SOLA for IMS Pushes Mainframe SOA State-of-the-Art 
SOA Software is shipping a version of its SOLA mainframe SOA solution tuned for IMS, allowing companies’ mainframe applications to more easily and efficiently consume Web services. SOLA for IMS also facilitates easy and agile reuse and extension of valuable IMS applications.
SOA Software is shipping a version of its SOLA mainframe SOA solution tuned for IMS, allowing companies’ mainframe applications to more easily and efficiently consume Web services. SOLA for IMS also facilitates easy and agile reuse and extension of valuable IMS applications.
The SOLA for IMS runtime software is designed to reside entirely on the mainframe, so companies don’t need to purchase middleware to connect IMS applications with SOA and web services running off the mainframe, said Jim Crew, Vice President of SOA Software.
Noting that many Fortune 1000 companies use IMS, Crew said SOLA for IMS “extends existing investments and provides growth opportunities for IMS applications that can be reused in new business initiatives.” Customers that use SOLA can leverage the millions of dollars they’ve spent on their existing mainframe investments as part of their enterprise SOA environment, he added.
With SOLA for IMS, IMS transactions can participate in service orchestration, vastly reducing the latency caused by multiple trips to the mainframe. SOLA is heavily optimized, making it the most efficient option for processing IMS transactions. It offers multiple configurations to provide low cost execution of services built from IMS transactions.
Much of SOLA is written in assembler language, so the SOLA runtime offers lower MIPS consumption and higher throughput than alternatives that use Java and rely on zAAP specialty engines.
SOLA for IMS is specially tuned to run well in IMS environments, because the software runs independently of any transaction management software, Crew added, Specifically, SOLA for IMS handles IMS transactions written in COBOL, PL/I or Natural, with multiple input and output segments and it can also service-enable DB2 stored procedures and SQL statements, according to the company.
To enhance design-time productivity, SOA Software also offer a SOLA Development Studio to enhance dev productivity and launch applications more quickly. SOLA for IMS offers devs “one-click service creation,” a drag-and-drop interface and other SOLA features. SOLA Developer and the SOLA runtime now support multiple IMS input and output segments, and the IMS transactions being service enabled can be written in COBOL, PL/I or Natural. IMS transactions can also be service consumers by using SOLA’s highly efficient outbound engine.
SOLA for IMS is also a secure, standards-based and governable SOA product for mainframes. SOLA is designed to provide end-to-end SOA governance for the mainframe with WS-Security, WS-Policy, optimized registry, integrated monitoring, logging, auditing and near limitless scalability, all implemented on the mainframe, Crew added.
SOLA for IMS also offers these features
SOLA for IMS “extends existing investments and provides growth opportunities for IMS applications that can be reused in new business initiatives.”
Jim Crew
Vice President
SOA Software
- Global Dictionary
SOLA provides an integrated global dictionary that allows automatic translation of COBOL field names without affecting the source program. The SOLA dictionary centralizes translation services, therefore minimizing duplication of effort for developers.
- Security based on WS-Security and WS-Policy
SOLA security is based on WS-Security and WS-Policy standards and implemented on the mainframe. By implementing WS standards on the mainframe, SOLA provides efficient and flexible security, obviating the need for a middle tier security agent.
- Batch Capability
SOLA provides a number of significant features that are available to the z/OS batch programmer. Firstly, the SOLA DOM parser and API provide the batch programmer with methods to easily and inexpensively consume and create XML documents. Secondly, the SOLA outbound support is also available to the batch programmer, making it simple for a batch program to consume an outbound web service.
- Leverage Human Assets
With SOLA for IMS, the mainframe programmer – the person who knows the program the best – can easily create the SOA services. There is no need to get downstream web services devs involved
