Corporate Information

Hostbridge Technology
100 E. 7th Avenue
Stillwater, OK 74074
www.hostbridge.com

Contact Information

Dan Speer
dan.speer@hostbridge.com
Main: +1 405-533-2965

Michael Wilson
michael.wilson@hostbridge.com
Main: +1 512-507-8244

HostBridge Technology provides software for IBM S/390 and zSeries customers with an ongoing investment in CICS applications. Using the HostBridge U.S. Patented software (U.S. Patent No. 6,981,257 B2), any middle-tier application can securely invoke CICS transactions and receive their output as an XML document. By providing real-time XML access, along with high-performance process automation, HostBridge allows enterprises to take a quantum leap forward in integrating CICS applications into other business processes or offering CICS applications as Web Services.

Organizations worldwide have decades of business processes and data in legacy applications running under CICS. Dealing with those legacy applications is the single largest headache when they design integration frameworks. HostBridge provides a low-risk, high-value solution that preserves investments in CICS applications and lowers integration costs.

HostBridge is mainframe-based software that provides immediate access to CICS applications as XML documents or web services. Unlike competing solutions, HostBridge does not use screen scraping, does not require changes to existing applications, and does not require you to purchase middle-tier servers or software licenses. HostBridge provides the scalability and reliability expected of mainframe solutions and combines it with uncommon simplicity so it easily fits into any XML or web services integration architecture, including Oracle Fusion Middleware SOA Suite. By using industry-standards like XML, SOAP, and JavaScript, HostBridge extends the ROI of CICS while bringing new returns through business integration.

Group Health Cooperative

Group Health Cooperative selected HostBridge to replace an existing screen scraping application. GHC found that HostBridge outperformed competing products, provided broad support for all their CICS applications and data sources, and provided the unique ability to integrate Advantage ™ CA-Ideal® for CA-Datacom® (Advantage CA-Ideal) transactions using field names and panel data.
Previous experience with screen-scraping provided a set of requirements for the Group Health Cooperative evaluation team:

• Mainframe-based integration.
• No screen scraping.
• No legacy application changes.
• Advantage CA-Ideal support.  

For the initial project, HostBridge substantially lowered the costs of integrating CICS and Advantage CA-Ideal into web portals and introduced an intuitive user interface. For this project, HostBridge delivered the following results:

• Saved $600,000 versus point solution and millions versus reengineering
• Reduced employee training time by 95%
• Reliability greatly increased versus prior screen scraping
• Reusable code supports future projects

If not for HostBridge, GHC would have either rewritten their applications or maintained their applications and relied on screen scraping.

Based on the success of the first project, GHC used HostBridge with a second project. For this project, HostBridge delivered the following results:

• Saved $500,000 versus outsourced development
• Increased accuracy and reduced entry vs. using multiple screen-based applications
• Cut estimated project development time 50%
• Reduced contract administration from 1 hour to 15 minutes 

Navy Federal Credit Union

Navy Federal selected HostBridge to enhance their existing screen scraping solution. The credit union’s requirement is to serve the needs of both members and employees. When serving data to multiple groups of users, Navy Federal felt HostBridge provides more flexibility than screen scraping products.

At the time that Navy Federal began evaluating HostBridge, it already had two existing integration solutions in place. For external users (members), screen-scraping software on a middle tier server performed traditional row/column analysis, allowing users to check status of loan applications; for internal users (employees), a workstation-based rich client performed client-side screen scraping and data aggregation. The Internet solution had slow response time due to screen scraping overhead. Both internal and external screen scrapers had their own proprietary design tools that generated code and their own set of APIs.

Previous experience provided a set of requirements Navy Federal’s evaluation team would use to find a CICS integration solution.

• High performance.
• No screen scraping. 
• Single API for internal/external integration.
• Support for green screen and non-green screen CICS applications.

 For Navy Federal Credit Union, results included

• Development time cut 50-60%
• Improved response time.
• Greater stability through XML-based integration rather than screen scraping.
• Lower maintenance costs through elimination of middle-tier servers that previously hosted screen scraper software.