AB Suite and ClearPath MCP: A Great Combination

Agile Business Suite (AB Suite®) accelerates development through a model-driven approach that enables developers to build applications in far fewer statements than other software programming languages.

ClearPath® MCP is one of the safest and most secure enterprise-class operating environments available today. With high levels of reliability, capacity, resiliency, data Integrity, and manageability, it’s more than equipped to run some of the world’s most demanding applications.

So when you combine AB Suite with ClearPath® MCP, you’ll benefit from the unique, unrivaled ability to generate complete, high-volume, business-critical applications. And you can enrich your applications with capabilities that help you maximize the business value they deliver, maintain exceptional security and data integrity, and achieve excellent runtime performance and availability. Plus, you’ll scale to address emerging demands and remain flexible enough to accommodate whatever the future holds.

Business Value

The tightly integrated MCP software stack helps you increase efficiency and lower resource requirements, reducing the time to implement new releases, as well as the associated cost and risk. MCP systems can handle hundreds of critical applications of different types under a single operating system instance, significantly increasing operational efficiency.

This efficiency is bolstered by Agile Business Suite Developer, a powerful tool that enables developers to work collaboratively with business users. Built as a package within Microsoft® Visual Studio®, it brings model-driven techniques and the ability to generate complete software solutions to the MCP environment.

Security

Security is at the core of ClearPath MCP systems. It’s built into every level of the environment and spans every component – architecture, hardware, firmware, software, middleware, databases, and applications.

AB Suite for MCP builds on this unparalleled security by allowing you to specify the encryption algorithm used when copying files to tape. You can also automatically encrypt tapes as you copy database files.

And, the Data Mask feature allows persistent attributes to be obfuscated in the DMSII database. You can set it so the entire database follows the same methodology for masking data. Or, you can have each structure in the database use a different method to scramble the data content. You even have the option to enable each record in the structure to apply its own methodology to scramble data. Plus, you have the freedom to specify when to protect the database and audit or dump files.

High Availability and Performance

MCP systems emphasize the importance of availability and performance. For example, the ability to make software and hardware upgrades online minimizes planned downtime. Likewise, the environment can sustain high transaction rates and consistent response times across multiple applications – all under a single instance – even when operating at close to 100% utilization.

The proven, enterprise-class, high-volume DMSII database helps to maximize performance in AB Suite on MCP environments. You have the freedom to reorganize it while still keeping the database accessible during the reorganization process. Or, you can choose to restrict access until the entire reorganization completes.

Likewise, you can activate features that provide uninterrupted access to production database structures during a background reorganization, preserve the RSN value of new records created during reorganization, and reorganize a database copy without the delays that stem from excessive I/O operations. What’s more, you can prevent fine table locking on a profile when the entries are deleted, potentially increasing system performance.

Scalability

The ClearPath MCP environment offers unparalleled scalability. You can start with a small environment and build it out over time, as business needs dictate, without ever having to change your applications.

This scalability extends to the AB Suite environment, enabling you to take advantage of larger database and COBOL sizes and further expand your applications. For instance, AB Suite on MCP supports a Memory Size and Sort Disk Size of up to 99,999,999 kilo words. Larger DMSII limits allow reports to accept higher values, and longer persistent strings are now supported, as well.

Flexibility

Combining MCP and AB Suite means you can leverage the power and flexibility of the ClearPath Software Series. A suite of software-only deliverables, the Software Series lets you develop, test, and deploy ClearPath applications onto the industry-standard x86 hardware of your choice.

ClearPath MCP Developer Studio is a Software Series offering designed to support both development teams and individual developers. And best of all, MCP Developer Studio includes a development/test license for the AB Suite runtime software.

Another Software Series deliverable, the ClearPath MCP Bronze and Silver products give you a fully featured, software-only version of the MCP environment designed to run on any x86 system that meets specific reference architecture guidelines. You even have the option to deploy MCP Bronze and Silver on VMware® ESXi™ or Microsoft Hyper-V®. An AB Suite workload is available for both products.

AB Suite on MCP creates business value by making it possible for you to maximize such critical attributes as security, agility, resilience, and innovation. Please do not hesitate to contact us at ABSuite@unisys.com if you’d like more information about running AB Suite in the MCP environment.

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