Progress subsidiary DataDirect Technologies has launched a new version of Shadow, its mainframe integration tool, claiming that this will slash the total cost of ownership for IBM mainframe users.

Shadow 7 has been designed to improve SOA performance by using IBM's zIIP and zAAP processors contained within the System z mainframe family.

According to Rob Evelyn vice president of strategy for DataDirect, this will result in considerable cost savings. "We exploit both the zIIP and zAAP processors so users no longer get charged for using the general purpose processor: we estimate that they could save something like 90% of the workload, saving thousands of dollars," he said. "You get the engine running faster and don't get charged for it. Evelyn also claimed that the company offered a facility that its competitors could not match. "No other company has this zIIP capability," he said.

The product will be particularly beneficial for users looking to deploy SOA throughout their enterprises. Shadow 7 will allow organizations to employ services using the industry standard Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) 2.0. This will be deployed using the zAAP processor.

Evelyn said that using BPEL 2.0 would allow users to extract legacy information, such as that written in CICS, and deploy it within web services.