NetManage: Transforming CICS Directly on Mainframes - First Look

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August 28, 2006
NetManage: Transforming CICS Directly on Mainframes

NetManage has just announced OnWeb for Customer Information Control System (CICS), a software solution that can rapidly and reliably transform CICS data into standard XML for any integration project or SOA initiative.

diane nerby.jpg Unlike screen-scraping technology, OnWeb for CICS runs natively on the mainframe. Archie Roboostoff, senior manager of product management at NetManage, was kind enough to join us and talk about the record occurences of the word "manage" in his title, OnWeb's role in processing CICS and obstacles still being encountered in the broader SOA landscape.

"The problem with CICS is that it's very hard to integrate in modern technologies like .NET and Java," Roboostoff pointed out.

Another barrier was that "some of the obstacles we found is the hesitation by the CICS manager to allow us onto the box; as you know, the mainframe is regarded as this mythical beast that's been running for 20 years," Roboostoff said.

But addressing the managers' concerns for downtime and security now allows OnWeb to take advantage of mainframe's speed, stability and uninterupted runtime; Roboostoff noted how Merrill Lynch is looking to use OnWeb to run one million messages per minute on their mainframe.

OnWeb also avoides screen scraping's vulnerability to screen landscape errors. "If an adminstrator changes the look and feel of a mainframe green screen, chance are the screen scraping will break," he said.

On general SOA deployments, Roboostof divided companies into the "whiteboarders" and "early adopters" who are working out the bugs -- chief of which remain security and management. "If someone deletes 10 million bucks from bank account, how do you track that back?" he noted.

"Really, it's a fundamental shift in way that hey manage their users enterprise wise. But once these customers figure that out, we will see SOA deployments really start to accelerate and become practical," he noted.