HostBridge Update: February 24, 2009

Here is the latest update from HostBridge, including product news, technical tips, and customers’ CICS integration success stories. Select a link to go to the full story.

HostBridge Introduces WIRE – the Web Interface Rules Engine

WIRE is the Web Interface Rules Engine from HostBridge. A Microsoft .NET-based programming and runtime environment, WIRE enables organizations to rapidly develop and deploy web interfaces for the presentation of CICS transactions and data delivered as XML documents by HostBridge.

HostBridge and WIRE together provide advanced integration and feature-rich interfaces for CICS applications, enabling enterprises to extend mainframe access to new users, modernize legacy applications, and create new, fully integrated CICS-based applications.

WIRE Presentation Modes
Running on Microsoft IIS Web Server and highly scalable, WIRE consumes XML or Web services generated by HostBridge and, using AJAX, modernizes legacy applications with three browser-based presentation modes, all mouse-driven, for every type of user:

  • Classic Mode replicates the look and feel of a 3270 terminal screen for seasoned terminal users.
  • Standard Mode preserves 3270 functionality while simplifying display for users with less terminal experience.
  • Enhanced Mode delivers a rich web look-and-feel and enables creation of entirely new services-based applications for today’s web users.

Advanced Web-Enablement for CICS
WIRE’s Enhanced Mode empowers organizations to transform mainframe applications:

  • Using XSLT Stylesheets to design richer, more functional pages with appealing layouts, formatting, navigation tools, images, and more.
  • Leveraging HostBridge services automation to select application areas for display or present a complex multi-transaction CICS process as a single simple web form.
  • Incorporating ASP.NET custom controls, web objects from a WIRE Data Dictionary, and services from any XML-capable data or application asset.
  • Creating composite applications – and a single, efficient entry point for many user interactions – by integrating these designs, services, controls, and objects in a complete SOA.
  • Ensuring future extensibility with callable SOA services and designs.

Integrated Development Environment
.NET programmers will find WIRE’s integrated development environment (IDE) familiar and easy to use. Residing within Visual Studio .NET and featuring a full suite of object-oriented .NET components, the WIRE IDE has everything needed to design, develop, debug, and deploy HostBridge-WIRE integration applications and also configure WIRE’s data dictionary, XSLT templates, and general configuration files.

For more information:

>Back to top

Letter from the Trenches: Accessing CICS Applications with Alternate Screen Sizes via HostBridge

Friends, here's an issue recently raised by one of our customers. I put together an answer for them and then thought it might be of value to others as well.

Some CICS applications have been designed to exploit alternate screen sizes of IBM 3270 terminals. For example, a CICS application that displays printed reports might be capable of driving a 3270 Model 5 terminal in its 132 column mode. HostBridge does support CICS applications that exploit a terminal’s alternate screen size. So how do you enable this?

Whenever HostBridge creates a bridge facility/session within CICS, it does so based on the characteristics of a specific type of terminal. By default, HostBridge/CICS reference a TERMINAL definition named CBRF to acquire general characteristics:

CEDA  View TErminal( CBRF )                                                 

 TErminal       : CBRF                                                      

 Group          : DFHTERM                                                   

 Description    : Default 3270 Bridge template                              

 AUTINSTModel   : No                 No | Yes | Only                        

 AUTINSTName    :                                                            

TERMINAL IDENTIFIERS                                                        

 TYpeterm       : DFHLU2                                                    

 NEtname        : CBRF                                                       

 CONSOle        : No                 No | 0-127 | 129-250                   

 CONSName       :                                                           

 REMOTESYSTem   : CBR                                                        

 REMOTEName     : CBRF                                                      

 REMOTESYSNet   :                                                           

 Modename       :                                                           

 ...


Note that CBRF references a TYPETERM definition named DFHLU2 to obtain more specific device characteristics. The TYPETERM definition indicates the terminal model, as well as the primary and alternate screen size (actually, in two places):

CEDA  View TYpeterm( DFHLU2   )                                             

 TYpeterm       : DFHLU2                                                    

 Group          : DFHTYPE                                                   

 DEScription    :                                                            

RESOURCE TYPE                                                               

 DEVice         : LUTYPE2                                                   

 TERmmodel      : 2                                                          

 SESsiontype    :                                                           

 LDclist        :                                                           

 SHippable      : Yes                No | Yes                               

MAPPING PROPERTIES                                                          

 PAGesize       : 024 , 080          0-255

 ALTPage        : 000 , 000          0-255                                  

 ALTSUffix      :                                                            

 FMhparm        : No                 No | Yes                               

 OBOperid       : No                 No | Yes                               

PAGING PROPERTIES                                                            

 AUTOPage       : No                 No | Yes                               

DEVICE PROPERTIES                                                           

 DEFscreen      : 024 , 080          0-255

 ALTSCreen      :     ,              0-255                                  

 ...

APPLICATION FEATURES                                                        

 BUildchain     : Yes                No | Yes                               

 USerarealen    : 000                0-255                                  

 Ioarealen      : 00256 , 04000      0-32767                                

 UCtran         : Yes                No | Yes | Tranid                      

 ...


DFHLU2 specifies a primary screen size of 24x80, but no alternate screen size. Furthermore, CBRF and DFHLU2 are IBM-provided definitions and can’t be modified. Thus, to cause HostBridge and the target CICS application to use an alternate screen size, you must define/use alternate TERMINAL and TERMTYPE resources.

As part of the HostBridge installation, alternate TERMINAL and TERMTYPE definitions are installed: HBRF and HBRLU2. These definitions are identical to CBRF/DFHLU2 except that:

•    HBRF references TYPETERM HBRLU2

•    HBRLU2 defines the USERAREALEN parameter as 255 bytes (this parameter defines the length of the TCTUA and is the most common reason why customers use these alternate definitions).

As provided, TYPETERM HBRLU2 does not define an alternate screen size. Thus, the first step is to change the definition of HBRLU2 such that an alternate screen size is specified. Alternatively, you could copy HBRLU2 and create a new TYPETERM definition (as well as a new TERMINAL definition which references it). For example:

 

CEDA  View TYpeterm( HBRLU2   )                                             

 TYpeterm       : HBRLU2                                                    

 Group          : DFHTYPE                                                   

 DEScription    :                                                            

RESOURCE TYPE                                                               

 DEVice         : LUTYPE2                                                   

 TERmmodel      : 5                                                          

 SESsiontype    :                                                           

 LDclist        :                                                           

 SHippable      : Yes                No | Yes                               

MAPPING PROPERTIES                                                          

 PAGesize       : 024 , 080          0-255

 ALTPage        : 027 , 132          0-255                                  

 ALTSUffix      :                                                            

 FMhparm        : No                 No | Yes                               

 OBOperid       : No                 No | Yes                               

PAGING PROPERTIES                                                            

 AUTOPage       : No                 No | Yes                               

DEVICE PROPERTIES                                                           

 DEFscreen      : 024 , 080          0-255

 ALTSCreen      : 027 , 132          0-255                                  

 ...

APPLICATION FEATURES                                                        

 BUildchain     : Yes                No | Yes                               

 USerarealen    : 255                0-255                                  

 Ioarealen      : 00256 , 04000      0-32767                                

 UCtran         : Yes                No | Yes | Tranid                      

 ...

               
Assuming you changed TYPETERM HBRLU2, and that TERMINAL HBRF references HBRLU2, then all you need to do is tell HostBridge to create the bridge facility based on TERMINAL HBRF. To do this, you specify the directive hb_facility_like=HBRF with the HostBridge request (hb_terminal is a synonym for hb_facility_like).

HostBridge directives can be specified in a number of different ways. Since hb_facility_like controls fundamental attributes of the bridge facility, it can be specified two ways:

•    On the first request sent to HostBridge to create the session (via an individual HTTP request or via a HostBridge script);

•    In the HBR@SESS command file (which is processed with the first request of the session).

Provided these steps are followed, a CICS application that supports should adapt accordingly and send output in that mode.  HostBridge will also adapt accordingly and include the contents of the entire page/screen in the XML response (or make the entire page/screen available within the script). There you have it.
More later.
 Russ

> Back to top

Case Study: Farm Credit Services of America Integrates CICS in a Multi-Platform Information Hub

Farm Credit Services of America provides loans, insurance, and financial services to farmers and ranchers in Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wyoming. Based in Omaha, the company is part of the Farm Credit System, a $140 billion nationwide network of farm credit providers. Recently, FCSAmerica faced a technology challenge with real business ramifications.

FCSAmerica personnel rely on four disparate systems – a Systematics loan accounting system running on an IBM System z mainframe, two loan origination products, and a customer relationship management (CRM) solution. Over time, lack of integration grew increasingly problematic, impacting productivity to the point that personnel were falling short of business goals. To solve their problem, FCSAmerica created a custom solution they call Pinwheel. To integrate their critical mainframe into Pinwheel, FCSAmerica chose HostBridge.

Challenge
Because their systems were not integrated, FCSAmerica’s personnel had to duplicate efforts repeatedly. Loan officers would enter data in a loan origination application and then, upon approval, perform the same inputs with the loan accounting system. When customer information was changed in the loan accounting system, data entry personnel had to key the same changes into the CRM system.

FCSAmerica needed an integration solution that would enable seamless multi-platform interaction, present data from all sources in a common, easy-to-use interface, and make critical mainframe data accessible on demand.

“Finding the right mainframe integration solution was a priority,” says Mike Douglas, Lead Developer/Analyst at FSCAmerica. “The vast majority of our business is loans, so the loan accounting system on our mainframe is central to everything we do.”

Technical Requirements
The mainframe integration had several key requirements:
• User-friendly presentation. The integration solution had to display data and application screens in formats familiar to a PC-based workforce.
• Support for industry-standard protocols. The solution had to adhere to HTTP, XML, and SOAP standards.
• No changes to legacy applications. Integration had to be accomplished without any changes to critical business logic.

FCSAmerica chose HostBridge to meet these mainframe integration needs.

Real Integration
HostBridge products allow organizations to integrate CICS transactions into other enterprise systems, web-based applications (intranet, extranet, and Internet), or any service-oriented architecture. Interacting with terminal-oriented transactions, COMMAREA programs, and other CICS-managed resources, HostBridge delivers CICS output/input to distributed applications as standardized XML documents – without screen scraping or CICS system modification.

At FCSAmerica, HostBridge makes mainframe data and CICS screens accessible to employee-users through the CRM’s web-based front end and plays a pivotal role in automated, platform-to-platform data exchanges.

By delivering CICS data as XML, HostBridge enables users to access the loan accounting system through Pinwheel’s web interface. Where they previously ran terminal emulation software and logged in to the mainframe as a disparate system, they now access relevant screens seamlessly by choosing a tab on the Pinwheel display. Financial officers, account managers, and others can access information from the loan accounting system – terms, rates, accruals, status, payoff information, and a wide range of customer data – on demand from their PCs. This is made possible by HostBridge’s COMMAREA program functionality, which allows the server application to call a COMMAREA program to access data from a variety of files with a single pass. In addition, mainframe login is handled transparently.

HostBridge is also a central component in Pinwheel’s automated data integration. Whenever any application is updated with new data, other applications are automatically updated with all relevant data. Whenever the mainframe is in the mix, HostBridge is the integration engine. If an account manager enters an address change in the CRM system, rules-based automation invokes HostBridge, which accesses the loan accounting system and updates the appropriate CICS screen. Similarly, when the mainframe is updated, HostBridge delivers the new data to Pinwheel. In addition, HostBridge is regularly called to provide mainframe data for automated decisioning.

Real Benefits
FCSAmerica credits HostBridge with a range of benefits, from simplifying the integration process for IT staff to working within the Pinwheel system to generate productivity gains and new business.

HostBridge was easy to install. In just a few hours, the IT team had accessed the mainframe through a URL. On the development side, HostBridge’s adherence to SOAP and XML standards and its built-in .NET components streamlined Pinwheel integration.

By far the biggest benefit is the way HostBridge, as a key component of Pinwheel, helped FCSAmerica regain lost productivity. The company has eliminated the extensive training previously needed to access the CICS system. More impressive, some FCSAmerica teams have experienced a 70 percent improvement in productivity – due largely to on-demand availability of loan and customer data and elimination of duplicated efforts. Also since implementing Pinwheel and integrating the mainframe through HostBridge, FCSAmerica has increased new business by more than 16 percent per year. In the first year alone, daily loan volume grew from $10 million to $12 million – without any increase in staff.

> Back to top