Microsoft Releases Host Integration Server 2004
The product, Microsoft's attempt to better link Windows servers with customers' mainframe and midrange machines, is slated to be unveiled at the SHARE User Group Conference in New York, the Redmond, Wash.-based software company said. General availability is scheduled for Sept. 1.
New in Host Integration Server is the inclusion of the Visual Studio .Net IDE and an extension of host-initiated processing--already available for mainframe environments--to IBM iSeries machines, said Steve Martin, group product manager at Microsoft. That means a Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 server can act as a peer to a mainframe or an iSeries server, facilitating the use of distributed applications. Such processes move parts of the host application logic and data from the bigger machines into the Windows realm.
Visual Studio .Net integration enables developers familiar with that environment to import legacy code and export a .Net assembly, said Paul Larsen, group program manager at Microsoft.
The new server can make a Windows or a .Net application resemble a CICS application, accept CICS programming models and SNA and TCP/IP inbound requests, translate them based on the security credentials received and then distribute the application.
Microsoft is offering two versions of Host Integration Server 2004: a Standard Edition for $2,499 and an Enterprise Edition for $9,999. The Standard Edition includes core host-access services at the network, data and security levels, and the Enterprise Edition adds application integration and technology for tying Microsoft Message Queuing and IBM MQSeries message queuing.
The current Host Integration Server shipped in 2000, so Microsoft has made significant changes. The company considered waiting for the Whidbey release of Visual Studio, but it decided to go ahead with the shipping IDE, Larsen said.
Software Assurance customers will get an "in place" upgrade to Whidbey or Visual Studio 2005 when that toolset ships next year, according to Microsoft.
Integration products like Host Integration Server are decreasing in importance as companies move to services-oriented architectures (SOAs), some solution providers said. "I'd be surprised if there will be a next-generation release of this, given the uptick in SOAs," said Richard Warren, president of Shenandoah Technologies, Winchester, Va.
With those new architectures comes the ability of services of all types to interface, Warren noted. "How much deep integration do you need if there's [the ability to] interface?" he said.
At one time Microsoft insiders said the next release of HIS would surface in a converged Microsoft e-business suite, code-named Jupiter. Microsoft subsequently grounded that idea, deciding to decided to focus again on separate, but tightly integrated servers.
The company's e-business group has also been reshuffled in the past year.