ADVANCED BusinessLink Corp. will showcase an innovative new AS/400 Web Server - BusinessLink/WEB, which delivers on the Internet's promise of 'Interactive Business' for AS/400 sites, at COMMON in San Francisco.
BusinessLink/WEB utilizes BusinessLink's unique High Speed Messaging (HSM) client/server architecture to communicate with user applications, delivering a stream of actual structured, formatted transactions to be processed. This has significant benefits over traditional Web related programming and negates the need to manage and secure Web initiated database access and program calls.
Delivered as a turn-key solution, businesses can be trading with customers within days of installation.
Security is built in - with no need for firewalls, solving the paradox of needing conversational communication with AS/400 applications while not letting Web users on the AS/400.
As part of the BusinessLink enterprise communications suite, it can be seamlessly combined with other BusinessLink modules, such as high speed dial up or wireless, to provide a total remote access strategy.
Typically, organizations require multiple levels of service for their customers, making the Internet quite acceptable for the bulk of clients while for some top clients it becomes unacceptable because of lower speed, security concerns, etc.
BusinessLink is a suite of products and as such addresses the need for varied levels of support, allowing AS/400 sites to provide high end dial up for their premier customers via BusinessLink/REMOTE, utilize the Web for the others via BusinessLink/WEB, and deal with say a mobile service fleet wirelessly with BusinessLink/AIR - transacting with all simultaneously via a single AS/400 based RPG server program.
Additionally, AS/400 printed output can be 'published' on the Web by simply printing to a BusinessLink created OUTQ, with Web specific programming required.
Entire files can be transferred to Web users on demand with a single AS/400 command, eliminating the need to risk having Web users browse host folders and directory structures.
BusinessLink/WEB includes graphical 5250 emulation for Web Browsers, though once users understand the power of the client/server HSM architecture, it is likely they will provide emulation on their Web site as a very short term option only.
PACKAGING
BusinessLink's WEB server is also available as a low end (BusinessLink/WEB-Lite) offering. Both options run on the AS/400 as native AS/400 applications, controlled and managed from any AS/400 workstation. The key difference being the point of connection to the Internet, and the security and performance implications.
With the low end product, the AS/400 is directly connected to the Internet, using IBM's supplied AS/400 TCP/IP stack, running OS/400 v3r1 or higher. This document refers exclusively to BusinessLink/WEB rather than WEB-Lite, which is actually positioned so as to demonstrate the demand for BusinessLink/WEB and focus the market on the differentiating factors.
BusinessLink/WEB, The high end product, utilizes BusinessLink's unique CoProcessor architecture, with the Internet not actually being connected to the AS/400, but rather being connected to a BusinessLink supplied peripheral which is managed by BusinessLink's AS/400 middle-ware.
Much like a math coprocessor on a PC, it handles inline number crunching, and capacity to off-load CPU intensive tasks (such as the comms involved in Web serving) from the AS/400, without the fragility, or loosely coupled negatives of traditional PC based front-end processor type architectures.
This provides much greater speed and Web Server hit capacity than would be possible with a direct AS/400 connection, as well as having little or no performance impact on the AS/400 when under heavy Internet traffic load.
Security is absolute since there is no protocol based link between the AS/400 and the CoProcessor, but rather, BusinessLink HSM provides a high speed, transaction based client/server architecture to give Web end users full conversational communication with existing host based applications.
With BusinessLink/WEB, TCP/IP is not required on the AS/400. Prerequisites are a twinax connection and OS/400 v2r3 or higher.
Web serving can now be managed totally as an AS/400 application, communicate conversationally with existing AS/400 applications, yet not risk having Web users actually on the AS/400.
POSITIONING
Rather than a simple adaptation of a PC style Web server, ported to the AS/400, (using IFS on the AS/400 to make the AS/400 look like a traditional PC environment) - BusinessLink/WEB inverts the model and adapts the task of Web Serving to be totally AS/400-Like.
It is positioned as a high end, high volume, business oriented Web Server, its mission being to allow AS/400 sites to rapidly and safely transact business on the Web 'out-of-the-box' without needing to cope with complex security and protocol related issues, or programming hooks to their database via SQL, etc. This is an important distinction as the absence of BusinessLink/WEB (& HSM) forces the user to code or cope with core business related tasks in an environment other than their traditional AS/400-RPG world.
Instead, BusinessLink tames the idiosyncrasies of the Web to a manageable stream of transactions which existing applications can readily be adapted to process, all in a very controlled, secure AS/400-like manner.
The ability to make the Web a cohesive part of a total remote access strategy by transparently plugging in the other BusinessLink modules is a major differentiating factor. Other Web related products for the AS/400 don't form part of a cohesive strategy.
We believe this is behind the AS/400 community's general reluctance to move on host Web Serving. BusinessLink gives them a total remote access strategy not just a Web Server.
SUMMARY OF KEY DIFFERENTIATING FACTORS
· Total AS/400 security
· Positioned as a turnkey solution - Home page on day 1 - Transact business days/weeks later, not months. We even arrange the service provider and hook up as part of install.
· Re-uses existing host application code in a unique client server model and includes the HSM client server middle-ware layer on the AS/400, meaning that a single RPG program could simultaneously serve multiple requests from clients connected by Web, Remote or Wireless, without any knowledge of the communications or any communications specific programming. Additionally, through our middle-ware's ability to parallel task user servers, server program performance stays very flat under load, giving the illusion of multi-threading (since it is actually not possible on an AS/400 but commonly used in PC database servers to cope with high load hits).
· Built to make the task of Web Serving AS/400-like (processing structured transactions, management via commands, etc.), rather than making the AS/400 look like a PC to a ported PC Web Server.
· Forms an integral part of a total communications strategy, allowing the most appropriate type of communication (eg. Web, High speed dial-up, Wireless) to be chosen for each specific customer/remote access need - all totally transparently to user server applications. If for example an investment broker wanted to use the Web to distribute investment information, the majority of their customers would be serviced well since their number of investments could easily be viewed on a few Web pages, however, they would likely have their top 10% of customers who have such a large portfolio that the Web would be performance prohibitive (major clients may also emotively resist the Web due to security concerns). They could simply give the user BusinessLink/REMOTE, which would let him transfer data orders of magnitude faster than the Internet (1Mb per min., and have sub second response time) from his PC via a graphical client. In total security, he could function with a higher class of service than Web connected users, and easily cope with his volume. The AS/400 RPG server serving them all through BusinessLink's HSM middle-ware has no knowledge of the communications nor whether the current transaction it is serving was delivered from the Web or high speed Dial-up.
Media Contact:
Chris Lategan
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