Legacy Apps Meet Web ServicesLegacy Apps Meet Web Services

GT Software Inc. on Monday introduced a Web services platform that can be used with existing enterprise mainframe applications.

Ivory Web Services uses Web Services Interoperability Organization standards that let companies include legacy applications within their service-oriented architecture, says Joe Ganem, president and CEO of GT Software. Ivory allows customers to graphically generate Web services for mainframe applications and data, and integrate them with other Web services, he says.

Analysts have estimated that as much as 70% of all corporate data resides on legacy-based systems, making it increasingly important to tie those applications into new service offerings, Ganem says. "Whether its 70%, or 80%, or even 50%, it's telling everybody that is adopting Web services that if you don't include the mainframe in an effective manner you're going to have a rough time because that is where you have a lot of mission-critical applications," he says.

Ivory has two components: Ivory Studio and Ivory Server. Ivory Studio is a PC-based development application that lets customers graphically create and publish Web services form existing mainframe assets. It includes an integrated test environment for validation and testing of the Web services. The Ivory Server is based on Simple Object Access Protocol, and it can be used to generate Web services and Web Services Description Language without the long development time and costs associated with writing new programs, Ganem says.

Using Ivory Studio's graphical user interface, customers can transform standard mainframe business functions into Web services, he says. A modeling environment lets users generate diagrams that define the business flow of a Web service.

The server receives Soap requests and invokes the business rules previously defined in Ivory Studio to complete the request. Ivory Servers provides Soap support using HTTP and HTTPS protocols.

Ivory Studio and Ivory Server are available now. Depending on configuration, pricing is between $80,000 and $200,000.