Search390.com Expert Question of the Week July 30, 2001 ===================================== SPONSORED BY: SEA ===================================== SEA's UC4 is the only true single point of control job scheduler on the market. UC4 covers platforms such as OS/390 MVS, UNIX, NT, Tandem, VMS, AS/400, MPE. UC4 will seemlessly integrate with ERP applications such as SAP and PeopleSoft, as well as frameworks HP Openview. Click here now to receive your free trail of UC4 and begin on your road to success with SEA. http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;3152847;5058249;o?http://www.seasoft.com/sea/Potential/contact_us.asp?source=top_navigation ===================================== ======================================================== FEATURED TOPIC: CICS ======================================================== CICS has long been viewed as a highly-robust transaction processing program, but did you know it can also help you Web-enable legacy apps? For more information, go to: http://search390.techtarget.com/featuredTopic/0,290042,sid10_gci757728,00.html Speaking of CICS, join search390 this Thursday, August 2 at 3:00 pm EDT for a live q&a with CICS guru and independent consultant Bob Yelavich. Bob will offer his perspectives on CICS & WebSphere as they both pertain to e-commerce. For more information, click here http://search390.techtarget.com/onlineEvents/0,289675,sid10,00.html ======================================================== Welcome to Search390's Expert Question of the Week newsletter. Remember, no question is too simple for Ask the Experts! If you have a 390-related question, send it to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Selected questions will be answered by our experts. This week's question was answered by Jim Keohane, search390's Web Integration Expert. THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: Q: What is your opinion of IBM's CICS Web Support (CWS) and the 3270 bridge? A: Compared to what? For what purpose? In what environment? There are many variables. It's not the classic "screen scraping" that we have all come to loathe. No dealing with 3270 datastream. No dealing with an api (HLLAPI, HACL, JCICS, EPI, etc.) from offhost or at least from outside CICS. It's up to you whether the supplied coder/decoder/convertor meets your needs or can be modified to do so. I found Bob Archambeault's presentation #1048 at Share 95 very helpful. See http://www.share.org/proceedings/sh95/data/S1048.PDF The nearest equivalent to CWS and 3270 Bridge would be IBM's NetCICS service offering with FEPI. NetCICS is no longer available but it's worth investigating as a possible roll-your-own approach. See http://search390.techtarget.com/tip/1,289483,sid10_gci520283,00.html. I would have thought 3270 Bridge, since the 3270 interaction is captured within same transaction within same CICS address space, should be faster than the FEPI approach. Not so according to noted CICS guru, Bob Yelavich. See his Ode to CrossPlex at http://www.yelavich.com/crosplex.htm An intriguing use of 3270 Bridge exits to generate XML output is described at http://www.hostbridge.com/pdf/hbWhitePaper.pdf. In addition to HostBridge, visit http://www.inneraccesstech.com/news/news.htm for a similar approach by InnerAccess Technologies. Check out Tiema at http://www.tiema2000.com. Tiema incorporates Software-AG's EntireX. See http://www.software-ag.com/entireX/news/nov99/EntX_CICS_Bridge.htm There are some drawbacks to 3270 Bridge when compared to FEPI. Coming into CICS via CWS doesn't invoke the normal CICS 3270 security. Bridge is not true TC (terminal control) and so there may be problems with dependencies on exits. CWS invents termids so terminal naming conventions can be a problem. The TCTTE is short-lived so your CICS application cannot tell whether it's being invoked by same browser as before. Unlike FEPI, you cannot "bridge" to an application in a different CICS region. Not yet anyway. There are/were some problems with an application that diddles with attribute bytes in map. If the above drawbacks do not apply to your case then CWS and the Bridge could be ideal. ======================================================== If you would like to sponsor this or any TechTarget newsletter, please contact Gabrielle DeRussy at [EMAIL PROTECTED] ======================================================== If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter simply reply to this message with "REMOVE" in the subject line. Or, visit http://search390.techtarget.com/register and adjust your subscriptions accordingly. If you choose to unsubscribe using our automated processing, you must send the "REMOVE" request from the email account to which this newsletter was delivered. Please allow 24 hours for your "REMOVE" request to be processed.
