Articles Archive

SOA World
October 24, 2006
The Missing 'Discovery' Link to Successful Business Process Management

Process improvement based on user behavior, not estimates or anecdotes

Insurance & Technology
September 5, 2006

Western Reserve Group makes a long-term commitment to straight-through processing, starting with enabling online business submission for agents.

FinanceTech
September 5, 2006

Western Reserve Group makes a long-term commitment to straight-through processing, starting with enabling online business submission for agents.

eWEEK.com
August 21, 2006

One insurance agency takes the leap into real-time, online insurance quotes with help from SOA vendor OpenConnect.

ebizQ
August 2006

The Missing "Discovery" Piece of Business Process Management

bpm.com
July 7, 2006

BPD is an emerging approach that provides a bottom-up approach to business process analysis.

Information STORAGE+SECURITY journal
June, 2006
"The Evolution of SOAs"

Bringing SOA to the mainframe is the next step for enterprises

DataMonitor / Computerwire
March, 2006

OpenConnect and Proforma Form BPM Partnership

Insurance Networking News
Mar, 2006
"Who's Buying What?"

The Western Reserve Group, a Wooster, Ohio-based provider of insurance services, installed soaSolution, a patent-pending mainframe-to-service-oriented architecture (SOA) suite from OpenConnect Systems Inc., Dallas.

zJournal
Mar, 2006
"OpenConnect Announces Joint Product Offering with HostBridge Technology"

OpenConnect Systems, Inc. is building on the success of its newly launched mainframe-to-SOA suite, soaSolution, through a new partnership with HostBridge Technology. A leader in Customer Information Control System (CICS)-based integration software products, the HostBridge Technology patented product line complements OpenConnect's screen logic interface strategy by providing host-based process automation, improving organizational performance, increasing flexibility and simplifying development. The new joint product, soaConnect CDI, is mainframe software that allows CICS transactions and data to be easily integrated with other applications.

zJournal
Mar, 2006
"OpenConnect Partners with Proforma"

Proforma Corporation and OpenConnect Systems announced that OpenConnect has joined the Common Interchange Format Consortium. As a member of the recently established consortium, OpenConnect will utilize CIF to facilitate the exchange of key information between its soaSolution suite and ProVision enterprise modeling suite by Profoma.

Business Integration Journal
Mar, 2006
"OpenConnect Partners with Proforma"

Proforma Corporation and OpenConnect Systems announced that OpenConnect has joined the Common Interchange Format Consortium. As a member of the recently established consortium, OpenConnect will utilize CIF to facilitate the exchange of key information between its soaSolution suite and ProVision enterprise modeling suite by Profoma.

zJournal
Mar, 2006
"OpenConnect Launches Mainframe-to-SOA Suite"

Proforma Corporation and OpenConnect Systems announced that OpenConnect has joined the Common Interchange Format Consortium. As a member of the recently established consortium, OpenConnect will utilize CIF to facilitate the exchange of key information between its soaSolution suite and ProVision enterprise modeling suite by Profoma.

Proforma
Mar, 2006
"Proforma Extends Enterprise Modeling to Support SOA"

Proforma Corporation introduced ProVision for SOA, the first solution of its kind to answer industry demand for SOA modeling support. In this first implementation of Proforma's SOA strategy, ProVision will deliver capabilities for defining service-ready activities that marry business processes to the services that make them work. Business process analysis and enterprise architecture are vital to effective service orientation. SOA relies on the work of these modeling disciplines to define, analyze and subsequently target resources where SOA has the best effect. The result is an agile enterprise where business models drive executable business processes powered by a portfolio of services.

Intelligent Enterprise
Feb, 2006
"OpenConnect Launches Mainframe-to-SOA Suite"

OpenConnect Systems, Inc., has announced the launch of soaSolution, a patent-pending mainframe-to-service-oriented architecture (SOA) suite. soaSolution transforms business process knowledge used throughout the extended enterprise into secure and complete mainframe services, providing a complete solution to help organizations comprehend, configure and securely connect to mainframe assets through SOA platforms.

zJournal
Feb, 2006
OpenConnect Offers ROI for Mainframe-to-SOA Enablement

OpenConnect Systems announced a new offering to provide organizations with a quick, cost-effective means to understand the return on investment (ROI) and productivity gains possible when transitioning mainframe assets to service-oriented architectures (SOAs).

ComputerWire
Feb, 2006
OpenConnect Exposes Mainframe Services by Listening

Depending on what study you reference, anywhere from 70% to 90% of the world’s electronic data continues to reside on mainframes. Over the years, there have been numerous attempts to expose the information to make traditional host systems more interactive and dynamic.

eBizQ.net
Feb, 2006
OpenConnect Launches soaSolution

OpenConnect Systems, Inc., which seeks to deliver technology solutions that turn mainframe assets into business value, announced the launch of soaSolution, a patent-pending mainframe-to-service-oriented architecture (SOA) suite.

InfoWorld
Feb, 2006
Demo 06 Highlights Practical Solutions

With over 40 million users still sitting in front of green screens linked to mainframes, OpenConnect Systems has found a simple way to track green-screen user interaction in order to streamline business processes.

InfoWorld
Feb, 2006
In Brief: OpenConnect Launches soaSolution

OpenConnect Systems has launched the soaSolution mainframe-to-service-oriented architecture (SOA) suite, comprised of three core components: soaComprehend, soaConfigure, and soaConnect. The suite is designed to help organizations comprehend, configure, and securely connect to mainframe assets through SOA platforms

Insurance News Net
Feb, 2006
The Western Reserve Group Experiences the Value of OpenConnect's soaSolution

OpenConnect Systems, Inc., delivering technology solutions that turn mainframe assets into business value, announced that the Western Reserve Group (WRG), a provider of insurance services, has installed soaSolution, OpenConnect's patent-pending mainframe-to-service-oriented architecture (SOA) suite.

SYS-CON
Feb, 2006
OpenConnect's SOA Web Services Solutions Offers Migration from the Mainframe

OpenConnect Systems has announced its soaSolutionmainframe-to-service-oriented architecture (SOA) suite. soaSolution transforms business process knowledge used throughout the extended enterprise into secure and complete mainframe services, providing the industry’s most complete solution to help organizations comprehend, configure and securely connect to mainframe assets through SOA platforms, the company says.

zJournal
Feb, 2006
OpenConnect Launches soaSolution

soaSolution transforms business process knowledge used throughout the extended enterprise into secure and complete mainframe services, providing the industry’s most complete solution to help organizations comprehend, configure and securely connect to mainframe assets through SOA platforms.

zJournal
Oct/Nov, 2005
Nine Essential Questions to Ask When Considering Service-Oriented Architecture for the Mainframe

A key question still asked by today's complex multi-platform environments is how to best use the Web to leverage all the critical business information residing in the still-thriving mainframes of the world. This brings us to Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA).

Approached correctly, SOA is a cost-effective, low-risk way of giving your employees, partners and vendors secure access to all the appropriate information in your mainframe. SOA is less time-intensive and complicated to deploy than application integration strategies and is considered essential for bridging the gap between the mainframe and the open application world.

Line56
Oct, 2005
The SOA Blog - Throwing Stones at the Glass House

I talk with a lot of enterprise architects that are actively pursuing service-oriented architecture (SOA) initiatives and are exploring options for extending the mainframe into that environment. I am consistently surprised that the security of the data is taken for granted because it resides within the glass house. Perhaps this assumption shouldn't shock me, because for such a fragile-sounding construct, the glass house has been surprisingly effective at securing the mainframe.

Dallas Business Journal
Jun, 2005
Edward Peters - OpenConnect's new CEO

A Dallas supplier of software and services for making corporate data stored on mainframe computers accessible via Web browsers, OpenConnect Systems Inc., has a CEO for the first time in nearly three and a half years.

Edward M. Peters has spent his first month on the job working with the company's board on how to attack the market in OpenConnect's next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

Peters most recently ran DataDirect Technologies Inc., a maker of software for connecting business software with databases. DataDirect was sold to Bedford, Mass.-based Progress Software Corp. (Nasdaq: PRGS) in 2003 for about $88 million cash.

OpenConnect's stakeholders including majority owner Goff Moore Strategic Partners L.P. of Fort Worth, hope Peters can do something similar at the company, which was founded in 1982 but, like many software companies, went through rough times after the technology bubble burst. With its restructuring in the rearview mirror, OpenConnect is hoping to post its 18th consecutive quarter of positive net income when its current quarter ends June 30. And Peters plans to add new products, partnerships and customers in a push to capitalize on what the company maintains is the 70%-plus of all business data that sits on mainframe computers.

Government Computer News
Sept, 2004
Alaska streamlines legacy system for background checks

Alaska is a place of extremes: vast expanses of Arctic tundra, the highest mountain in North America, and areas that boast a monthly average temperature of -21.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

Employees in Alaska's Health and Social Services Department also had to go to extremes to conduct background checks: a 75-page fax for each case.

To investigate a case of child neglect or the credentials of a prospective employee, caseworkers and field agents need to consult records of the Alaska Public Safety Information Network, which runs on a legacy mainframe, said Steve Williams, an analyst-programmer with the department.

Technology Decisions
Jul, 2004
IT Solutions

Inefficient older practices threaten the future of some smaller insurance carriers, but utilizing Web services has allowed others to compete with insurers of virtually any size. "Web services have leveled the playing field," says Dan Pitcher, vice president of information technology with Western Reserve Group (WRG), an Ohio-based property/casualty insurer. Faced with the twin challenges of high costs and administrative overhead in supporting an old system of proprietary rating diskettes the carrier issued its independent agency force, Pitcher knew there was a more efficient way of getting personal auto rates into the hands of the agents. "We saw the Web rating as an opportunity to eliminate many of those problems," he says.

Application Development Trends
Jun, 2004
Web services and the mainframe

The idea of using platform-independent Web services technology to provide access to back-end mainframe applications is picking up speed. Software vendors with experience in the Web services market are working to provide links to the mainframe, either in their products or through tie-ins with vendors that have mainframe experience; meanwhile, hardware/software vendors such as IBM and Unisys are promoting Web services on the mainframe.

eBizq
Aug, 2003
Western Reserve Using WebSphere, OpenConnect For Online Insurance Data Access

OpenConnect Systems, a developer of secure mainframe-to-Web solutions, says The Western Reserve Group has successfully developed and deployed a Web-based Homeowner Rating and Application Submission System using OpenConnect's eXtremeVista mainframe-to-Web development product. The solution "provides secure real-time access to accurate rate information, allowing agents to easily enter the information necessary to provide customers with quotes and then convert quotes into an application without re-keying the information. This new system replaces a diskette based system that was expensive to administer and maintain," OpenConnect explains