The mainframe has been largely overlooked as the primary engine for e-commerce activity, despite its unmatched ability to manage high-transaction environments, large data volumes and large user populations.
PROIV, the application development company locally represented by Business Unusual, has introduced two new solutions to its rapid application development toolset that create a web solution for mainframe applications.
"WebAccess is a tightly integrated Internet delivery solution interfacing back-office business applications to the Internet," say Business Unusual MD Dion Retief. "It combines the flexibility of the Web`s presentation capabilities with the power of the PROIV application engine, but it can be used across any database in the mainframe environment. Companies which need it are typically those with large mainframe and other legacy systems."
PROIV JavaSuite enables mainframe applications to be deployed over the Internet, intranet or extranet, and accessed using a standard Web browser, with no additional coding. "With no changes to the application code and no need for complex models or intermediate layers of software, mainframe clients will be able to run true GUI and Web applications," Retief explains.
PROIV is a rapid application development environment that can run unchanged on any platform, from PC to mainframe. It provides rapid benefits, which has made it popular for companies running on legacy platforms, but this can mean they run their applications in unpopular host-terminal format, says Richard Gooding, product manager for PROIV, EMEA. Gooding was in South Africa to extend user understanding of PROIV`s products.
"WebAccess quickly allows customers to Web-enable their existing applications to support B2B or B2C requirements," notes Retief. "The cross-platform functionality of JavaSuite, recently upgraded to 2.0, can help reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO), and extend the life of legacy applications."
The success of the new solution lies in its thin client nature, and how intranet and extranet users are able to connect to corporate systems. "They can connect through their corporate and extended network, and from a user perspective, it`s as if they have a Windows version of their software installed, with no performance degradation" says Gooding. "Yet all they have on the PC is a browser, so there`s no client-side software installation."
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