APPLICATION HOSTING
Processing
Processing references the heart of the application, where the applications do their work processing data, as well as the many services brought to bear providing system administration and maintaining operational processes. While the mainframe represents a fully matured enterprise application hosting environment, the emerging midrange models are a targeted service offering as part of the BCCS IT consolidation effort.
The four primary operating systems hosted are the z/OS mainframe, or the AIX, Solaris and Microsoft Windows midrange servers.
Most applications also utilize one of the supported database management systems (DBMS) such as DB/2, SQL Server, IMS, or Oracle.
BCCS hosts a number of tiered applications that utilize one of the supported application servers such as IBM WebSphere, [PDF, 376Kb] or the Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) [PDF, 296Kb], providing the front-end tier to background processing.
Hosting services may include, depending upon customer requirements, the development, testing, and acceptance environments as well as standard application development and code management software. Listings of the tools available can be found within the Technical Reference Model.
Standard with the daily support of the processing side of application hosting includes:
- Job scheduling, monitoring and management
- System administration and maintenance
- Security penetration testing, and
- Change Management
BCCS has decades of application hosting experience and expertise, and is currently hosting over two thousand customer applications.
For consistency and support efficiency, BCCS has identified preferred approaches to application hosting, but technology is always changing and evolving. The BCCS Governance process provides for its customers a continuing assessment of new requests and current practice for hosting alternatives.