HP 3000 Manuals

General Information Manual

Application integration 

HP Software Integration Sockets 

HP Sockets is a software tool that enables the seamless integration of
applications at the data level.  With this tool, integration can be
achieved with little-to-no modification of the applications.  Thus, it is
especially useful in existing environments wishing to reap the benefits
of seamless integration that they have been otherwise not able to
achieve.  HP Sockets is also useful when a new application is brought
into an existing environment that may or not be integrated.  Because of
the non-intrusive nature of this tool, integration is possible in about
half the time, with half the coding and half the skill set that would be
otherwise needed.


          Figure 5-14.  HP Software Integration Sockets 

There are three obstacles to be overcome in order to achieve seamless
integration:  data access, data transportation, and data compatibility.
HP Sockets resolves the data transport and compatibility obstacles and
helps resolve the data accessibility obstacle.

Key features of HP Sockets are as follows: 

   *   Comprehensive program-to-program communication--all the
       functionality required to move and guarantee delivery of both
       messages and files among applications is included.
   *   High performance data manipulation, translation, and record
       reformatting--differences in data caused by database
       incompatibilities, file structure incompatibilities, languages,
       data types, processors, and the applications themselves are
       resolved in realtime.
   *   Adaptor-based data access--adaptors, programs written to access
       application data and pass it to HP Sockets using 12 HP Sockets
       access routines, allow data access with little-to-no modification
       to the application and insulate the developer from the specifics
       of network.
   *   System management and administration--the part of HP Sockets that
       runs in a background mode on existing supported equipment and
       allows system managers full control of their integrated
       environment.
   *   Command processor and data/error logging--tools to assist in the
       development and debugging of integrated environment.

HP Sockets runs on the HP 3000 900 Series and HP 9000 family.  An IBM/MVS
gateway product is also available.  Adaptors may be written in Cobol, C,
Fortran, and Pascal.  It requires Network Services and a C compiler on at
least one of each processor type in the HP Sockets environment.

As a NewWave Computing technology, HP Sockets is complementary to other
products such as NewWave Office, NCS, and so forth.  It is the
integrating technology that supports industry marketing architectures
like OpenCIM, OpenStore, and State and Local Government.

MPE/iX 5.0 Documentation