By Timothy Prickett Morgan

Client/Server Technologies Inc, an AS/400 middleware vendor based in Atlanta, is putting the finishing touches on its Jacada Innovator, a middleware program that allows existing RPG and Cobol applications to be deployed on thin clients using either Java or Visual Basic screens that are derived from the old AS/400 5250 green-screen protocol embedded in those RPG and Cobol applications. A number of similar middleware products are available for the AS/400 but Jacada Innovator, which is just coming out of beta testing and should be generally available by the new year, is unique in what turns out to be a number of important ways. First, the Jacada gateway server, which is at the heart of the Innovator product, has recently been ported to Java and can now run natively on AS/400s. (A small component of Jacada Innovator that is responsible for making initial connections between RPG and Cobol programs on the AS/400 is written in C and must reside on the AS/400 to work.) The Jacada gateway was previously only supported on Windows NT, which could run on an outboard PC server or an inboard AS/400 Integrated PC Server card. This native support of the Jacada gateway on the AS/400 was a prerequisite for Jacada Innovator, which goes beyond converting green screens to Java or Visual Basic screens for intelligent clients and actually goes into AS/400 RPG and Cobol programs and replaces the 5250 green screen data stream used in those applications with direct calls to the Jacada server and to Jacada-ized green screens. What this means, says CST, is that AS/400 applications can be Innovated so they no longer need to use the 5250 data stream at all. The reason why this is a big deal is money. IBM has two different flavors of AS/400s: those that fully support the 5250 data stream – these are called AS/400 systems – and those that run a crippled implementation of the 5250 data stream – these are called AS/400 servers. The AS/400e servers cannot run green screen applications that support as many users as AS/400e systems using the exact same processors. IBM says that AS/400 servers are optimized for client/server and batch jobs, but what is closer to the truth is that servers are de-optimized for 5250 support. The distinction is important only because AS/400 systems cost from five to ten times that of equivalently powerful AS/400 servers (equivalent if they didn’t have their 5250 data stream crippled, that is). When AS/400 customers install the Jacada gateway on their machines and use the Innovator tool to convert the 5250 calls in their RPG and Cobol programs to native Jacada screen calls, this has the effect of turning AS/400 online applications into batch jobs, at least as far as OS/400 is concerned. What this means is that Innovated AS/400 applications can run on much less costly AS/400 servers even thought they are still, as far as end users know, interactive – not batch – applications. Jacada Innovator could save AS/400 customers a bundle of money on hardware and software, since AS/400 server software is typically cheaper than it is on equivalent system models, too. Of course, CST has not had enough field experience with Jacada Innovator to see what kind of overhead it has when running in conjunction with AS/400 applications, nor does it have the data it needs to advise customers on how Jacada Innovator will affect performance. IBM’s Rochester Labs worked in conjunction with CST to develop Innovator, writing the parts of Innovator that get close to the AS/400 iron, and knows that it can be used to port AS/400 system applications to AS/400 servers. IBM’s long-term goal is to move all AS/400 customers to server models using modern tools like Java, so Jacada Innovator can be seen as a significant stepping stone to get the AS/400 customer base there – provided the software performs as IBM and CST expect and is easy enough to use that it doesn’t end up costing AS/400 customers a bundle. The Jacada Innovator development kit costs $2,000 per developer license; application deployment pricing begins at $10,000 per server.