MB Foster tips hand on hybrid migrations
April 29, 2013
In a sneak peek of a May 1 general release, MB Foster is announcing a hybrid of solutions aimed at making migrations off the 3000 easier. The company is calling its offering MBF eZ-MPE.
Software for migrating data, entire databases and more has been in the MB Foster stable for several years. Some of the solutions, like the data migration products, have been working in production environments since the late 1980s. Data Express moved corporate 3000 IMAGE data into desktop environments; eventually that product was transformed and expanded into Universal Data Access (UDA) software and solutions. Lately, the company has begun to sell some of its software -- previously used only for services engagements -- to sites for their own use.
Two years ago MB Foster released an MBF Scheduler to replace the job scheduling capabilities of MPE/iX for the Windows environment. More recently, the UDALink tool was migrated to work with HP's Itanium servers in the Unix environment.
Now the collection of this software tool development as well as services is making its debut as eZ-MPE. "The value of MBF eZ-MPE is its collective ability to mimic the HP3000 environment," said a release that's on its way to the rest of the 3000 community by May 1.
MBF eZ-MPE is a hybrid solution for HP 3000 customers who have a keen interest in transitioning to a Windows environment while preserving the company's competitive advantage and legacy application.
It manages the nuances of VPlus screens, controls access to applications, and has its own file system library for call management and translation between KSAM and relational databases. Its IMAGE library easily converts TurboImage calls to ODBC calls, and facilitates a move to a native environment as part of a company's long-range plans.
The value of MBF eZ-MPE is more encompassing than screen handling, file systems, and databases. A typical in-house developed business application would include scripting, sorting, merging, logins, Job Control (JCL), FTP services, and scheduling requirements. MBF eZ-MPE includes solutions for all of these as well.
We'll have more details on this hybrid solution for migration as they surface.