Genie: The New Path Of Modernization
By: Philip Roestamadji
Genie is one of Profound Logic's up and coming modernization tools. When first made available in early 2007, Genie took the market by storm with its unique method for on-the-fly green-screen modernization. This method allowed users to non-intrusively modernize all of their legacy green-screens to the Web. This was done by translating RPG, CL, Cobol, Menu, and system screens into standard HTML pages that did not require any need for PC Clients, ActiveX Controls, Applets, or back-end code changes.
Yet even with Genie's success, the Profound Logic development team decided it was important to continue improving the tool with more features and capabilities for improved usability. This decision led to the introduction of a revolutionary new browser-based visual designer that allowed users to enhance Genie web-enabled screens right within a browser window - a first for System i modernization. As a result, development and deployment of screen enhancements became effortless.
"We wanted to make it so that any iSeries user could easily work with Genie - without the need for extensive product training or Web programming expertise," says David Russo, Project Manager at Profound Logic Software. "With our browser-based designer, even users without experience in Web programming can perform a great variety of enhancements to an application."
Screen enhancements, with the designer, are made by using the comprehensive properties window. This allows users to change all aspects of the screen and its element properties with simple drag-and-drop, point-and-click actions. Plus, the designer is tightly integrated with the System i server allowing users to tie database fields to various elements, such as dropdowns, interactive charts, and dynamic images.
This new addition to Genie gives users the ability to obtain instant results on their modernization projects, while maintaining the ability to customize and enhance their applications for improved usability. Yet, even with all of these enhancements to Genie, Profound Logic's development team was still determined to deliver more value to their customers.
"We're always talking to clients to find ways to improve our modernization products. Several customers indicated to us that eliminating interactive processing is an important part of their modernization strategy. From this, we decided to build a new feature to eliminate 5250 OLTP," explained Alex Roytman, Profound Logic's CEO.
With this new initiative, the development team reignited their efforts and introduced a brand new feature for Genie just last month that would allow users to instantly web-enable and run their systems without using any interactive CPW. This new capability, known as the Genie Accelerator, runs entirely in batch, thereby eliminating the need for 5250 OLTP and providing users with several important benefits, listed below:
More Power - With the elimination of 5250 OLTP, applications will be able to use the full processing power of their System i.
Cost Savings - Modernization with Genie is more affordable, because businesses do not have to worry about upgrading their systems or buying a new box.
Increased Performance - Businesses who already have heavy 5250 OLTP usage may receive significant increases in performance due to Genie offloading users into batch CPW.
Eliminating Overhead - With Genie Accelerator, users can offload the tool onto another system to reduce the servers CPW usage.
Regulation Compliance - The capability to offload Genie will also allow certain businesses to better comply with SOX or other similar regulations.
Overall, the Genie Accelerator provides users with added value by reducing the amount of resources and money required for today's modernization projects. Looking forward, Profound Logic is continuing to add more improvements to Genie. In fact, the development team is currently working on a new development to be released sometime this summer. The team mentioned that these new features will make Genie easier and more powerful then ever before.