Interoperability between Personal Communications and Host On-Demand clients

The interoperability feature allows the PCOMM Users to use the PCOMM sessions from other terminal emulator clients as well. PCOMM Users can work with PCOMM sessions from the browsers using HOD or HACP EE clients. The PCOMM sessions which are stored on the HACP server before upgrading to v14.0.3.0 will also be converted to HOD sessions using this feature.

The interoperability feature is supported by HACP v14.0.3.0 & HACP EE v2.0 and is applicable for 3270 Display, 5250 Display, 3270 Printer, 5250 Printer, and VT sessions.

Note: The session conversion happens only for PCOMM to HOD sessions and not vice versa.

When the User stores the PCOMM sessions using the “Session Manager Online” utility, they are converted to HOD sessions before saving them to the HACP server. After storing to the HACP server, users can log in from PCOMM, HOD, or HACP EE clients to work with the stored PCOMM sessions.

The PCOMM sessions which are stored on the HACP server before upgrading to v14.0.3.0 can be converted to HOD sessions by performing any of the following actions from the “Session Manager Online” utility.

1.        Logging out or Closing the Session Manager Online Utility.

2.        Saving a configuration change in one of the online sessions.

3.        Saving or Deleting a “New Session”.

4.        Uploading a Session.

Using PCOMM sessions from HOD and HACP EE Clients:

After the PCOMM sessions are converted and stored in the HACP Server, if any changes are made to the session definition from any of the clients, it is saved in the HACP Server. These session changes will be available to PCOMM users after the next login.

Below is the list of supported parameters as part of the Interoperability feature.

List of supported parameters for Interoperability

Note: Only the listed parameters will be modified from HOD/HACP EE clients for a PCOMM profile. If any other parameters are updated from HOD/ HACP EE clients, there will not be any changes to the PCOMM session. Users should modify the PCOMM sessions either from PCOMM or HOD/HACP EE clients at a time and should avoid simultaneous modifications from different clients.

Interoperability 14.0.5 Configuration Introduction:

HACP v14.0.3.0 introduced interoperability between PCOMM and HOD (Host On-Demand). This allowed PCOMM sessions to be accessed through HOD and HACP EE clients after the session definitions were migrated (uploaded) to the HACP server.

For Managed PCOMM users configured with HACP server of a version lower than v14.0.5.0, a migration utility has been provided along with HOD v14.0.5.0 server component to migrate the PCOMM session definitions stored on the HACP server to the new format. The migration is a pre-requisite for those who plan to migrate their HOD server to v14.0.5.0 and PCOMM client to v14.0.5.0 or higher.

Password provided during the user creation will be encrypted using AES 128-bit algorithm and will be sent to the server through the HTTP/HTTPS protocol as Json object. UID is added to the WS and BCH profile files for unique identification. Only Connection parameters are considered for the interoperability between PCOMM and HOD clients and vice-versa.

After the PCOMM sessions are converted and stored in the HACP Server, any changes made to the common parameters from any of the clients will be saved on the HACP Server. These parameter changes will be available to PCOMM users after the next login.

Migration Utility:

To support the interoperability feature, both HOD and PCOMM should be updated to v14.0.5.0.

The PCOMM session, which is stored on the HACP server of v14.0.3.0 and v14.0.4.0 can be upgraded using Migration Utility. The Migration Utility will convert the existing PCOMM user data into a new format.

Steps to install:

1. Install the HOD v14.0.5.0.
2. Install the PCOMM v14.0.5.0.
3. Run the Migration Utility jar.

Instructions to run Migration Utility:

• InteropMigrationUtility.zip is available for download from the Fix central link of HOD v14.0.5.0.
• Download the file, Extract the InteropMigrationUtility_1.0.jar and execute the below command in the terminal/command prompt with administrator privileges.

       Command: java -jar InteropMigrationUtility_1.0.jar [option].  

• The user must provide the option as DEBUG to get the logs and traces for InteropMigrationUtility under the same location.

• Provide the Host On-Demand installation directory, Config server port, Administrator User Name, and Password.
• The InteropMigrationUtiltiy location has the backup of the private folder of the existing HOD.

Note: Auto rollback is not available for Interoperability Migration Utility. The User can rollback using the private folder backup created while performing the migration.

WAR file configuration:

The interoperability executable (HOD_Interoperability.war) is available under the lib directory of the product.

For Embedded Web Server:

If the Embedded Web Server is used, by default Interoperability application is running on context root "interop”. If the user needs to change the context root, add the following parameter to the configuration file (config.properties), located in the HOD server publish directory.

Example: InterOpContextPath=interop

The default HOD Server IP is 127.0.0.1 and the HOD Server port is 8999. If the user needs to connect to the HOD server located on a different machine, then override the interoperability configuration by modifying the properties of “interop_overrides.xml” in the conf directory under the lib directory of the product. 

List of properties that can be used to configure the Interoperability:

Limitations

1. Only Connection parameters are considered for interoperability between PCOMM and HOD clients and vice-versa.
2. Session creation from HOD/HACP EE client will not be converted to a PCOMM session.

Known Issues

1. For stored PCOMM sessions, changes to any session parameters (not only the listed parameters) from HOD/HACP EE clients will be overridden or set to default when there is an update from “Session Manager Online” (PCOMM Client).
2. Creating file copies using the “Copy” and “Save As” options of an existing session in “Session Manager Online” can save only one corresponding HOD session in the HACP server, which results in only one session in PCOMM, HOD, and HACP EE clients.
3. If there are simultaneous profile updates from any of the two clients, the most recent update will be saved as the final copy in the HACP server.
4. Deleting sessions from HOD will not be reflected in PCOMM. The deleted session will be available when we re-login to PCOMM.
5. Modifications done in multiple sessions (add or delete sessions, rename) from the HOD client do not reflect in the PCOMM client.
6. After migration to the HACP server, the sessions included in multiple session files will be renamed with their filename appended with "_Interop_*". The "*" indicates the number of copies/entries of the same session filename in the HACP server. (This issue is fixed in the PCOMM 15 version. This issue exists for the previous version of PCOMM). 
7. Saving/renaming profiles with special characters (Ex: \ / : * ? " < > |.) in HOD/HACP EE clients will result in unexpected behavior in the PCOMM client.