Access to Legacy Applications and Data

Leverage Existing Systems with Data Provider

The data provider makes it possible to integrate unstructured legacy file data with data in the Windows 2000 Server environment. The DDM protocol provides program-to-program communications through SNA Server 4.0 SP2 and native host protocols (such as LU 6.2 and TCP/IP). No custom development is required on the host system.

IBM DDM servers are available on host systems supporting record-level access to files. For example, Distribute File Manager, a component of the IBM Data Facility Storage Management Subsystem (DFSMS) version 1R2 or later, is a target DDM server installed on many mainframes running on MVS or OS/390. On AS/400 computers, OS/400 (version 2R2 or later) runs as a DDM server. The data provider communicates with Data File Manager and OS/400 through LU 6.2 and TCP/IP.

The data provider makes it easy for developers to gain access to high-level component interfaces such as OLE DB or ADO. It supports development in Visual Basic, Visual C++, VBScript, and Microsoft® JScript®. Web developers don’t need to know how to run SNA or LU 6.2.