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In this Issue
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President's Letter |
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Insurance and CICS Integration: Moving from Batch to Real-time |
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Recent News |
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Tech Notes -
Free Sample Socket Programs |
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Partner Profile |
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President's Letter
Insurance companies are experiencing pressure to make up-to-date information immediately available to clients and agents. In many cases, however, internal reliance on batch jobs to handle policy processing makes it difficult to provide real-time access.
HostBridge makes it easy to preserve existing business
processes while providing real-time access to CICS
application information. Our recent alliance with
IVANS® allows
insurance companies to integrate data using familiar
tools. I invite you to attend
our upcoming seminar or request
an evaluation copy of our software to find out for yourself how
to make the transition to real-time CICS integration.
 Thank you very much for your interest in HostBridge Technology.
Russ Teubner
Founder & CEO
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 Join ZapThink and HostBridge Technology to learn how to transform legacy CICS applications into web services, without having to replace them.
"Transforming CICS Applications into Web Services" Tuesday, July 15, 2003 at 12:00 PM Central. Register now!
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Insurance and CICS Integration: Moving from Batch to Real-time
After decades of investment in technology, the insurance industry relies heavily on IBM mainframes to process business information. According to Gartner, at least 80% of insurers continue to use such systems for their policy processing. Most policy processing runs in batches where information is gathered during the day and processed overnight. Unfortunately, even nightly batch processing means companies are making decisions based on yesterday's data. Moreover, because customers expect real-time access to information, they are exposing the weaknesses of batch processing.
Real-time access to data allows you to replace batch processing and finally getting rid of the large data dumps from one application to another. Business benefits of real-time access include improved efficiency in business processes and the ability to respond to evolving customer service needs. However, the widespread use of legacy applications that do not support data integration presents serious problems for companies engaged in real-time initiatives.
Internet technologies are driving the transition from batch to real-time. For example, application servers and integration adapters, such as HostBridge, use standards-based XML, and HTTP to communicate. This allows enterprise applications to share data across different devices, operating systems, and locations. The emergence of SOAP and web services presents another integration option based on XML and HTTP.
HostBridge for IVANS
HostBridge Technology and IVANS, Inc., a provider of networking and e-commerce services for insurance, financial security and healthcare customers, have entered into a strategic relationship to deliver an end-to-end "straight-through processing" (STP) solution for insurance carriers using IBM mainframe and CICS-based insurance processing systems.
Figure 1. IVANS architecture overview
The diagram above illustrates how companies can use HostBridge to get
real-time access to CICS data using IVANS' support
for ACORD XML. IVANS Transformation Station is an Internet data exchange
using Web services
and ACORD XML for real-time
transactions between agency and carrier systems. IVANS
Transformation Xpress provides translation to and from
a variety of ACORD and X12 Standards
and proprietary system formats. IVANS handles the transfer
of data between an Agency Management System and HostBridge.
HostBridge, running on the
mainframe, handles all the interactions with the existing
CICS applications. A key feature of this solution is
that the existing CICS applications
do not have to "speak" (or
know anything about) the ACORD XML document formats.
This same model can be used with other commercial integration tools or in-house development projects. Because HostBridge includes native SOAP support, applications can also invoke HostBridge directly as a web service. Whether your goals are for straight-through processing for specific transactions or developing a real-time enterprise (RTE), HostBridge allows you real-time access to your legacy CICS applications.
See our web site for more information on HostBridge and more information on ROI. Or, call us at 1-866-XML-CICS (965-2427).
 Tech Notes |
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This column seeks to answer common technical questions.
If you have any specific questions you want answered or have ideas for questions you might like to see here, send them to questions@hostbridge.com
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Is it possible to initiate HostBridge interactions with middle tier applications from CICS on the mainframe? |
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Yes.
HostBridge Technology is making available a collection of sample programs that have been developed to make it easy for a CICS program to send an outbound TCP/IP request (and optionally wait a response). These programs can be used without HostBridge. For example, these programs will allow a CICS program to invoke a Java Server Page (JSP), Active Server Page (ASP), or other CGI program via an HTTP GET request. Whatever the JSP/ASP/program returns in response to the GET request will be returned to the CICS program.
Finally, these programs can serve as sample code to those interested in adding support for CICS socket I/O to their own programs. By the way, one hidden gem in this collection is a program called HBRTCPM; it returns the error description associated with a CICS TCP/IP function name and error number. VERY handy!
We originally developed these programs for a customer who wanted to invoke (from within a CICS application) a distributed application running outside of CICS on a Windows server. Once invoked, the distributed program would take two actions: (1) respond to the request with an acknowledgement message, and (2) determine if there was any work that needed to be presented to CICS for processing (essentially, the request sent by the CICS program was a “poll” to the server). If there was work to be done, the distributed application would send one or more HTTP GET requests to HostBridge in order to invoke the required CICS transaction. HostBridge would return the output from the transaction as an XML document.
There are two known issues.
- Socket program
has not been tested in a
VSE environment.
This is being done now by
a HB biz partner, and VSE
downloaders will be notified
of the outcome.
- For CICS TS 2.2 users,
this error has been documented:"All HBRTCPx programs
successfully compile, except
HBRTCPM program." Some users report getting a RC=08
in the ASM step.
The program author has
determined that the TS
2.2 CICS
translator did not pick up the NOEPILOG and NOPROLOG
parameters. He is investigating and will provide an update
in the near future. Anyone who has encountered and resolved
this problem is encouraged to let us know at:
downloads@hostbridge.com.
Download the sample socket programs to see if they fit your needs.
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