Internet Legacy Connectivity

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IT Research:

Internet Legacy Connectivity

Adding value to existing application system using Internet technologies

Language: English
Pages: 452
Published: July 1999

This report ist available as multi-user online document

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About the report

The report aims to give users, developers and producers an overall view of what techniques can be used to integrate legacy systems into modern system architectures by means of Internet technologies. In addition, the report provides a basis for deciding which tools can usefully be implemented according to business objectives and technical circumstances.

More and more hardware and software manufacturers are al-ready offering tools for integrating legacy systems with the help of Internet technology into advanced DP architecture. Such tools are investigated in depth in this study and qualified according to their application possibilities.

Integrating heterogeneous system environments

Today's corporate user is confronted with many widely differing systems on old and new platforms. These systems are proprietary and are unable to communicate with one another without additional programming efforts. Around 70 to 80 per cent of all company data resides on mainframes and midrange systems at present. The study »Internet Legacy Connectivity« identifies various solution approaches, using the potential of the existing systems in various ways according to the existing system environment, the business objectives and technical conditions, and integrating them into a modern, uniform and standardized architecture based on Internet technologies.

Providing an intuitive user interface

In addition, the mainframe and midrange systems in particular, which support the company's core processes, are unsuitable for upgrades and no longer able to cope with the new demands. The obsolete, character-based screens cannot deliver multimedia information. Internet technology offers a uniform protocol suite which enables data and applications of very different origin to be integrated and presented under a common user-friendly interface. This is a simple way of achieving higher user acceptance and productivity.

Enabling access to data of different origin

Internet technology enables platform-independent access to information from a wide range of sources. Unnecessary transfers and interfaces, multiple storage and redundancies in data retention are avoided. Information can also easily be made accessible to a wider user group throughout the company and even across companies.

Reducing costs

The market offers a range of interesting solution approaches, by which existing applications can be integrated into an Internet-based architecture at acceptable cost. This report provides a basis for deciding which tools can usefully be implemented according to business objectives and technical circumstances. For precise information, more than 70 tools are fully explained in 15 different solution approaches. Reading this report will give you all the options for applying the individual tools, so that you can precisely plan their use in your company and make hat right choice.

Why you should read this report:

You want to standardize the heterogeneous system environment in your firm, or replace obsolete user interfaces with a modern, intuitive user interface, in order to raise user acceptance, increase productivity and save on costs at the same time.
By providing information across platforms and locations, you want to be able to react more flexibly and adapt better to new requirements.
By providing its services or products in the Internet, your company wants to open up new marketing channels, which have not so far been available using the existing systems.
You are looking for methodical support in the planning and implementation of integration projects and the selection of suitable tools. More than 70 tool descriptions help you here.
You want to assess the significant performance features of the products available on the market, and are looking for a manufacturer-independent market overview.

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Table of content

1 Management Summary page 9

1.1 Introduction
1.2 Summary of results

2 The Topic page 23

2.1 Initial situation
2.2 Background
2.3 Objectives
2.4 Benefits
2.5 Implementation plan
- 2.5.1 Approach
- 2.5.2 Delimitation of the area of investigation

3 Techniques and Methods page 31

3.1 Foundations and assumptions
- 3.1.1 Legacy Asset Management
- 3.1.2 Internet / Intranet / Extranet
3.2 Solution approaches
- 3.2.1 Classification criteria and performance requirements
- 3.2.2 Technical conversion options
- 3.2.3 Architecture design
- 3.2.4 Access techniques and communication standards
3.3 Tool categories
- 3.3.1 Tools with a specific function
- 3.3.2 Integration tools without a specific function
3.4 Implementation plan

4 Empirical section: tool analysis page 75

4.1 General information about the product
4.2 Documentation
4.3 Support
4.4 Prices
4.5 Trial installation
4.6 Tailoring to the customer's environment
4.7 Components included with the product
4.8 Operating systems
4.9 Supported operating systems
4.10 Time periods
4.11 Accessing legacy systems
4.12 Internet services
4.13 Interfacing methods
4.14 Internet connection techniques
4.15 Preprocessing legacy data
4.16 Communications techniques and invoking legacy modules
4.17 TP monitors supported
4.18 Data protection mechanisms
4.19 Access protection measures
4.20 Procedure languages / Job control systems
4.21 Additional information sources required (system accesses and the like)
4.22 Accessing legacy databases
4.23 Direct access to databases containing extra information (images etc.)
4.24 Control data storage
4.25 Languages used on the client
4.26 Programming languages used for communication between the Web server and application
4.27 Direct support of source code languages in the legacy application
4.28 Interfaces for data exchange with other applications
4.29 Data transfer formats
4.30 Data transfer to the PC
4.31 Report generation
4.32 Standard software interface
4.33 Transaction processing
4.34 Overall summary

5 Tool descriptions page 361

5.1 Tools with a specific function
- 5.1.1 Terminal emulations
- 5.1.2 Terminal emulations with GUI generation
- 5.1.3 Tools for data integration
- 5.1.4 Data analysis tools
- 5.1.5 Groupware and workflow tools
- 5.1.6 Publishing reports and documents
- 5.1.7 Tools for interfacing SAP transactions
- 5.1.8 Integration and interfacing of COBOL applications
5.2 Integration tools without a specific function
- 5.2.1 Integration tools based on emulation
- 5.2.2 Message-oriented middleware
- 5.2.3 Transaction-based integration tools
- 5.2.4 Integration tools based on encapsulation techniques
- 5.2.5 Integration tools based on encapsulation techniques and emulation
- 5.2.6 Object request brokers
- 5.2.7 Object-oriented tools with distributed user architecture