Many customers are experiencing rapid growth in data access demands due to the increasing number of digital transformation, application modernization, and mainframe modernization projects.
In this blog, we explore how our flagship product, Lozen™, integrates with the Micro Focus Application Modernization & Connectivity solutions to help organizations with their modernization projects by transforming data access, reducing costs, and mitigating risk.
About Lozen
Our innovative, patented software, Lozen, revolutionizes IBM zSystems data access. With unique real-time, read-write capabilities, Lozen eliminates the need to move or replicate mainframe data.
- IBM zSystems data can stay where it is, safely and securely on the mainframe.
- Organizations can safely migrate high-impact applications to the cloud and distributed platforms, without risking other applications that depend on that same data.
- Applications not being migrated do not have their data dependencies broken.
- The result is faster, safer, lower-cost migrations and earlier success in your modernization projects.
Furthermore, because data doesn’t move with Lozen, organizations can eliminate the skyrocketing costs of legacy data access methods, and they can leverage Lozen’s zIIP engine architecture for additional cost savings.
As a result, organizations can run applications where they are best suited for their business — on the mainframe, in the cloud, or on distributed platforms — while maintaining a single source of truth.
About Micro Focus
Application migration projects are multiplying in today’s landscape, and Micro Focus is a leading software provider that provides Application Modernization & Connectivity solutions to enable organizations to:
- Modernize core business applications, including refactoring and the introduction of new services and interfaces based on existing code.
- Modernize development and delivery process (or pipeline) by introducing a DevOps approach for your COBOL and mainframe teams, improving agility.
- Modernize platforms, moving existing COBOL and mainframe workloads to new architectures, embracing the latest server and cloud technologies including virtualization and containers.
Customer Use Case
A primary use case for the Lozen Micro Focus Connector is to allow COBOL and mainframe workloads that are moved to new architectures like Windows and Linux platforms to access mainframe data seamlessly, without any modifications to the application code.
Connector Details
Lozen’s Micro Focus Connector uses a Micro Focus Callable File Handler interface to interact with the Lozen server on the mainframe to access data.
It handles all the standard COBOL file organizations: sequential, line sequential, relative, and indexed. The file operations supported by this integration broadly fit into the following categories:
- Opening files
– OPEN-INPUT, OPEN-IO, OPEN-OUTPUT, OPEN-EXTEND
- Reading records
– READ, READ with Keys
- Writing records
– WRITE, REWRITE
- Moving through records
– START
- Deleting records
– DELETE
- Closing files
– CLOSE
Installation & Configuration
The installation and configuration process for the Lozen Micro Focus Connector is straightforward. Platform requirements include:
- Hardware: 64-bit Windows, as well as most popular 64-bit Linux distributions
- Software: Micro Focus Enterprise Server 6.0 and above, or Micro Focus Visual Cobol 6.0 and above
Installation:
You can install the Lozen Micro Focus Connector on the servers where you run Micro Focus COBOL applications. It works with all current versions of 64-bit Windows, as well as most popular 64-bit Linux distributions. The integration comes with a UI-based installer with a screen to capture the Lozen server host, port, and data path as shown below. (Detailed installation instructions can be found in the Lozen Product Guide.)
Figure 1: Lozen server configuration screen
Configuration:
Once the installation is complete, you will find two config files (vzcfh.cfg and vzcfilehandler.cfg) in the install folder. The vzcfh.cfg file contains file patterns of the files that need to be accessed through this integration, while vzcfilehandler.cfg contains the configuration to access the Lozen server, along with some additional configuration related to authentication and performance.
Figure 2: vzcfh.cfg
Figure 3: vzcfilehandler.cfg
Summary
As organizations modernize their mainframe and/or migrate applications to the cloud and distributed platforms, secure and performant access to IBM zSystems data remains a critical factor.
Organizations using Micro Focus for their modernization efforts have a new tool at their disposal. The Lozen Micro Focus Connector allows COBOL and mainframe workloads that are moved to new architectures like Windows and Linux platforms to access the mainframe data seamlessly, without any modifications to the application code.
The result is faster, safer, lower-cost migrations and earlier success in your modernization and application migration projects.
Learn More
Click here to read more about the cost savings benefits of the Lozen Micro Focus Connector.
To learn more about how to unlock the power of real-time, read-write
IBM zSystems data access with Lozen:
