zapnote SEAGULL SOFTWARE LEGACY Briefing Date: October 2001 Analyst: Ronald Schmelzer

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1 zapthink zapnote ZAPTHINK ZAPNOTE Doc. ID: ZTZN D Released: Jan 7, 2002 SEAGULL SOFTWARE S CONNECTING AND INTEGRATING LEGACY APPLICATIONS WITH XML XML Briefing Date: October 2001 Analyst: Ronald Schmelzer Abstract The vast majority of legacy applications are isolated from the Internet, and none of these legacy systems were designed for the Web s user experience. As a result, a variety of technologies have been developed to extend these systems. SEAGULL s Transidiom product provides a unique, non-invasive solution that leaves legacy applications unaltered while complimenting existing investments in EAI, middleware, and Web application platforms. The system can create a composite application, capture and publish legacy business processes as Web Services. All Contents Copyright ZapThink, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. ZapThink disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. ZapThink shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. All trademarks, service marks, and trade names are trademarked by their respective owners and ZapThink makes no claims to these names. ZapThink, LLC! 11 Willow Street, Suite 200! Waltham, MA 02453! (781) !

2 Integrating with Legacy Systems Transidiom Enterprise legacy applications, such as those running on mainframes, won t be around forever. While the easy applications have already been ported to newer technology bases, most of the mission-critical, legacy, hard-core applications have not been ported. Part of the reason for this is that today s advanced system is tomorrow s legacy system. Another reason is that mission-critical applications that have proven themselves day-in and day-out have no reason to be replaced. Governments, insurance, banking, and finance industry have come to depend on these legacy systems. However, the new requirements of today are straining the capabilities of these systems, some of which were designed in the days when bell-bottoms and peace buttons were the rage. The vast majority of legacy applications are isolated from the Internet, and none of these legacy systems were designed for the Web s user experience. As a result, a variety of technologies have been developed to extend these systems. Many of these same strategies are being applied to XML enable the applications. However, many challenges exist for extracting application functionality from what are mostly closed systems. A strategy therefore is needed, working with XML, to take those business processes and open them to new users and constituents who will use them in new ways. One possible solution to this headache is to Web Services-enable the legacy applications so that their functionality can remain intact, but with a new interface to the outside world. Many companies are looking at this particular angle, and none as intensely as SEAGULL Software. The company, which was founded in the Netherlands, has over 12 years of experience integrating and accessing mainframe and iseries applications and has approached this very problem of exposing legacy functionality through their Transidiom product. Introduced in 2000, Transidiom added XML communication features to the SEAGULL product portfolio, which included products that supported COM and Java-based interfaces to existing host-based applications on mainframe or AS/400 systems. Their approach was to use XML as a means to enable legacy applications to be accessed programmatically by other applications in the Web ecosystem. More specifically, the product supports a Web Services interface to those systems in addition to other XML integration that use message queuing products. Transidiom provides a unique, non-invasive solution that leaves legacy applications unaltered while complementing existing investments in EAI, middleware, and Web application platforms. The system can be used to create a composite application, capture and publish legacy TAKE CREDIT FOR READING ZAP APTHINK RESEARCH ESEARCH! Thank you for reading ZapThink research! ZapThink is an IT market intelligence firm that provides trusted advice and critical insight into XML, Web Services, and Service Orientation. We provide our target audience of IT vendors, service providers and end-users a clear roadmap for standards-based, loosely coupled distributed computing a vision of IT meeting the needs of the agile business. Earn rewards for reading ZapThink research! Visit and enter the code SEALEG. We ll reward you with ZapCredits that you can use to obtain free research, ZapGear, and more! For more information about ZapThink products and services, please call us at , or drop us an at info@zapthink.com. Copyright 2001, ZapThink, LLC 2

3 Competitors business processes as Web Services. In this vein, the application acts as legacy-specific Service-Oriented Integration (SOI) broker similar to offerings by WebMethods, IONA, and iway. Transidiom also provides out-of-the-box integration with IBM s WebSphere MQ, a leading messaging-oriented middleware (MOM) solution that is part of IBM s WebSphere family. It accomplishes this by providing a visual development process that generates XML, Java and COM interfaces that can be deployed as WebSphere MQ and SOAP requests. To further this integration, Transidiom provides the MQSeries Communication Manager, which uses an MQ client to pass inbound, outbound and error messages between legacy system and other applications. The MQSeries Communication Manager also maps MQ messages sent in any XML format to XML schema, automatically translating and formatting the XML messages using XSLT. The product uses a three-step development and deployment process for integrating with enterprise business processes and transactions from mainframe and iseries applications. The Capture step uses a desktop application called Transidiom Developer that allows users to define and record business processes or transactions for reuse in another application. The second step is to use Transidiom Developer to publish and prepare the functionality recorded for external access, thereby generating XML, Java and/or COM interfaces. The final step is to connect the systems using these interfaces. The final component of the solution is the Transidiom Application Integration Server that acts as a gateway to back office servers, allowing XML-based access to business processes on mainframe and iseries platforms. Requests to the Transidiom Application Integration Server are sent in an XML format using HTTP(S), RMI, SOAP, Sockets or WebSphere MQ (MQSeries) communication protocols. SEAGULL recently announced support for Web Services. With support for SOAP, WSDL and UDDI, Transidiom integration solution provides a development and deployment environment available for delivering legacy mainframe and iseries application functionality as Web services for both the Java and.net platforms The company really doesn t compete with many of the traditional integration and EAI vendors due to its focus on mainframe systems. Most are in fact complementary. For example, TIBCO has a messaging /routing system between applications, but isn t particularly strong at delivery to mainframe or AS/400 applications. The same can be said for other vendors such as WebMethods and Vitria. So, in effect, SEAGULL is somewhat a niche player in the market. However, this niche is quite large. The only other company offering a similar value proposition is Hostbridge with its CICS and Mainframe connectivity applications. Other vendor entrants in the space in the near future may include vendors in the emulator space who are entering into the application integration such as WRQ and Attachmate. Customers & Release History SEAGULL mainly sees two types of customers for its Transidiom product: those who have an AS/400 or mainframe system and need to integrate it with other systems, and Systems Integrators, market exchanges, and portal exchange suppliers that want to invite mainframe and AS/400 systems to join their party. The main reason for this bifurcation of customer segments is due to their automatic point-and-click generation of XML interfaces that provide a skill separation factor between technical and business users. Key Conclusions & Recommendations SEAGULL is well known for its Web integration with mainframe and legacy systems. As such, it has a credible entry into the Web Services and XML exposure of legacy systems. Copyright 2001, ZapThink, LLC 3

4 The company may face increased competitive pressure from EAI and Services-oriented Integration (SOI) vendors as well as traditional legacy integration companies eyeing the Web Services market The risk is low in implementing Transidiom since it can be used to selectively integrate systems in a Web Services manner that abstracts the actual implementation. Profile: SEAGULL Software (October 2001) Date Founded: 1990 Funding: Publicly-traded (Amsterdam Stock Exchange AEX: SEAGULL) CEO / President: Don Addington Employees: 200 Profiled Products: Transidiom US HQ: 3340 Peachtree Road, N.E. Suite 900 Atlanta, GA Europe HQ: Korte Parallelweg JN Dordrecht THE NETHERLANDS URL: Main Phone: US: ; Europe: Contacts: Marketing: Jenny Beers jbeers@seagullsw.com Technical: Ardy Franssen afranssen@seagullsw.com Related Research! Service-Oriented Integration Report (ZTR-WS103)! Web Services Technologies and Trends Report (ZTR-WEBSERV)! IONA ZapNote (ZTZN-0140) -- continued -- Copyright 2001, ZapThink, LLC 4

5 About ZapThink, LLC ZapThink is an IT market intelligence firm that provides trusted advice and critical insight into XML, Web Services, and Service Orientation. We provide our target audience of IT vendors, service providers and end-users a clear roadmap for standards-based, loosely coupled distributed computing a vision of IT meeting the needs of the agile business. ZapThink s role is to help companies understand these IT products and services in the context of SOAs and the vision of Service Orientation. ZapThink provides market intelligence to IT vendors who offer XML and Web Services-based products to help them understand their competitive landscape and how to communicate their value proposition to their customers within the context of Service Orientation, and lay out their product roadmaps for the coming wave of Service Orientation. ZapThink also provides implementation intelligence to IT users who are seeking guidance and clarity into how to assemble the available products and services into a coherent roadmap to Service Orientation. Finally, ZapThink provides demand intelligence to IT vendors and service providers who must understand the needs of IT users as they follow the roadmap to Service Orientation. ZapThink s senior analysts are widely regarded as the go to analysts for XML, Web Services, and SOAs by vendors, end-users, and the press. They are in great demand as speakers, and have presented at conferences and industry events around the world. They are among the most quoted industry analysts in the IT industry. ZapThink was founded in October 2000 and is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. Its customers include Global 1000 firms, public sector organizations around the world, and many emerging businesses. ZapThink Analysts have years of experience in IT as well as research and analysis. Its analysts have previously been with such firms as IDC and ChannelWave, and have sat on the working group committees for standards bodies such as RosettaNet, UDDI, CPExchange, ebxml, EIDX, and CompTIA. Call, , or visit the ZapThink Web site to learn more about how ZapThink can help you to better understand how XML and Web Services impact your business or organization. ZAPTHINK CONTACT: ZapThink, LLC 11 Willow Street Suite 200 Waltham, MA Phone: +1 (781) Fax: +1 (786) info@zapthink.com Copyright 2001, ZapThink, LLC 5 ZapThink, ZapThink, LLC " LLC 11 " Willow 11 Willow Street, Street, Suite Suite 200 " 200 Waltham, " Waltham, MA MA " info@zapthink.com " " "