IBM has introduced tools to enable users to run web
services on its zSeries mainframes.
The software removes the need for a separate web services
platform and could reduce companies’ dependence on specialist
mainframe skills, said Mark Lillycrop, an analyst at Arcati
Research.
IBM has introduced tools for helping Java, Visual Basic, Cobol
and PL/I developers create “services-ready” applications for the
mainframe.
In particular, the IBM Rational Cobol Generation tools are
designed to help developers learn to write mainframe applications
for service oriented architecture (SOA) after only a few
lessons.
This could be useful as many companies have a huge investment in
legacy Cobol systems at the heart of the business and need to
provide scalable SOA applications.
“With the mainframe’s scalability and superior security, and
recent reductions in cost, it makes a lot of sense to do the new
development on the mainframe – rather than building the new
applications on other platforms and then trying to integrate the
two environments,” Lillycrop said.
“It allows businesses to get at [their] vast reservoir of Cobol
logic and package it up into services, so that they get the benefit
of the mainframe’s maturity without needing a specialist
skillset.”