June 17, 2009

Re-Discovering IT Optimization in Financial Services: Business and IT Collaboration in Tough Times

Business and IT leaders have never had more compelling reasons to work together than in facing today’s economic challenges. Both are confronted with severe budget constraints while simultaneously being challenged to rapidly integrate disparate entities and technologies in order to meet the demands of a new reality.

While many IT managers chase cost-cutting alone, leaders find ways to increase value at the intersection of IT and business, enabling efficient transformation through time-tested infrastructure technology including the mainframe. Technology leaders today face the real complexity of delivering value to new business architectures that do not natively align with IT architectures of the past - and do so with significantly lower TCO.

In this webcast we address the following key questions:

• What do business leaders need to understand about these concepts in aligning cost and performance expectations for the technologies used in their business?
• Which concepts are key to specific business value and which are more about broader IT performance?
• When should business leaders support new IT spending and when should they expect IT to leverage existing resources for new value?
• How can IT professionals find the efficiencies in order to support new mainframe related projects?

June 10, 2009

Breaking the SOA Price Barrier for Mainframes With zIIP Exploitation

The value of information technology is rapidly accelerating for organizations who rely on mainframe platforms - due in part to innovations in middleware design that are breaking down the economic barriers to mainframe participation in Service Oriented Architectures (SOA).

Mainframe Executive Magazine and DataDirect Technologies recently surveyed more than 20,000 mainframe users to gather real-world feedback on specialty engine adoption and its impact. In this webinar, we will review the results of the industry survey, examine new technologies for zIIP exploitation and look at the latest mainframe TCO calculator for quantifying zIIP offload into MIPS dollar savings.

Join experts from Mainframe Executive, WinterGreen Research and DataDirect Technologies to learn how your organization can lower mainframe TCO and accelerate new mainframe SOA initiatives.

April 23, 2009

Shadow Tech Tips: Reducing the Cost of Mainframe Security

It is critical to maintain the security infrastructure of the mainframe when reusing legacy assets in new applications. Modern integration techniques including SOA and direct SQL access can introduce significant increases in repetitive authentication and authorization requests. Shadow introduces innovative technology to significantly reduce these mandatory security processes while providing increased performance and reduced CPU overhead and costs.

This webinar is a “hands-on” demonstration of the Shadow product exploring the Shadow Security Optimization and Management (SOM) feature. We will focus on:

• Understanding how SOA adoption & the SOAP protocol introduces new mainframe security overhead
• Exploring how Shadow can eliminate over 95% of redundant security requests
• Examining the cost savings of Security Optimization and zIIP exploitation through Shadow

March 26, 2009

When Business Intelligence Meets Mainframe Data, Good Things Can Happen

Transforming data into real-time business intelligence starts with streamline access to data – regardless of where that data resides. When your project involves non-relational mainframe data, you can accelerate deployment and increase ROI with the combined solution of DataDirect Shadow and Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.

Learn what other customers have already discovered about the benefits of real-time mainframe data access when coupled with Oracle’s premier Business Intelligence platform. Shadow’s industry standard access and built-in data mapping integrates seamlessly with Oracle BIEE for reduced complexity and faster results – and lower mainframe TCO with Shadow’s unique zIIP specialty engine exploitation.

March 10, 2009

Shadow Tech Tips: The Fundamentals of zIIP Exploitation

Advances in the System z platform and integration middleware are now available to simplify and dramatically lower the cost of mainframe integration. Shadow version 7 includes unique capabilities to offload significant portions of your integration workloads to the zIIP specialty engine.

This webinar is a “hands-on” demonstration of the Shadow product exploring how to:

• Build Web services with CICS, IMS, IDMS, or Natural utilizing business logic and screens
• Create SQL or Web services data queries using Adabas, DB2, IDMS or VSAM
• Identify and enable workloads for zIIP utilization

January 28, 2009

Avoiding SOA Paralysis: Cutting The Costs of Mainframe SOA for Insurance

Has the juggernaut of SOA finally slowed, tripped up by the realities of today’s economics? There is no denying the value Service Oriented Architectures bring to an organization, particularly mainframe-heavy vertical industries like Insurance. Indeed, SOA’s ability to enable rapid, re-use and revitalization of legacy assets can have a distinct impact on the business. But what value is business agility if the technology expense or opportunity loss is too great a burden?

In this webcast, we will explore how insurance organizations can cost effectively utilize SOA to accelerate application modernization, essentially making SOA viable for the business. Join Insurance and Technology, Celent and DataDirect Technologies for this important webinar on the economic realities of SOA in the Insurance industry, revealing new patent-pending technologies that can dramatically lower the costs of mainframe SOA enablement.

October 21, 2008

Mainframes at Your Service: Best Practices for Mainframe SOA Integration

What are the best practices for integrating mainframes into wider SOA and Web Services infrastructures?

The powerful applications and data for which mainframe systems are known can prove valuable in developing and expanding business services. The key to unveiling the full potential of the mainframe lies in choosing the correct middleware integration strategy.

Join Bloor Research analyst Martin Banks and DataDirect Technologies for this informative web seminar to learn how you can achieve the business advantages of mainframe SOA and data connectivity.

September 18, 2008

Significantly Increase Mainframe Web Services ROI

Rebecca Wettemann, VP of Nucleus Research presents a case study analysis of a global financial services firm that deployed DataDirect Shadow and its mainframe Web services technology at the early stages of its service-oriented architecture (SOA) adoption. This strategy enabled the company to leverage existing mainframe assets while increasing developer productivity and the ability to deliver new applications to customers.

Results:
ROI: 150%
Payback: 11 months

August 6, 2008

Preparation for Migration to Shadow Version 7

DataDirect Technologies has released the latest version of its mainframe middleware software, Shadow version 7. This product includes a significant number of new features for mainframe SOA enablement and data connectivity.

Learn more about the features in Shadow version 7.

• Review key changes in the product with explanation by our experts
• Learn more about data connectivity - Upgrading to New Client Drivers
• Understand enhanced SOA support - Orchestration via BPEL
• Investigate lowering mainframe TCO via specialty engines
• Understand installation enhancements for WLM
• Learn to simplify migration and the scope of services available to assist
• Ask the Experts - participate in real-time Q&A and polls

July 17, 2008

Simplifying Mainframe Data Access for Independent Software Vendors

Are your customers bearing the cost and time to prepare their data for access by your application? More importantly, can you leave this crucial step unknown as you work to prove your solution against the competition?

DataDirect Technologies addresses the challenge of mainframe integration with Shadow, a single, unified foundation architecture that simplifies and accelerates the integration of mainframe data, business logic, and screens with new Java, .NET or web applications.

June 24, 2008

The SOA Impact on Mainframe Data Integration

The intrinsic value of legacy data continues to drive the evolution of integration technologies. Yesterday's blunt instruments have been replaced by more intuitive, SOA-compliant integration tools that have the potential to dramatically expand the usefulness of mainframe data.

Organizations with mainframe systems rarely have a single database or application environment. Fully leveraging your investment in SOA often requires supporting multiple mainframe integration methods - ESB, SQL, SOAP, XML. Failure to address this challenge only leads to excessive integration complexity, cost and risk.

In this webinar we explore:

• How you can reduce integration complexity and cost
• How to expand your options for data utilization
• Results of latest zJournal audience survey

May 8, 2008

Expanding Your Market with Cost Effective Mainframe Data Connectivity With DataDirect

Customers demand access to data regardless of where it resides. DataDirect Technologies has forged its reputation by helping define industry standards for data connectivity. More than 300 leading independent software vendors and thousands of enterprises rely on DataDirect Technologies to simplify and streamline data connectivity for distributed systems.

But what if you need to expand your market to include access to data stored on mainframe systems? DataDirect has the answer with Shadow version 7, the industry’s only single, unified platform for mainframe integration.

Join us for this informative webinar where we explore the features and benefits of DataDirect’s Shadow version7, a new benchmark in mainframe data connectivity.

February 19, 2008

Orchestrate Business Efficiency with Mainframe Web Services and BPEL

Web services and SOA are helping to resolve the issue of technology interoperability for business, even to the point of allowing mainframe systems to seamlessly integrate with distributed platforms and applications. Building on this foundation, organizations are now turning to Web Services Orchestration and standards like Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) to improve business efficiency.

In this webinar, you will learn how new tools are changing the mainframe landscape, making it easy and cost effective to create long running Web services using industry standard BPEL to allow the mainframe to more fully participate in cross platform process optimization. In addition, we will examine the new frontier of mainframe specialty engine exploitation that turns investments in the zIIP and zAAP engines into dramatic reductions in mainframe total cost of ownership.

October 25, 2007

Improve Mainframe SOA Performance and Lower Total Cost of Ownership

Lower Mainframe TCO and improve SOA and data performance with next generation middleware. DataDirect announces Shadow version 7, a revolution in mainframe integration. Join DataDirect Chief Architect Gregg Willhoitt as he reviews the latest mainframe innovations from DataDirect and IBM.

October 24, 2007

Mainframe SOA Revolution: Uncover New SOA Technologies for Lowering TCO and Improving Performance

This webinar brings together an expert panel of media, analysts and integration experts to explore new mainframe SOA technologies, trends and economics. The one hour webinar includes:

SOA Trends Survey Results: Bob Thomas, publisher, zJournal, Align Journal
SOA Economics Report: Ron Schmelzer, senior analyst, ZapThink
Alan Rainsdon - ISV Program Director, System z, IBM
Mainframe zIIP/zAAP Exploitation: Dan Finerty, product marketing, DataDirect Technologies

October 2, 2007

SOA Economics and Insurance:How New Technologies Are Changing a Mainframe World

Once dominant with superior mainframe technologies, insurance carriers are increasingly turning to SOA and Web services to expand the interoperability of their legacy infrastructures. Join National Underwriter and Celent, along with DataDirect Technologies for this informative web seminar that tackles the economics of SOA and Insurance and the technologies that make it all work.

June 27, 2007

SOA in Action: A Practical Guide to Transforming Legacy Insurance Processes Using SOA

According to a recent IT survey, growth is the number one strategic initiative facing the insurance industry today. If so, how then do you transform aging mainframe infrastructures into engines for new business growth? The answer lies in SOA, not as a promise, but rather a practical solution available today to enable organizations to re-use valuable legacy insurance processes.

This web seminar will examine how one insurance company, Kansas City Life Insurance, utilized SOA to grow its business and extend the ROI of its mainframe infrastructure.

March 29, 2007

Unlocking Mainframe Potential With SOA

Challenged with unlocking your mainframe functionality into reusable services? Would you like to extend the value of your mainframe through more effective integration using a Service Oriented
Architecture (SOA)?

webMethods and DataDirect Technologies bring together an integrated solution that will transform your mainframe into a critical component of your SOA framework. Join ZapThink analyst Jason Bloomberg and experts from webMethods and DataDirect to explore why mainframes are still relevant to SOA. Learn how you can unlock your mainframe's critical functionality, and why architecting your SOA will require a proactive approach to Governance.

November 8, 2006

Successful Strategies for Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Enablement of CA-IDMS® Systems

The rapid adoption of Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) is providing new opportunities for mainframe re-use and interoperability. New mainframe integration technologies are simplifying the process of combining mainframe data, business logic and screen applications with distributed Java and .NET application frameworks.

From its roots as a proven high-performance mainframe database management system, CA-IDMS continues to evolve and adopt industry standards to meet new data connectivity and application development requirements.

In this web cast, experts from CA and DataDirect Technologies will join with IDMS customers to examine successful strategies for CA-IDMS modernization via SOA enablement and Web services.

November 10, 2005

SOA and Beyond
Regaining Competitive Advantage Through Streamlined Business Integration

Integration is the cornerstone of value that IT delivers to large organizations. Without it siloed applications and data are limited in their ability to impact operational efficiencies of the enterprise. Driven to integrate, organizations have layered complex, interwoven connections which limit scalability, are difficult to maintain and run the risk of failure. SOA is changing the face of integration, providing a viable option for uniting mainframe and distributed environments. This new level of interoperability is quickly merging with zero latency Event-Driven Architectures delivered via a single platform Mainframe Services Bus for true cross platform business process optimization. This educational Web seminar explores options for organizations to regain competitive advantage through streamlined business integration.