Richard Seroter - SoCal BizTalk Musings : Host Integration Server

Host Integration, BizTalk Adapters CTP Now Available

rseroter — Sat, 15 Apr 2006 18:58:00 GMT

Very nice job by the Host Integration Server team for getting both the HIS 2006 CTP and BizTalk Adapters for Host Systems CTP out on schedule.

This CTP release (code name "Dawson") really demonstrates some great innovations for making IBM-interop a reality on .NET 2.0 systems. Host Integration Server is actually one of the most senior products for Microsoft, starting in the 90s as SNA Server. Let's see what's new in both HIS 2006, and the fancy new BizTalk Adapters for Host Systems.

So what's in this HIS release? Some highlights include:

New network services such as Host Print Service, and Session Integrator for both 3270 screen-scraping apps, and 4600 for financial apps
Transaction Integrator for creating .NET proxies for COBOL or RPG code sitting on the IBM hardware
Tight integration with VS.NET 2005 for importing COBOL/RPG code and building HIS projects
Single Sign On improvements such as password synchronization and MIIS management for SSO.
Great new .NET data providers for DB2 and Host Files. The Host Files piece is really amazing. Being able to access this data from within your .NET application is compelling.

How about the BizTalk Adapters? This really is 4 separate offerings. Some highlights include:

BizTalk Adapter for Host Applications. This lets you connect natively between BizTalk and IBM host apps (e.g. CICS). These actually use wire-level protocols over either SNA or TCP/IP.
BizTalk Adapter for Host Files. Imagine having solicit-response or even polling of Host Files as integration options in your BizTalk project. Wow.
BizTalk Adapter for DB2. Now you can easily connect from BizTalk to DB2 databases just as simply as any other data store.
BizTalk Adapter for WebSphere MQ. Connect BizTalk with MQSeries Queue Managers. Nice.

Just a very interesting offering that we're providing. Getting those BizTalk adapters at no additional cost is a huge savings to customers, and really a fascinating way to create a Service Oriented Architecture that easily interacts with a whole host (pun intended) of systems.

Technorati Tags: BizTalk, HIS

Paper On Choosing the Appropriate Microsoft Integration Technology

rseroter — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 03:48:00 GMT

We've pushed out a paper to MSDN that highlights when to use which technology for integration. Called Understanding Microsoft Integration Technologies - A Guide to Choosing a Solution , this white paper lays out recommendations for when to use Indigo, MSMQ, SQL Service Broker, SSIS, HIS and BizTalk. A must read.

Links To Help Understand Host Integration Concepts

rseroter — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 17:43:00 GMT

There are estimates that as much as 70% of overall business data resides in IBM host systems, thus making Host Integration Server such an interesting part of an (SOA) architecture. Being able to interact with the data and applications that reside in those mainframes and midrange servers (without leaving a footprint) as .NET web services introduces some compeling ways to reuse existing assets in inventive new ways.

All that said, in order to understand Host Integration Server, you've got to have a grasp on how host systems operate. Below I've listed a couple of the external links I've used over time to dig deep into the various networking, data and application concepts.

Communications - SNA

Data

Applications

HIS is one of the most mature server products we offer, starting as SNA Server back in the 90s. But a developer who has always lived in a Microsoft world may have avoided products like HIS because it involved understanding concepts that were previously unfamiliar. However, you may be missing the opportunity to utilize and integrate with data you previously thought was inaccessible in your .NET applications.

Upcoming HIS and SQL Server 2005 Webcast

rseroter — Tue, 09 Aug 2005 22:48:00 GMT

If you're thinking about integrating your IBM mainframe data with SQL Server 2005, check out this webcast on Thursday. The webcast, TechNet Webcast: Integrating Existing Information in IBM DB2 using SQL Server 2005 and Host Integration Server, is by HIS group manager Paul Larsen.

Getting rolling ...

rseroter — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 23:50:00 GMT

Greetings. I expect to use this space to discuss best practices, tips, code, product roadmaps and more around BizTalk Server, HIS, and Commerce Server.

I've been working with BizTalk Server since the beta of BizTalk Server 2000 nearly five years ago when Avanade was just getting started. I joined Microsoft as a Technology Specialist fairly recently, and considered blogging right away, but kept putting it off. However, I've recently been inspired again by Marty Waz and Owen Allen and decided to put material out that will hopefully be somewhat useful to my customers, partners and the general BPI development community.

Over the last few weeks, Marty and I tried to break the spirits of 30 customers and 60 partners with some pretty hard core week-long BizTalk training. Most everyone came out alive, and my house has only be egged twice since. It's exciting to spread the integration message throughout our district and get folks to see that BizTalk is actually an enterprise-ready platform.

There are some great BPI opportunities here in Southern California and each of the BPI products will be experiencing a version refresh very soon. All in all, a wild time to be doing BPI work.