Access to Legacy Applications and Data

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***** *Integrating IIS and Legacy Applications

For years, IBM has encouraged its customers to gain better control of their software development and maintenance by coding their business logic into programs separate from their terminal access logic. Many Information Services (IS) organizations have responded by coding their business rules into transaction processing programs that execute on CICS or IMS. Gaining access to these programs on the host side from the Windows 2000 Server environment can open up the business rules for an entire application, such as inventory control or budgeting, thus creating new opportunities for distributed applications.

Using Web applications to access business logic offers significant advantages over traditional methods such as using a screen scraper to gather data from terminal emulation programs because:

  • All the data and processes that the business logic allows are accessible, rather than only the limited data and processes accessible in individual terminal access programs.

  • There is no requirement for a terminal emulator on the Windows 2000 Server platform because the processing involves no terminal access software.

  • Using native protocols, such as Advanced Program-to-Program Communications (APPC) and LU 6.2, requires fewer data translations, thus reducing the likelihood of errors.

  • The integration of legacy processes with IIS 5.0based applications using tools such as  COMTI is easier and less costly to accomplish than extensive enhancement of applications in the legacy environment.

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