup” designed specifically for the application release process. Serena, which offers a range of pre-built mashups designed for various processes, announced Serena Application Release Manager (ARM), designed to support the release management process from requirements to deployment.
The vendor said ARM is the first business mashup to solve a classic problem associated with the traditional application release process: the need for an automated way for application developers, IT operations, and business users to communicate and collaborate with each other during the release process.
Serena ARM automates what is still a very manual process of application release, so developers and engineers can spend more time creating and developing, Tim Zonca, director of product marketing, Serena, told 5 Minute Briefing. They can assign different resources to help move the flow of the artifacts that are included in the packages, yet they can still maintain the necessary governance, he noted. "It is automated in such as way that the sophisticated steps are moving in the right order. The right pieces are being pulled into the right package, everything is auditable and traceable but you don't have to use a highly paid developer to manually do these things."
Kyle Arteaga, vice president of corporate communications for Serena, added that the company is finding that some large mainframe customers are "actually doubling down" on their mainframe expenditures with the emergence of the new IBM z10s, which are "very green and energy efficient." Some customers see this as a way to put more applications on the mainframe versus commodity servers in certain parts of the company, he noted. Yet, Zonca pointed out, mainframe experts are not available in abundance and the release process is also not where they want to spend their time. Companies "simply have no alternative - it is highly paid people doing these manual processes" or explore automated solutions, he said. There is particular interest in the new solution among companies in the financial services and manufacturing industries, Arteaga added.
Serena Application Release Manager combines Web 2.0-based workflow capabilities with ChangeMan ZMF, a software change and configuration management application for the mainframe, to manage the application release process, from initial change requests through final deployment into the production environment. The Application Release Manager includes a visual process designer with out-of-the-box process templates that can be customized to suit individual needs. Because projects can be tracked and approved over a Web-enabled mobile device participants can check the process at any time. For more information, go here.
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Micro Focus Launches Development Tool for COBOL on .NET
Micro Focus, provider of enterprise application management and modernization solutions, launched a new addition to its application development portfolio, Net Express with .NET, which enables developers to employ Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2008 toolset to build COBOL applications that can take advantage of the Microsoft .NET Framework.
The business driver behind the new solution is "business agility and leveraging the investment that has already been made," Peter Anderton, product solutions director, application development, at Micro Focus, told 5 Minute Briefing. "COBOL is still the most widely used enterprise-class programming language." The purpose of Net Express with .NET is to help developers build programs more efficiently, increasing their productivity, while business applications can be given a contemporary look and feel, through the creation, in COBOL, of Windows Presentation Framework-based user interfaces.
According to Micro Focus, the approach enables organizations to improve time to market to build more competitive and functional applications by re-using existing code and the same tooling to focus on meeting new business needs. This agility can be further improved by the integration of COBOL applications with the Windows Communication Foundation.
The new solution will enable customers "to use the intellectual property, the business logic that is in COBOL,” Anderton said. They don’t have to “rewrite or rebuild it but to use it in a modern programming environment,” which includes service-oriented architecture and Web services, he said.
Further advances have also been made to existing Micro Focus COBOL products. Net Express 5.1 will support the latest Windows Server 2008 platform, and Server Express 5.1 has been updated and extended to work on updated Linux and Unix platforms. For more information, go here.
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Veryant Announces Suite with Advances in Thin Client
and Rich GUI Capabilities
Veryant, a COBOL-to-Java migration tools vendor, has introduced the latest version of isCOBOL Application Platform Suite, which aims to extend application assets by blending the business-oriented nature of COBOL with the strengths of the Java platform without retraining staff or rewriting code. The isCOBOL Application Platform Suite (isCOBOL APS) provides a complete environment to develop, deploy, and modernize COBOL applications.
One of the key differentiators of isCOBOL Application Suite is that it enables organizations to continue to enhance and develop application using COBOL, "which is the best language for the development of business oriented applications - applications designed for business processes," Alfredo Iglesias, vice president for business development for Veryant, told 5 Minute Briefing. "We allow people to continue to use COBOL and at the same time, the deployment of these applications happens on Java platforms. We take advantage of the Java runtime environment and all the tools and features of the Java world to deploy and execute the COBOL applications."
Since the isCOBOL Compiler and Runtime Environment are written 100 percent in Java, COBOL application designers can design one user interface and deploy it across many platforms, including AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, Linux, Windows and mainframe systems. Applications compiled with isCOBOL technology can be deployed on hand held devices like PDAs or smartphones, or any system supporting the Java Virtual Machine environment.
Improvements in isCOBOL APS 2008 include enhancements to the thin client as well as the distributed processing capabilities of isCOBOL, additions to the support for graphical user interfaces, additional Web 2.0 development features, and support for Microsoft SQL Server as one of the options for database access for COBOL developers, said Iglesias. "And as always we continue to improve the features that we use in the suite to facilitate the transition of existing COBOL applications to isCOBOL," said Iglesias.
isCOBOL APS 2008 is available now. Thin client and distributed processing functionality is included in the base isCOBOL runtime environment and current customers can change operating system platforms for no additional fee. Additional enhancements to isCOBOL APS will be introduced in the coming months. For additional information, go here.
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