comForte CSL: a messaging middleware framework for HP NonStop

Copyright comForte 2014 1




















This is the basic architecture of many Legacy NonStop applications which were designed decades ago.

Pro: Separation of business logic and presentation layer.Pro: Server classes can be implemented in a rich variety of languages.Pro: Built-in capability to “scale up” (called dynamic provisioning in cloud computing terms).

Con: If Screen Cobol is used for client code, administrators have to contend with significant limitations in GUI capabilities, andno language other than Screen Cobol is supported for GUI design.Con: If Cobol is used for server code, it is getting harder and harder to find skilled Cobol programmers.

21Copyright comForte 2014

Using TUC #1 it is relatively straightforward to present an existing Pathway server as SOAP service to the outside world andthen replace the presentation layer (which was in the Screen Cobol code prior) with a new ‘fat client’.

Pro: SOAP(WSDL) provides a well-defined interface into the HP NonStop system.Pro: Server classes do not need to be changed.Con: The SOAP protocol relies on XML, which is a rather heavy-weight way to describe data. This can put unacceptable loadon the HP NonStop system in high-volume environments.


Using the Technical Use Case #3, a three-tier infrastructure can be implemented.

Pro: Server classes do not need to be changed.Pro: The “Application server” is now running on the mid tier system where more modern and cost-effective development anddeployment is possible. The mid tier system can be virtualized and run on commodity platforms. As the mid tier is “stateless”, itcan be run in several parallel instances, reducing in a high availability and linear scalability.


From Figure 3, the three-tier architecture, it is only a little step to put the “Application server” into a cloud infrastructure.comForte chose Microsoft Azure as example, but the approach would work just as well in any other Cloud architecture.

Microsoft Azure is a rather powerful IaaS cloud infrastructure. The comForte CSL Azure cloud demo only uses a small part ofthe full Azure Cloud infrastructure as shown in this slide. See aforementioned Connect article for more details.


This is how the Microsoft Cloud services connect – on a high level – to the HP NonStop system


This shows some more details - please compare with Figure 3 a few slides back




We tried to honestly and fairly represent the competing products. Any omissions or mistakes, please let us know and we’ll fixthis.





comForte CSL: a messaging middleware framework for HP NonStop

Technology

comforte csl azure cloud

azure cloud infrastructure

server code

cloud architecture

server classes

application server

tier infrastructure

mid tier system