Jordan's United Business Machines (UBM) has successfully converted applications from Cobol to J2EE - Java 2 Enterprise Edition - for Maltrans Shipping Agencies Co.
The migration is the first of its kind in the kingdom and was managed and implemented by a UBM team using IBM's WebSphere application server.
"Our business is very sensitive as we have to be very accurate when dealing with customers," said Nabil Khatib, Maltrans' chairman and managing director.
"We cannot afford the space or time for any mistakes. The internal and shipping systems required a complete redesign and rebuilding, buying a new application was not a practical solution for us.
"We wanted a system that runs all the time without any errors or problems. Today, the new system is up and running, we can easily rely on visual aids and also check our system externally by using IBM's WebFacing Tool."
UBM has converted ten applications from Cobol to J2EE applications using this tool that runs on the WebSphere application server.
This enabled Maltrans to benefit from better interaction using visual aids, deal with vendors via advanced applications and the data in the systems and deliver faster and better services to their customers. The system is scalable and can be integrated with other applications.
UBM has also developed a J2EE web application to handle the user logins and privileges, developed special Java classes to handle displaying physical files as well as viewing, releasing and deleting spool files.
Maltrans has been an IBM eServer iSeries customer since 1993, since on which they have developed all their applications using Cobol language. The expansion of the business required development for the systems functionality and appearance.
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