Neon Systems Accelerates the Benefits of Mainframe SOA with Shadow Interface
SUGAR LAND, TX. – (May 18, 2004) - NEON® Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: NEON), a leader in enterprise-class mainframe integration, today announced the release of Shadow Interface for Enterprise Applications, a product that will enable organizations with legacy, terminal-based enterprise applications to re-use their valuable mainframe resources in new composite applications built around a service-oriented architecture.
“Today, many organizations still rely on critical business systems built on legacy, terminal-based technologies that limit their ability to evolve to modern service-oriented application environments. Mainframe resources can be utilized for new composite applications with the use of mainframe integration software. By creating a mini-workflow that aggregates multiple existing transactions into a service, companies can implement new, more modern composite applications by reusing these working systems,” said Dale Vecchio, research director, Gartner Research.
Shadow Interface for Enterprise Applications provides a comprehensive, integration solution for enabling rapid deployment of 3270 applications using a Service-Oriented Architecture for distributed environments. The product provides the flexibility and tools for Web-Enabled Application Re-facing and Service-Enabled Application Re-modeling of 3270 applications, allowing for composite applications to be sourced non-invasively from existing mainframe applications.
“We understand the need many organizations have to update their mainframe-based business services and the challenges they face dealing with the physical limitations that exist within their legacy application code base,” said Chris Garner, vice president, Products Group, NEON Systems. “With the introduction of Shadow Interface for Enterprise Applications, customers can immediately increase the ROI of their existing 3270 terminal based applications, transforming them into new, Web-enabled business applications, or remodel the transactions into new business logic to use in composite applications based on a service-oriented architecture.”
PRODUCT FEATURES
Shadow Interface for Enterprise Applications includes a robust feature set to assist organizations wanting to re-use 3270, terminal based applications.
Architecture
Two-Tier/Server Side: Enhanced architectural design utilizes a mainframe-based server component that retains all of the performance, scalability and security characteristics of the original mainframe application; all 3270 screen manipulations are done in mainframe memory eliminating the need to broadcast heavyweight conversational 3270 protocols across multiple network layers to distributed servers
Web-Enablement
HTML Conversion: simple application re-facing to instantly web-enable any 3270 application, providing green-to-gray conversion
HTML Transformation: enhanced application re-facing with enhanced HTML features (titles, headings, submit buttons, radio buttons, links and graphics) Transaction Fusion: capability to fuse one to many 3270 transactions to provide enhanced application re-facing with no development beyond the output HTML templates and the fusing script.
Service-Enablement
Granular SOA: capability to remodel individual 3270 transactions as single, granular service for participation in composite applications.
Process Fusion: a comprehensive remodeling capability to enable multiple 3270 business processes to be fused as a single, callable service from a composite application, allowing a composite application to be sourced non-invasively from existing mainframe applications - with no modifications.
Non-Invasive Integration
Orchestration
Robust Scripting Language: scripting language for orchestrating microflows; aids in creating navigation, sequences, screen flows and data extraction functions of a middleware processor without program development.
Shadow Interface for Enterprise Applications offers a solution for organizations struggling with mainframe modernization, providing a viable option for meeting both the interim and long-term strategic requirements involved in transitioning to a service-oriented architecture. The product is currently available in beta and will be generally available in June 2004. Pricing is available upon request.
About Shadow
NEON’s Shadow technology reclaims the value of mainframe-based services and events, providing secure, scalable, real-time legacy integration across a broad range of data, program and screen environments. Shadow is designed to enhance mainframe integration for both a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Event-Driven Architecture (EDA). With a strong commitment to industry standards, Shadow can dramatically reduce integration complexity and accelerate application development for systems based on J2EE or .NET. Delivering the flexibility to meet customers’ unique implementation needs, Shadow can be cost-effectively deployed as either an infrastructure-based, programmatic integration server or a suite of mainframe adapters.
About NEON Systems
NEON Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: NEON) is a leading provider of enterprise-class mainframe integration solutions, delivering the only unified mainframe integration platform to support the entire range of requirements for modern Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA) and emerging Event-Driven Architectures (EDA). For more information on the future of mainframe integration, see our website at http://www.neonsys.com or call 800-505-NEON.
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The NEON logo, Shadow, Shadow Direct and Shadow Web Server are registered trademarks, and Shadow Connect, Shadow Event Publisher are trademarks of NEON Systems, Inc. in the USA and in other select countries. All other trademarks, service marks and product or service names are the property of their respective owners.