COM Transaction Integrator for CICS and IMS (COMTI) provides client applications with access to the two most popular mainframe transaction processing (TP) environments—CICS and IMS. Working in conjunction with Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS), COMTI makes CICS and IMS programs appear as typical MTS components that can be used with other MTS components to build distributed applications.
Seamless access to host data is becoming critically important to integrators of client/server and host systems. Previous releases of SNA Server included some of this technology, such as an ODBC/DRDA driver for DB2 and file access mechanisms such as the Shared Folders Gateway and AFTP. With version 4.0, Microsoft adds OLE DB Provider for AS/400 and VSAM, which allows record-level access to mainframe VSAM files and the AS/400 native file system.
OLE DB Provider is a significant enhancement that sets a new standard for ease of use when developing applications for discrete data access. It’s a state-of-the-art component that provides record-level access to both physical and logical files on the AS/400. On the mainframe, you get record-level access not only to most versions of VSAM, but also to PDS and PDSE files. No retraining is required—anyone familiar with Active Data Objects (ADO) can use it. Because SNA Server uses IBM’s Distributed Data Management (DDM) protocol, no additional host footprint is needed for the mainframe or AS/400.
For enterprise customers, migrating to the latest client/server platforms is simple. They now have complete client/server access to the three most popular file systems in their environment.
These new technologies, and the many other additions and enhancements, establish Microsoft SNA Server 4.0 as the most comprehensive and easy-to-use host gateway and application integration platform in the industry.