While IBM’s fans help make the point that there’s nothing wrong with a non-Unix, non-Windows environment for business services, vendors in the 3000 community approach the official HP World conference with offerings that speak to evolution, not revolution away from the server. ROC Software (www.rocsoftware.com) has rolled out a beta release of its ROCPort tool and ROCTask scheduling software. ROCPort can recover archived MPE data and migrate that data to virtually any format or system. The software doesn’t need a 3000 to do its work. Using BackPack/iX syntax and features, ROCPort accesses and transforms BackPack disk and tape backups using a Unix or Linux system. Conversion to text, binary, or HP Eloquence structures is performed via a command line. A ROCPort GUI lets administrators design a conversion data map to allow transformation into over a hundred other formats. ROCTask now runs under HP-UX, Solaris, AIX and Linux environments and delivers scheduling services similar to the ROC’s Maestro for MPE: Managing work, tracking status, and automating recovery in the event of errors. A PC GUI offers access to the master scheduler from a desktop on a PC network.

Meanwhile, migration services and tool provider Transoft (www.transoft.com) is taking to the HP World halls with a demo of Transoft Graphical Adapter (TGA). The software lets users with VPlus forms handling convert their existing VPlus forms directly into Web browser or Microsoft Windows graphical interfaces (GUI) using JSP, ASP.NET and Visual Basic. Transoft says that TGA has already been widely used as part of the company’s Application Migration Solution to migrate HP 3000 applications to open systems platforms and add a modern graphical user interface in the process. The product converts VPlus screens into a base XML definition, from which the new graphical forms are generated. The new user interface is accessed through TGA by the original application programs without any code change. As a result, users receive the benefits of a GUI without any change to existing business logic, dramatically reducing testing and delivery times.

HP 3000 sites have been slow to move away from the platform, even though more than 18 months have crept by since HP announced it will walk away from the platform. Sensing the rate of departure in the marketplace, Transoft said that “Using TGA in the MPE environment of the HP 3000 is the logical first step to deliver the benefit of a new user interface, before moving the application to a Unix or Windows platform.” Few applications have made that move yet, as customers eye a slow economy and a server which still performs efficiently. TGA follows the company’s Screen Component Adapter, also available for HP 3000 users, which enables business rules in 3000 applications to be exposed as Web services or Enterprise Java Beans. Transoft says its products promote integration of Java and ..NET applications with the 3000 applications, and so offer a less costly way to make those apps ready for Web or mobile deployments.