Solutions for Mainframes

If your IT infrastructure includes one or more IBM mainframes, you're already painfully aware of the challenges associated with integrating mainframe assets with modern applications built in Java or .NET or into service-oriented architectures.

Integrating mainframe artifacts—data, applications, and screens—into new business applications can be a tricky proposition, but it's one increasingly required by many industry initiatives. Everywhere competitive pressures are forcing business organizations to consider using their core legacy systems in new ways never imagined when those systems were first built. Yet these same organizations can’t risk having their mission-critical systems interrupted or, worse yet, fail in the effort.

Transparently Integrate Mainframe Artifacts into New Business Applications

DataDirect Technologies' Shadow is the recognized leader in mainframe integration technology. It enables non-invasive, simple, reliable, scalable, and secure enterprise-class integration between .NET and J2EE applications and z/OS mainframe environments. Its single mainframe architecture acts as a mainframe services bus, providing comprehensive support for web services, real-time events, direct SQL data access and web enablement, allowing for seamless integration with service-oriented and event-driven architectures.

Routinely used for 24x7 transaction rates running into thousands per second, DataDirect’s Shadow technology lets your developers transparently incorporate mainframe artifacts into new business applications, employing reusable services in a manner with which they are entirely familiar.

Shadow can:

  • Reduce Integration Complexity
  • Accelerate Application Development
  • Reduce Implementation Risks
  • Improve Business Agility and Efficiency
  • Unlock Real-Time Potential of the Enterprise

In addition to its best-of-class mainframe integration suite, DataDirect Shadow offers a full range of tools and utilities to enhance the productivity of developers working with IDMS and ADSO mainframe applications and database environments.

Business Design for Administrators: Shadow Studio Lets You Build New Applications Quickly and Cost Effectively

Shadow’s ability to non-invasively transform mainframe artifacts into re-usable elements that developers can use in building modern business applications is principally administered by Shadow Studio. A graphical user interface tool and mainframe administration facility built on the open source Eclipse platform, Shadow Studio provides seamless integration within the IDE to expose mainframe applications and data as web services, real-time business events, or as direct SQL calls.

Designed for use by administrators rather than programmers, Shadow Studio provides a single development environment to handle any integration requirement without requiring detailed knowledge of the mainframe or distributed technologies. Shadow Developer, a part of Shadow Studio specifically optimized for Visual Studio .NET, allows for the automated generation of (C#, Java Bean, COBOL) components, web services, and starter programs to enable both screen-based and direct mainframe applications. It supports C# and Visual Basic scripting capabilities for easy extensibility to all .NET languages.

Shadow Studio works together with other Shadow technology to easily transform the mainframe essentially into an industry-standard enterprise server, so that system architects and developers can continue to do what they do best to build new applications quickly and cost-effectively.

For more in-depth information, consult the white paper, Reducing the Complexity of Mainframe Integration - Through a Single Unified Platform for Mainframe Integration.

To speak with an expert to explore your mainframe integration options, please call 1-800-876-3101 or complete a Request for Information form and an account executive will contact you.