System iNetwork

May 4, 2009

iFusion.net Protects Yet Uses IBM i Data for Mixed App Dev

At COMMON Reno, LANSA rolled out one of the company's more significant new products--iFusion.net. Its overall design comes with some particularly compelling propositions for IBM i-focused companies that find themselves shouting over widening chasms of new application development. More specifically, the divide comes from core enterprise applications and data on IBM i systems . . . and Microsoft-focused app solutions delivered via the 2007 Microsoft Office System, Office SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft SQL Server, or applications built with the .NET Framework.

I know it sounds confusing, but not if you're one of the companies that find themselves with at least two, if not more, camps trying to provide end users with actionable data and useful applications.

"Microsoft owns the desktop; IBM owns the server, and applications run in silos," says Steve Gapp, president of LANSA Americas.

The basic issue is, rather than risk letting .NET developers run amok with core enterprise data running on an i system, companies have fractured their enterprise information.

"Today, people are the middleware between the platforms and processes," Gapp notes.

Meta Data Repository to the Rescue

At the heart of iFusion.net is LANSA's answer: a meta data repository ensures that the rules that govern your database transactions are centrally maintained and enforced by all programs, regardless of the platform or development language (C#, VB.NET, RPG, COBOL, LANSA, Synon, SQL, PHP). The result?

Zero duplication of business rules, tighter security, faster performance, and more assured data integrity for organizations that depend on DB2 and SQL databases, LANSA says.

For example, "With iFusion.net, .NET applications have native access to everything your RPG applications can take advantage of," Gapp explains.

Basically, iFusion.net gives Microsoft Visual Studio and .NET Framework developers the authority to perform Create, Read, Update, and Delete transactions on the core databases without risk of jeopardizing data integrity or security--and this last point, Gapp says, is the most important issue for i-focused managers who have end users running a variety of apps in what has become mixed-mode environments.

Not Necessarily a War in Many Companies

LANSA's meta data repository architecture isn't new, and many of the components have already been in use by LANSA customers--but iFusion.net as a product designed to maintain core IBM i data while allowing diverse application access is new.

"Back in 1987, when we created the LANSA platform, every customer ran their critical applications on AS/400 servers. Today, most of our customers still have an IBM i server at the core, but we recognize that many have also made big investments in Microsoft products and skills. iFusion.net has been developed specifically for organizations who are running this mixed-mode environment, so they can concentrate on extracting value from their resources, rather than forcing everyone and everything to a common standard. This mixed mode environment is everywhere you look, so we hope that our neutral approach is something that everyone in the IT department can finally agree upon and move forward with--because end-users are getting tired of waiting," notes Pete Draney, director and CEO of LANSA.

To learn more, check out LANSA's focused site at http://www.iFusion.net.

Posted by cmaxcer at May 4, 2009 9:25 AM