NetManage`s new host services platform simplifies end-to-end business manageability

Local Web enablement specialist and NetManage distributor, Dax Data, has announced the availability of the NetManage Host Services Platform.

"The NetManage Host Services Platform is a set of products and shared services that gives customers unprecedented flexibility and speed of deployment when pursuing host-based business initiatives," says Jeremy Matthews, MD of Dax Data.

Building on last year`s introduction of the Host Access Platform, the Host Services Platform access, presentation and integration software lets customers maximise host systems and easily build them into a service-oriented architecture.

"Organisations today are faced with accelerating business initiatives requiring levels of security, responsiveness and resilience that exceed the capabilities of their IT infrastructure. The highly flexible HSP solution has what no other host software provider offers today: the ability to rapidly execute new host-based initiatives with components designed to work together, enabling a phased approach that fits within any IT constraint," says Matthews.

HSP supports the full range of choices that line of business (LOB) and IT managers need when designing and implementing host-based business initiatives.

Examples of these choices include delivery channels for an application (desktop, PDA, other client types); the range of publishing methods such as PC-to-host, HTML-to-host and object-to-host; and the full spectrum of host systems that might be accessed (IBM mainframes, IBM- and Unix-based computing and ODBC-based databases).

"In stark contrast to the approach of other host software providers who sell individual point solutions that support a single publishing method, HSP is a complete product offering," says Matthews.

"In addition to the breadth of choices, HSP provides an end-to-end solution that enables customers to select the products for their immediate host-based applications needs, knowing the investment they make will be preserved and leveraged from one publishing method to the next."

NetManage customers, including Daimler Chrysler, Caisse d`Espargne and The Brick and PAS division of State Street, adds Matthews, have discovered host-based business initiatives often grow more complex over time.

Many enterprises first utilised host-based applications in the form of green-screen emulation. Those same enterprises may evolve and find the need to extract host-based applications in the form of objects that can be used and reused within a service-oriented architecture (SOA).

"HSP provides customers the opportunity to implement business initiatives of varying degrees of complexity - from simple (green screen emulation) to complex (composite applications) - depending on their budget, timeframe and resources. With the opportunity to support a full range of host-based business initiatives, HSP greatly simplifies these decisions," says Matthews.

"By offering customers a fluid platform with a common set of services and the ability to mix and match platform components across the organisation, companies like NetManage enable customers to leverage host system investments into newer technology initiatives like J2EE and .NET, rapidly transforming to a services-oriented architecture," adds Cindy Borovick, program director of Data Centre Networks at IDC.

NetManage customers gain the ability to reuse and integrate applications and data running on host systems into new initiatives without interrupting their existing business processes. HSP provides innovative graphical tools for developing applications and services for service-oriented architectures, including generating Web services, .NET assemblies, EJBs, and other object types for consumption by new business applications.

With NetManage HSP, businesses can reuse host logic and data in Web applications, CRM applications, portals and more, thereby maximising their host assets today and well into the future. "HSP gives customers a choice of utilising a variety of scripting languages to develop solutions with host and non-host-based information. Collectively, these tools and resources provide unprecedented speed of deployment for host-based business initiatives," says Matthews.

Anchoring HSP is Shared Services, a common set of development and deployment services designed to increase the manageability of host-based applications. Components of Shared Services include development, emulation, end-to-end security, user management, reporting and monitoring.

"IT administrators can leverage existing corporate directories to manage, monitor and support all NetManage applications. Customers can now depend on a single vendor to provide all host-based application needs, ensuring product interoperability and ease of management," concludes Matthews.