What Are Integration Topics?

Want to know what integration Topics are, and how we manage them at Anubex?

The conversions and transformations we perform during mainframe migration projects are typically fully automated. However, there are however a number of services and components that support a mainframe application, and share two characteristics:

1. They differ significantly from customer and customer
2. Their replacement cannot often not be automated, or they can be semi-automated at best

We call the placement of these services and components “Integration Topics”.

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Integration Topics are the collection of points where the migrated application integrates with other components of the client's IT infrastructure landscape, and that can be affected by the mainframe migration project to a certain degree. Suppose you move from a z/OS mainframe to a X86 platform, then examples of topics that fall into these categories are:

• The Job Scheduler, that manages the complete batch processing. These are products such as Automic, TWS or Control-M
• Creation of documents to be printed by the migrated application
• The configuration of Access and Security of the application
• Interfaces with other applications, using mechanisms such as FTP and MQ

Due to the nature of these components, their structure are specific to the client's application environment. However, the general approach to handling them is always similar. This design and implementation of the Integration Topics are a collaboration between the Anubex experts and various specialists from the organization undergoing the project, and sometimes also from an Integrator. The process depends on the technology chosen and the skills available.