EntireX upgrade opens IT systems to the Web Software AG is extending its EntireX communications broker to Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) and Microsoft .Net applications, enabling these systems to pass information back and forth to other platforms.EntireX Communicator 7.1.1, being announced on Thursday, enables enterprises to open existing IT systems to the Web or other servers as Microsoft .Net or Java objects. The software enables, for example, communications between mainframes and Java systems, according to Software AG, of Reston, Va. A mainframe-based green screen application can be made available in an Internet browser, for example.“[EntireX] is a communications broker that allows companies that maybe want to connect a Cobol system to a CICS system or Cobol to Java to transmit information back and forth,” said Joe Gentry, director of product marketing at Software AG. Intorduced as a proprietary communications broker 10 years ago, EntireX later added support for technologies such as CORBA and Web services, Gentry said. The product competes with technologies such as IBM’s MQ Series platform, offering a much shorter implementation time than MQ Series, he said.New features in Version 7.1.1 include the following:— Wrapper technology enabling Microsoft .Net users to generating integration objects for .Net environments. — A Java Message Service (JMS) interface adapte, to open up EntireX to applications that use a standard J2EE interface.— EJB support extending the EntireX Java wrapper to application servers.— The ability to register Web services generated in EntireX in a UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration) registry. Additionally, EntireX XML wrapper technology for exposing and wrapping existing applications as Web services has been extended in version 7.1.1 with an XML-RPC server. This enables mission-critical applications written in Cobol to talk to any Web services as if it were calling a local subprogram, according to Software AG.A user of EntireX at the New York City Department of Buildings said he is looking forward to automatically transmitting data streams into XML with Version 7.1.1. The department has been using an earlier version of the product, said Matti Friedman, director of applications development for the department. The product is used with a government building’s Web site.“Just using EntireX communication broker, we’ve been able to take all of our code from green-screen applications and transform it,” to the Web, Friedman said. Portions of EntireX run on each communicating platform, such as on a mainframe and a Unix or Windows system.EntireX 7.1.1 prices start at $50,000. The product is available now on all major operating systems except VSE, which will be supported in a later release. Software Development