Software AG Enhances ApplinX Legacy Modernization Tool
By Priya George
"Knowing that legacy modernization is never a scenario where one-size-fits- all,” says Joe Gentry, vice president of business line enterprise transaction systems, Software AG, “ApplinX provides the flexibility for application workflow optimisation, Web enablement and service enablement.”
Software AG has announced enhancements to ApplinX, a software tool that extends valuable legacy systems to the Web and to a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). Software AG’s ApplinX version 5.1 has been upgraded to enable creation of web-based applications and web services based on legacy applications on Mainframe and iSeries platforms. Specific upgrades to ApplinX version 5.1 include 'no-coding-required' Web screen creation, the ability to invoke external Web services and the ability to register Web services in any UDDI compliant registry.
ApplinX lets users combine multiple screens into a single Web page, and automatically generates web components and web services based upon XML, SOAP and WSDL standards. These components and services are compatible with Java and .NET environments, and can be readily incorporated into an SOA. New capabilities supported by ApplinX version 5.1 include:
UDDI registration of web services: the ability to publish a web service in any UDDI registry, including Software AG’s recently announced CentraSite registry and repository. CentraSite includes a UDDI v3.0 compliant registry
Web screen creation without coding: it is an intelligent transformation function that recognizes repeating patterns across thousands of green screen interfaces and automatically transforms them into modern web interfaces
Invoking external web services: the ability to bring an externally-created web service into new applications based on the 'flow' of procedures that ApplinX creates by combining multiple terminal screens
“ApplinX provides the simplest and most convenient way to create powerful Web services from a legacy system, which can then be used in a Service-Oriented Architecture,” said Joe Gentry, vice president of Enterprise Transaction Systems for Software AG. “Once they experience how quickly and easily they can personally create these Web services – without having to learn Java, HTML, .NET or legacy code – our customers realize the potential to deliver rapid results to their business users while planning for a long-term SOA strategy.”
Software AG customers currently using ApplinX to create web components and web services include:
Tulsa County Government, in the United States, improved access to county property records and legal documents and saved an estimated USD 300,000 by choosing to modernize instead of replace the legacy system
WienIT, a subsidiary of the Public Utilities Holding Company for the city of Vienna, Web-enable their COBOL-based personnel administration system across 425 different locations
Rudolf Muehlberger, Personnel Systems Manager for WienIT said, “ApplinX opened up a very economical option for us—to continue to take advantage of our personnel information system’s time-tested and valued functionalities while simultaneously fulfilling end user demands for ease of use.”
