Tuesday, January 6, 2004
AS/400 in Your Pocket with ZCOM for Pocket PC
Posted by Andy Sjostrom in "DEVELOPER" @ 02:13 AM
Zanden Communications announced recently that it has delivered a Pocket PC to AS/400 data synchronization solution that combines high levels of security, ease of integration, and fast development times. With this release ZCOM for Pocket PC joins the other members of the ZCOM series of communications products, enabling the integration of Java, Windows and .NET platforms with the AS/400. ZCOM for Pocket PC includes both an automatic synchronization function, running transparently in the background, as well as a complete set of communications API's, allowing developers control over how data is exchanged with their AS/400 host.
I asked Bill Herron at Zandem to explain what they have done in a bit more detail. If you work with IBM AS/400 and are interested to hook up Pocket PCs to it, I recommend that you read on!
Q: Can you give us some background on ZCOM for Pocket PC?
A: Our ZCOM for Pocket PC product is the latest in the series of ZCOM clients that all provide connectivity to the AS/400 platform (we also support non-AS/400 platforms, but the AS/400 continues to be our primary focus). Most of our customers are quite large, and can have up to 15,000 or so users (a LOT of users). However, most are between 250 and 1,500 users. So that is the background. All of our clients operate through the same ZCOM Secure Gateway (which runs either on the AS/400 or on a Windows Server). The Gateway, in turn, connects directly to one or more back-end AS/400's. This is not a store-and-forward solution, all data is sent, via the Gateway, to and from the AS/400.
Q: What would a typical application scenario be?
A: A typical application would be an order-entry application. The customer fills out an order on the Pocket PC, and then either stores the order in a file, or maybe in a database. The orders might even accumlate in a local directory, just waiting to be transmitted. When the orders need to be sent (could be right away, or could be at the end of the day), the application uses one of two approaches:
1. Under program control, send each order file to the AS/400, possibly calling the program to process the orders immediately after each upload or when all uploads are complete.
2. Call the Synch2Host method in the ZCOM for Pocket PC DLL, passing the name of the local and remote directories, and have ZCOM take care of transmitting everything that has been "staged" for transmission. The Synch2Host method will only send what is new, and does date and time checking to ensure that only newer files on the Pocket PC are sent. On the AS/400, the received file has the same date/time stamp as that on the Pocket PC.
Another interesting twist on more or less the same theme would be to run a program on a separate thread, and have it call the Synch2Host method every so often, checking to see if there is anything new to send, and if so, sending it to the AS/400 host."
Q: Why would this approach be attractive to AS/400 shops?
A: There are a number of reasons:
1. The AS/400 does not need to be put on the "Internet", it is instead hidden behind the ZCOM Gateway, and direct access to the AS/400 is not possible.
2. The AS/400 does not need to expose any Web Services for remote clients to get access to AS/400 programs and files. That is all taken care of by ZCOM.
3. The ZCOM for Pocket PC client will also authenticate each user against the AS/400 local directory, not only ensuring that the user is valid, but also providing a security context under which all transactions will be performed.
4. The time it takes to build an application that can directly access AS/400 programs and files is very, very short. Actually, in some cases the time to integrate the AS/400 into a Pocket PC-based application can be measured in hours.
I asked Bill Herron at Zandem to explain what they have done in a bit more detail. If you work with IBM AS/400 and are interested to hook up Pocket PCs to it, I recommend that you read on!
Q: Can you give us some background on ZCOM for Pocket PC?
A: Our ZCOM for Pocket PC product is the latest in the series of ZCOM clients that all provide connectivity to the AS/400 platform (we also support non-AS/400 platforms, but the AS/400 continues to be our primary focus). Most of our customers are quite large, and can have up to 15,000 or so users (a LOT of users). However, most are between 250 and 1,500 users. So that is the background. All of our clients operate through the same ZCOM Secure Gateway (which runs either on the AS/400 or on a Windows Server). The Gateway, in turn, connects directly to one or more back-end AS/400's. This is not a store-and-forward solution, all data is sent, via the Gateway, to and from the AS/400.
Q: What would a typical application scenario be?
A: A typical application would be an order-entry application. The customer fills out an order on the Pocket PC, and then either stores the order in a file, or maybe in a database. The orders might even accumlate in a local directory, just waiting to be transmitted. When the orders need to be sent (could be right away, or could be at the end of the day), the application uses one of two approaches:
1. Under program control, send each order file to the AS/400, possibly calling the program to process the orders immediately after each upload or when all uploads are complete.
2. Call the Synch2Host method in the ZCOM for Pocket PC DLL, passing the name of the local and remote directories, and have ZCOM take care of transmitting everything that has been "staged" for transmission. The Synch2Host method will only send what is new, and does date and time checking to ensure that only newer files on the Pocket PC are sent. On the AS/400, the received file has the same date/time stamp as that on the Pocket PC.
Another interesting twist on more or less the same theme would be to run a program on a separate thread, and have it call the Synch2Host method every so often, checking to see if there is anything new to send, and if so, sending it to the AS/400 host."
Q: Why would this approach be attractive to AS/400 shops?
A: There are a number of reasons:
1. The AS/400 does not need to be put on the "Internet", it is instead hidden behind the ZCOM Gateway, and direct access to the AS/400 is not possible.
2. The AS/400 does not need to expose any Web Services for remote clients to get access to AS/400 programs and files. That is all taken care of by ZCOM.
3. The ZCOM for Pocket PC client will also authenticate each user against the AS/400 local directory, not only ensuring that the user is valid, but also providing a security context under which all transactions will be performed.
4. The time it takes to build an application that can directly access AS/400 programs and files is very, very short. Actually, in some cases the time to integrate the AS/400 into a Pocket PC-based application can be measured in hours.
