Alchemy’s NeoData zLink Cuts Migration Risk, Cost for VSAM 
Alchemy Solutions Inc. is shipping NeoData zLink, a new offering which makes it less risky and more efficient to migrate mainframe applications and data to Microsoft .NET. Most notably, NeoData zLink provides capabilities to easily and accurately move partial or complete VSAM data sets to Windows or .NET, and maintain connections to related data and application logic that remains on the mainframe.
Alchemy Solutions Inc. is shipping NeoData zLink, a new offering which makes it less risky and more efficient to migrate mainframe applications and data to Microsoft .NET. Most notably, NeoData zLink provides capabilities to easily and accurately move partial or complete VSAM data sets to Windows or .NET, and maintain connections to related data and application logic that remains on the mainframe.
NeoData zLink lets users target specific applications, or subsets of applications, for re-hosting without code changes, and without having to move all their associated VSAM or DB2 data, the company said. Organizations can then continue their migration by moving the data to native SQL Server using NeoData for SQL Server, according to Alchemy.
“Cost pressures are one of the major drivers for today’s mainframe modernization or migration projects,” Ron Langer, Alchemy Solutions general manager told IDN. “But in today’s economy, few CIOs are interested in taking a year or more to move their entire application. They really want to move some applications, but don’t want to break all their interconnections. “
Alchemy Solution’s NeoData zLink “delivers the unique capability to migrate specific applications off the mainframe to the Microsoft .NET platform without requiring the migration of its associated data,” Langer added. “Up until today, migrating to the .NET Framework required organizations to either look for application systems that are totally independent of other systems, or migrate all the systems at one time. NeoData zLink eliminates that constriction; it's a real game-changer.”
For today’s economy, with tight budgets or limited staff, Alchemy’s NeoData zLink eliminates the risk of having to conduct an all-or-nothing, lift-and-shift migration approach. Companies can start with select data or applications before they fully commit to a new platform, Langer said. Moreover, many companies can migrate assets more quickly, because NeoData zLink lets them move either the data or the application separately – without breaking the connection with the resources that stay behind on the mainframe.
How Alchemy Solution’s NeoData zLink
Changes the Game for VSAM Migration
One notable aspect of Alchemy’s NeoData zLink gives users much more choice and power for working with VSAM data.
“NeoData zLink allows customers to leave all or part of the data on the mainframe, whether it is with DB2 or VSAM. “There are a lot of connectors out there for DB2, but [connecting to] or moving VSAM data has always been much harder, especially with COBOL programs,” Langer said. “We do for VSAM what has been for DB2,” Langer told IDN.
Being able to treat VSAM like DB2, required Alchemy Solutions’ engineers to do a lot of work with VSAM “VSAM records are defined in multiple different ways that can make moving some data and not other data risky and difficult,” Langer said. This has meant that most users have kept VSAM on the mainframe, if it needed to interact with applications logic or other data
But the latest NeoData zLink release cracks the code on how to partially migrate VSAM, Langer said. “Being able to separate the VSAM data layer from the application layer is truly valuable to customers because now they can more easily switch platforms to save money or more efficiently modernize aging application,” he said.
So, how does Alchemy Solutions work with VSAM?
NeoData zLink-lets users store indexed VSAM files and build a specific connector for those files that goes to the mainframe. In turn, this NeoData zLink-supplied connection lets data participate with other programs or code still running on the mainframe. And a lot of work goes on under the cover to ensure these VSAM files will work with assets left behind on the mainframe.
“For every VSAM file we look at the COBOL copybooks and break down every field so we get the correct translation of those fields,” this ensures the VSAM data off the mainframe and running on Windows or .NET will accurately interact with data still on the mainframe,” Langer said.
Other capabilities in NeoData zLink and its family of support products include:
- Support for CICS VSAM I/O statements executing under NeoKicks on Windows accessing the data in VSAM files residing on the mainframe.
- Includes well-proven record-mapping NeoData technology to distinguish between different record types so that each record and field is correctly translated between ASCII and EBCDIC, Windows and mainframe, data types.
- NeoData zLink Connector receives the CICS VSAM I/O commands and data, converts data between ASCII and EBCDIC, sends commands to and receives responses from mainframe.
- NeoData zLink Server resides on the mainframe to receive the I/O commands from the NeoData zLink Connector and execute them under CICS.
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