| Issue 4, 2012 | Download pdf |
Quickly unlock your legacy data to make real-time operational decisions by creating MashApps. Software AG’s ARIS MashZone can be used with Natural, Adabas, Adabas SQL Server and webMethods EntireX to mashup constantly changing information with business intelligence tools to quickly improve processes.
WHAT ARE MASHUPS AND MASHAPPS?
Mashups are the shining star in today’s business place for when you need to put business intelligence and process data together fast to make quick business decisions. If you are required to assemble dashboards from data that constantly changes and spans across multiple systems within and outside of your organization, then mashups will get you there faster.
Teams looking for real-time operational intelligence must constantly fold (mash) information together from multiple sources. Using business intelligence, they analyze data in motion and look for process improvements. To accomplish this, teams leverage mashups to access data then process it in a mashup application or MashApp.
A MashApp is an interactive dashboard application that collects data from multiple data sources, processes it and visualizes it. The data can come from different sources and is combined. Possible data sources include Excel or CSV files, reports from ERP or CRM systems, queries from data warehouses, and, as in this case, a JDBC interface into Adabas and a web service interface into Natural.
MashApps are composed of individual graphical components (e.g., business graphics, tables, maps) that obtain their data from data feeds and display it. You can combine the individual display components to filter the displayed results interactively and thus analyze them intuitively.
ARIS MASHZONE
ARIS MashZone is a browser-based application enabling you to analyze and visualize any data from various, independently distributed data sources. The data sources combined, using data feeds, are represented graphically and analyzed in MashApps. A MashApp is an interactive visualization of data relevant to your business. You can use ARIS MashZone to view, create, and edit MashApps in a Web browser.
HOW IT WORKS
ARIS MashZone uses a combination of data connections and data feeds to build its MashApps. The components are built with easy-to-use graphical interfaces.
The data feed is a table containing prepared data that is accessed by the individual display components of a MashApp. The data feed consists of several columns that contain numerical values, text, or date values. Feed definitions aggregate, extend, transform or calculate data from one or more data sources.
While ARIS MashZone can connect with endless data sources, we focus here on the integration of data from Software AG’s Adabas, Natural and webMethods EntireX products as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: ARIS MashZone simplifies the creation of MashApps from Adabas, Natural and webMethods EntireX
The Natural data feed is created by exposing Natural subprograms as web services using the webMethods EntireX Workbench within NaturalONE.
The Adabas data feed is created by exposing Adabas data as an ANSI SQL interface using Adabas SQL Gateway JDBC connectivity. Figure 2 shows a MashApp leveraging Adabas data feeds.
Figure 2: A MashApp using data feeds for Adabas
MASHAPP IN ACTION
A State Department of Transportation in the United States built a MashApp using data from its Adabas and Natural applications on the mainframe. By taking this approach, this department was able to modernize their government services application to be a self-service portal as shown in Figure 3. Some of many key performance indicators now available for observation in real-time include:
- Incident duration
- Open incidents
- Incidents by zip code
- Open incidents per department
Figure 3: MashApp unlocks Adabas/Natural data for Department of Transportation self-service portal
CONCLUSION
ARIS MashZone allows you to easily create MashApps and unleash real-time operational data from Adabas and Natural using proven integration technologies such as Adabas SQL Gateway and webMethods EntireX.
- Download a free trail of ARIS MashZone today!
- Visit the Tech Community to learn more about how to open Adabas using Adabas SQL Gateway.
- And get the inside details on how to create Web Services for Natural using webMethods EntireX here.