WRQ rebrands, launches Verastream app tool

19-year-old firm matches up refocus with release of Web object suite

Best known in the HP 3000 community for its connectivity products, WRQ is bringing a new brand and segment focus to the MPE/iX world this month with the release of Verastream 8.0. The software suite is an evolution of the company’s Apptrieve offerings, which only supported Digital and IBM servers in their first release.

Verastream has ODBC and SQL connectivity, but is without native connectivity to IMAGE/SQL databases. Verastream, which is an integration broker, works in conjunction with Apptrieve to provide a variety of ways to get at what WRQ calls “legacy applications.”

Company founder Doug Walker — the W in WRQ — said the firm selected a new brand and logo to show its continuity and new concepts. “We’ve remained true to our focus of solving our customers’ toughest host-access and integration problems, while reinforcing our commitment to customer service and product innovation,” he said.

WRQ wants to increase its focus range from host access — its Reflection products are well-known in the 3000 world — to enterprise integration. This integration is on the task list of e3000 managers connecting their systems to other enterprise servers. WRQ introduced Verastream in 2000, and the 8.0 version is now reaching out to the world of MPE which launched WRQ as a company.

The idea of an integration suite aimed at older applications has been a popular one in the MPE/iX market. Last year Minisoft released its Web Dimension software, designed to bring programs written for block-mode, character-based interfaces into the Internet with Web access and Java capabilities.

Verastream has been deployed by more than 80 customers since its rollout as Apptrieve. WRQ said the 8.0 version was being beta tested by the Miami Herald last month for use with the newspaper’s HP 3000s.

Using Verastream’s Host Integrator 4.0 broker module — priced at about $27,000 for a 20-concurrent-seat license — the Herald wanted to enhance the customer service applications in its classified ad operations. “They pushed our beta program, and were so happy with the beta that they wanted to deploy the beta,” said product manager Rebecca Johnson. She said the newspaper ad reps were taking up to eight minutes to process a call, and the improved interface “greatly reduced that time and increased their ROI.”

The Host Integrator adds object-based access to business logic and data. The version which ships this month operates using only Telnet access to HP 3000 systems; a 4.1 version, expected for May release, adds HP’s NS/VT connection protocol.

A design tool creates models which are deployed to the server, learning the host HP 3000 application by following the actions of user as they operate the 3000 app. No modification of HP 3000 code is required. Since the Host Integrator creates data objects, Web developers “who want to put a Web front end on the application, make calls to that model via the object,” said systems engineer Gary Lichtenstein of WRQ. “He makes an SQL-type call, and the model presents the information back. We’re shielding the Web guy from having to know about the HP 3000.”

The software preserves the functionality already in the HP 3000 user interface. But using the desktop interface as the gateway might not be the best method of integration. Birket Foster, whose company acts as a lab for HP’s Commercial Systems Division ODBC middleware, said the WRQ software looked to him like a familiar e3000 tool.

“I’m yet to be convinced that it’s beyond screen-scraping with a little bit of object stuff behind it,” Foster said. “You screen-scrape stuff into an object, and then pass the object through messaging into something else. If you’re integrating at the desktop with multiple screens, it may not be the most efficient way of integrating multiple servers.”

WRQ was talking with Foster’s M.B. Foster Associates about other technology to interface to the e3000, and was also investigating the use of ADBC offered by Advanced Network Systems to link 3000 databases.

It’s in object orientation that WRQ believes its solution is distinguished from some others, although the company hadn’t researched Web Dimension as of the Verastream release. Various Host Integrator APIs support development environments such as Visual Basic and enterprise Java beans.

The full Verastream 8.0 Suite product, priced between $25,000 and $100,000, is built for back-end integration solutions for the e-marketplace portal environment. Adapters are available to support SAP, Siebel and Baan ERP and CRM packages, as well as Oracle, DB2 and SQL Server databases. This functionality will roll out in July, WRQ said.