Insider Technologies recently went through a significant technology refresh of one of their core products, Reflex. This use case Insider Technologies (ITL) explains the reasoning behind that refresh, the steps that ITL went through to develop the refreshed solution, and the benefits ITL are enjoying as a result of the updates.
Reflex
Reflex is an Operations and Service Management Facility for your entire HPE NonStop arena. The package provides performance metrics and log monitoring for all NonStop subsystems, OS and application components. Nominated error conditions may be automatically corrected and/or transferred to the Reflex graphical alerting views, graphical event Console, Enterprise Management, mobile GSM or email technologies.
It is successfully utilized in the UK’s major banks, monitoring their NonStop system health and applications such as payments, foreign exchange, MQ 8.
Background
Compared to other UIs, the original Reflex Client looked quite outdated.
Since the above UI was built on the Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC) framework, which included the use of outdated IDE software, development and maintenance became increasingly difficult.
Reflex also utilizes an in-house communications product called ‘Fastpipe’ to execute multiple TCP/IP socket sessions between the Client and the NonStop Serverclasses; this has become increasingly difficult to manage and requires expert knowledge to maintain its development.
Client-Server Communication
Over time, Fastpipe had been improved to support other operating systems such as Linux, as well as updates to the Windows OS.
Sometimes, these changes would include additional modifications to both the Client and the NonStop object code, both of which would increase the development time and therefore further complicate the software maintenance.
Because of these issues, ITL soon realized that along with the need to create a new usable UI, they would need to find a more efficient and effective framework for communication between the Client and the NonStop serverclasses.
It was determined that using a REST API to retrieve data from the NonStop would be the best way to do this.
NuWave LightWave Server™
ITL were aware of LightWave Server™ , offered by NuWave Technologies, and an analysis of their product suggested that this was the best option for their requirements. Therefore, they utilized a trial copy of LightWave Server™ to proceed through a Proof of Concept (POC) exercise. Within a very short time, we quickly realized that LightWave Server™ would satisfy all their requirements.
This has also helped ITL to design and build a completely new look for the Reflex Client and in comparison with their old UI, development time has shortened considerably, helping to bring a new UI very quickly to market.
Immediate Benefits The LightWave Server™ Console which ITL use to control and administer LightWave Server™, makes setting up of the REST APIs incredibly easy.
The Console opens DDL definitions directly from the NonStop and enables us to build REST/JSON definitions from those DDLs. A service is simply created by pointing to a backend application, such as a Pathway Server and once in place, it’s ready for development.
For ITL, this whole process required very little time and as the Web allowed them to check the API before writing any code, they could make sure that the correct data was returned from the NonStop; a function that can now be done by either a Windows developer or a NonStop developer.
With the ease of use and reliability of NuWave’s LightWave Server™, it helped ITL to then concentrate on a new look and feel for the Reflex UI.
New Reflex UI Examples:
Network Monitor
Multiple NonStop systems monitored from a single UI
Status Monitor
Alert views for all subsystems, e.g. disk, CPU, tape, TMF, SQL, files, processes, applications, MQ 8
Dashboard
Real-time performance metrics, e.g. disks, CPUs, files, processes, subvolumes, IPUs, heap
New Reflex UI
New Performance Monitor
Additional Benefits Prior to utilizing
LightWave Server™, the development of the pre-LightWave UI required regular investigations to determine why the IPM was not handling and correctly filing in the request, or coding the conversions correctly; this is no longer the case. LightWave Server™ performance was found to be extremely reliable, resulting in:
The removal of continuous in-house IPM development / maintenance
Minimal debug / analysis sessions
Using LightWave Server™ Console, it is much easier to identify the dictionary IPM to generate the API, helping ITL to:
Identify the required IPM from the NonStop source code
Considerably reduce the frequent development and analysis discussions
Avoid the old IPM to C++ functions that had to be implemented
Previously, a NonStop developer would pass on the IPM structure from the NonStop code to a Windows developer who would then integrate it into the Client code; inevitably when the code was then tested, incorrect results were obtained. The investigation process would then most likely involve a NonStop and a Windows developer to debug each end of the communications in order to work out what and where the issue was.
With LightWave ServerTM and the new Web Interface, any issues can generally be resolved by the Windows developer with very little involvement of a NonStop developer. This has significantly helped reduce the development time.
Industry Standards LightWave Server™ supports Industry standard REST, JSON and HTTP, making it far easier to integrate within the new Reflex Client, which now utilizes the C# and the .NET framework. As a result it requires far less code for the communication sessions between the Client and NonStop Servers, making it extremely reliable. Due to a supplied list of request parameters and JSON replies, ITL have easily incorporated these within the new GUI, meaning that it’s highly unlikely there will be any future API/IPM rework requirements.
Conclusion Now that Insider Technologies have a robust and easy-to-use communication platform, they are utilizing LightWave Server™ to refine their product set further. With no lengthy engineering overheads, development teams can concentrate on supplying customers and partners with world class applications, systems, and payments monitoring solutions.