Problem

We converted around 30,000 of HOST-Based FOCUS (running on z/OS) programs to WebFOCUS (running on Linux on z) in 6 months. My customer had been using HOST-Based FOCUS for about 20 years, and all the data used existed on the host as a flat file (processed by our original high speed data processing tool). We tried to access data by using iWay server, first. I think iWay server is a wonderful product. However, it seems that iWay server is not good at supply a flat file of a large capacity as meta data. It was not possible to access data at time equal with HOST-Based FOCUS.

Solution

It is necessary to add some changes to operate FOCUS-programs in the WEBFOCUS environment ( For instance, CRTFORM is not supported in WEBFOCUS). We made the tool, that converts FOCUS-programs to fit the WEBFOCUS environment. ( For instance, CRTFORM is converted into HTMLFORM.). The data used by the program is remain on the mainframe. This method has the following three advantages.
1. The program can be tested by using the same data with TSO-FOCUS and WEBFOCUS.
2.  It is not necessary to add storage newly.
3.  It is not necessary to worry about the integrity of data.

We decided to acquire data directly from the mainframe by using IOEXIT of WEBFOCUS. IOEXIT works as follows:
1. Logon to ftp server on mainframe.
2. Transfer data and convert character-code from ebcdic to ascii.
In iWay server, code-conversion is done by iWay server before transfer data. In our IOEXIT,  code-conversion are done at scope of transferring data, without any work files. This means fewer IO cost.  Our IOEXIT works around 3 times faster than iWay server (less code conversion cost). This solution needs following three products.
-data preprocessing product which running on z/OS (by EXA Corporation)
-ftp server which running on z/OS (by IBM)
-IOEXIT (by EXA Corporation)

If any questions, please contact Hideki Kirihara at hideki-kirihara@exa-corp.co.jp.