Published date: 01 Nov 2006
The Mainstream -- November 2006 -- Issue 21
Open and integrated access to your existing IMS applications and data, that’s the technology that IBM continues to deliver – today in the form of enhanced XML and Web services connectivity, along with broadened Java and XML tooling that eases development of composite applications. IBM has been enhancing this support with the newly announced versions of its IMS products.
Reusing IMS assets
IMS applications are enabled for reuse as Web services via the integrated IMS Connect XML Adapter support for COBOL, together with the IMS SOAP Gateway and WebSphere Developer for z. By leveraging open standards and using flexible tooling support, IMS transactions interoperate with client applications independent of location, programming language and platform. (This capability is also being provided for IMS V9 users through the service process.)
Support for SOA composite business applications means that you can build next-generation business processes that integrate J2EE resources, services, and activities — such as user interactions — based on Web services with the Business Process Execution Language. IMS Version 10 extends existing IMS transactions to include conversational transactions as SOA-based composite business applications using the IMS Connector for Java and WebSphere tooling and run time. This helps businesses maximize reuse of IMS assets in new applications for rapid business innovation and reduced costs.
Callout support enables IMS applications to be clients, and interoperate with business logic outside of the IMS environment. This enables better integration within an SOA environment. It also includes correlation mapping between the callout request and the external application, enhanced security and assistance on destination routing – which reduces the burden of coding.
The power of XML and XQuery
XML has emerged as a standard data format, and transforming native data to XML has become not only desirable, but in some situations, a necessity. Interestingly enough, 35 years since its inception, the IMS hardened hierarchical data structure maps directly to XML structures. And recently, support was added that lets XML documents store into IMS databases, and retrieve from them.
The industry has introduced the powerful, standard hierarchical XML query language, XQUERY, which supports the hierarchically-structured XML. Attempting to map XQuery to a relational model reveals difficulties similar to the ones that IMS users face when mapping SQL to a hierarchic model. That’s why IBM is introducing to DB2 a native XML datastore for XML data and support of the XQuery language.
IMS V10 offers XQuery support directly to native IMS databases as a fully-functional, robust XML solution for specific XML document types -- those with strongly-structured, strongly-typed data. This allows IMS and DB2 to take advantage of the latest tooling.
XQuery, with its ability to manipulate and construct XML, plays an important role in modern SOA environments. It opens up IMS and DB2 data to the emerging market of off-the-shelf third party tools, such as query generation tools for application development, business reporting and data sharing. It also offers a standard, shareable integration point between IMS, DB2 and other industry databases.
XQuery support enhances data integration, eases application development and increases programmer productivity. Prior to IMS V10 availability, you can preview the new technology of this function at http://www.ibm.com/ims (see “Highlights”).
Other new features vital to SOA implementations are the IMS V10 XML database mapping enhancements, which enable expanded mapping between new or existing IMS databases and visualized XML documents or collections. These enhancements widen the scope of supported XML documents for new IMS databases, and ease the challenges of integrating disparate data from across the enterprise.
Easing the way to SOA implementation
With these enhancements to IMS, you have better:
- Integration with other products and platforms across the Internet, supporting open standards and taking advantage of the latest industry tooling for application development and connectivity
- Manageability in staging users to autonomic computing, easing installation and use, eliminating or reducing outages, and minimizing the education curve for users of IMS
- Scalability with virtualization that gives you flexibility for growth and expansion in a heterogeneous environment, while using the latest hardware and software facilities to optimize performance, capacity, availability and recovery
If IMS is critical to your business, it can also help you transform the way you do business with integrated information, and support for building On Demand business applications that tolerate the rigors of doing business across the Internet. IMS can play a critical role in your SOA and help you leverage your information to make more informed decisions.