Ivory Service Architect

Ivory Service Architect

Creating Business Services from the Mainframe
Ivory Service Architect uniquely enables rapid SOA development for the mainframe using existing skills sets.

With Ivory Service Architect, consisting of Ivory Studio and Ivory Server, developers can quickly and easily 
assemble multi-step, multi-operation composite business services from existing mainframe assets, and publish them 
as Web services. The solution then provides a high-performance runtime engine for executing the deployed business 
services.

Ivory Studio
Ivory Studio is an intuitive development tool that enables mainframe developers to leverage any mainframe 
transaction, application or data, as well as Web services, to create a single- or multi-function composite 
service. Simple to learn and operate, Ivory Studio features a graphical environment that enables the easy 
orchestration of building-block functions into business services. This drag-and-drop environment enables 
developers to define Web service inputs and outputs, and then graphically model the multi-step process to 
implement the service. With its powerful visualization and orchestration features, Ivory Studio makes it possible 
to build business services with the right level of granularity, removing technical limitations from consideration 
in packaging services for maximum reuse.

Integrated tools make Ivory even more productive. For example, Ivory includes an integrated FTP client for 
importing copybooks and BMS macros from mainframe file systems. Additionally, once the new service is complete, 
Ivory provides a fully integrated test and trace harness to exercise and inspect the newly created service. 
Additionally, Ivory Studio is integrated with Ivory BMS/TS, guaranteeing that the Ivory based business service 
won't break when changes to the BMS map occur.

How easy is it to use? With no special skills and no understanding of SOAP, XML, WSDL, or HTTP protocols, 
developers can learn how to use Ivory in less than half a day.

Ivory Server
Ivory Server consists of a high-performance SOAP processor, a business service flow processor, and a central 
repository for WSDL discovery. Ivory Server exploits CICS, IMS, and native data access capabilities, eliminating 
the need for middle-tier servers, and providing the flexibility to fully leverage mainframe processing power as 
appropriate within the SOA.

Ivory Server processes information published via Ivory Studio, accessing 3270, CICS, IMS, and data directly in 
each native environment. The server receives SOAP requests, invokes the business service flow previously defined 
in Ivory Studio to satisfy the request, and formats the SOAP response.

Within the SOA Ecosystem
Designed to fully participate in the broader SOA ecosystem of an enterprise-class solution, Ivory is 
pre-integrated with key technologies that make an Ivory-generated service instantly recognizable and usable 
within the SOA. This ensures that mainframe-based services perform as an active and integral part of the overall 
service architecture.

Specifically, Ivory includes facilities that enable generated services to be automatically:

Registered into a UDDI repository
Managed by a Web service management tool
Consumed by a BPEL or BPM process
Included as another service on an ESB