Current application Environment: Mainframe ADABAS/Natural
I have a sketchy set of requirements as follows:
From the mainframe app, allow users to “attach” a PC file, (word, excel, PDF, scanned docs).
House(transfer) the selected item(s) on ADABAS.
retrieve housed item from Adabas on demand.
Present item (doc) in proper application.
I understand ADABAS now supports huge elements, which I suspect may be part of the solution.
Could someone point me in the right direction?
Thanks.
Adabas 8 does support LOBs - check out the documentation.
However, 3270’s don’t support PC communications directly. If I remember correctly, even using Entire Connection won’t properly send/receive the PC documents as the 3270 protocol will apply some conversion to the data stream. If the documents are using the newer XML formats, it might be worth a try.
A more robust approach will be to use something like EntireX - build a web app (or fat client) to manage the PC file interaction and send the PC data in as binary.
Douglas,
Thank you for your response.
As a legacy mainframe developer, I’m just now becoming familiar with the salient pieces. Apparently we prepare a web “map” (from a standard 3270 Natural map) using a product called Jacada, which then is presented within a browser. I will school myself on what software is providing the link between the browser and the mainframe. Perhaps this piece is supplied by the Entire (connection or X) piece to which you referred.
The “most direct” link between the browser and the mainframe Adabas database is provided by the Adabas SOA Gateway, it’ll allow you to populate LOBs right from the browser,
i.e. send and retrieve your PC files in their “native representation” without any middleware and without any client footprint.