* Attunity Connect helps to simplify the exchange of data
There’s an old joke about a salesman who stops a yokel on a country road and asks him how to get to a nearby town. The yokel scratches his head and tries to explain how to get there but he just can’t make the route clear and finally announces that it doesn’t matter, as “you can’t get there from here.”
This problem of there being no direct route to get somewhere is very much the case when it comes to linking Web applications and services to back-end systems, particularly when they are legacy systems.
While some of the connectivity can be built into Web applications, the overheads of developing and maintaining what is often quite complex code can be very costly.
The alternative is middleware, which mediates the connection translating formats and protocols to simplify the exchange of data. A product family that provides this function is Attunity Connect from Attunity (see links below), a leader in this market.
Attunity Connect consists of eight products:
* Attunity Data Connect (for relational, non-relational and custom data sources).
* Attunity Application Connect (universal bi-directional connectivity to transactions and functions).
* Attunity Connect for BizTalk (including support for AIC and Functoids). *Attunity Connect for WebLogic (with support for BEA extensions to J2EE Connector Architecture).
* Attunity Connect for Mainframe.
* Attunity Connect for NonStop (for Enscribe, SQL/MP and the Pathway transaction environment).
* Attunity Connect for OpenVMS.
* Attunity Connect for Adabas.
In particular, Attunity Application Connect (AAC) has a lot of relevance to Web applications design. AAC supports XML, COM, JCA, ODBC and JDBC connections to allow, for example, application and integration servers such as BEA WebLogic and Microsoft BizTalk Server to communicate bi-directionally with legacy systems using Attunity’s adapters on the target platform. Attunity supports more than 20 platforms and operating systems including old favorites such as CICS, IMS/TM and Pathway.
Pricing is on application.
