UNIKIX OFFERS JAVABEANS TO ACCESS LEGACY DATA.

Unikix Technologies has developed a set of JavaBeans for accessing legacy mainframe data. Unikix is perhaps best known for its clone of IBM's CICS transaction monitoring software for Unix systems, and has over the past few years been repositioning itself as a middleware vendor to help mainframe shops extend their legacy systems rather than replace them, although the company does still sell its eponymous transaction monitor and development tools. Unikix is owned by the Fisher Technology Group, which operates an online mall for Fisher Scientific, the $2.1bn provider of lab equipment. Unikix has obviously come to the conclusion, that IBM's mainframes are going to be around for a while longer at least, and is going to try to make money selling Java applets that will be undoubtedly be necessary to make mainframes useful in an e-business world. To that end, Unikix has developed two JavaBeans and a framework for using them. The 3270 Screen Bean provides direct access for Java applications to 3270 mainframe applications written in CICS, TSO or the IMS database. Developers writing Java applications would code the web side of their applications and then use the Screen Bean to access the mainframe. The Screen Bean provides field level access to all fields in the 3270 data stream embedded in legacy applications. Unikix says that the Screen Bean is written entirely in Java and can be embedded in any Java integrated development environment, including IBM's Visual Age for Java, Inprise's JBuilder and Symantec's Cafe. Multiple instances of the Screen Bean can be used in the same application. The Pathfinder Bean Developer is a tool for sniffing through the 3270 data stream in legacy applications to find application fields for the Screen Bean to use. Pathfinder generates JavaBeans that describe a particular navigation path through an application, which can then be re-used by other portions of a Java meta application. Both the 3270 Screen Bean and Pathfinder Bean Developer are available immediately. They will run on any client or server with a Java virtual machine. Screen Bean costs $50 per client or $10,000 for an unlimited server license. Pathfinder costs $1,500 per developer. Aidan Harney, president of Unikix, says that Screen Bean and Pathfinder will be particularly popular at mainframe sites because it does not require customer to tweak their mainframes to use it. "Earlier products, such as Microsoft's COM/TI, only offer access to applications that support IBM's ECI protocol, which is used in less than 10% of the IBM mainframe base. 3270 is still the standard interface for 90% of the applications. Screen Bean and Pathfinder provide easy access to this huge installed base from any Java IDE." The Extended Call Interface is an extension of the CICS transaction monitor program that w as originally designed to act as a glue for cementing CICS applications to Windows clients via Microsoft's Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technology, which has now evolved into COM and DCOM. Rather than work through the ECI framework (which bypasses CICS application screens and links a Windows application written, say, in Visual Basic, directly to the CICS transaction monitor), Screen Bean and Pathfinder actually use the existing 3270 data stream, much as CST's Jacada Innovator for AS/400s - also a Java application - does for the 5250 data stream in AS/400 RPG and Cobol applications. Both Screen Bean and Pathfinder are part of a larger Unikix initiative called the Component and Legacy Application Servers (CLASS) framework. The CLASS framework involves four different ways of extending legacy applications to the Web. First, use object wrappers like Unikix's KixORB Corba object server to encapsulate legacy programs. Second, use Unikix's Web Client to turn 3270 green screen interfaces into internet-enabled Java screens. Third, use Screen Bean and Pathfinder and other forthcoming Java components to extend legacy applications without having to change the code underlying the legacy application. And fourth, integrating native CICS and Java applications on the mainframe. Unikix says that the CLASS framework will allow companies to move from a CICS/Cobol structure on their mainframes to a Java/CICS/Enterprise JavaBean architecture. Eventually, says Unikix, CLASS extensions to the current Unikix software will allow Cobol and Java CICS transactions to intermix within the same application, allowing mainframe shops to preserve what they can and change what they need to. KixORB costs $15,000 per server. Web Client is free and can be downloaded off the Web at www.unikix.com. The native integration of Java and Cobol CICS is slated for delivery sometime in 1999; prices haven't been set as yet.