OpenVMS / RMS Dynamic API
Background
In 2015, SGCO was approached by Highland Capital Corp., an existing client in the Medical, Dental, Veterinary, and Industrial equipment leasing business, and by the President of SFFA, developers of “Dollar$”, a popular software application designed specifically for the large equipment leasing industry. HCC had been receiving numerous demands from their vendors and customers to provide a web portal through which they could access customer information in real time.
The Challenge
HCC had been using the “Dollar$” leasing program on the OpenVMS platform for decades and was extremely satisfied with the accuracy, dependability and reliability of both the Operating System and the “Dollar$” application itself.
While some solutions available required a complete change of data structure and would negate the benefits of the “Dollar$” system other solutions would have necessitated the implementation of duplicate databases and/or services from which all reporting would originate. Either route would have placed unnecessary load on the host system to generate full web content and would require substantial hardware upgrades and in either case the information would not be real time.
The Solution
SGCO developers first installed the SGCO OpenVMS API which is designed to use only the processing power and memory needed to provide access to RMS. There are no unnecessary spoolers, tracking tables etc. needed to keep the API working as it relies only on the current state of the RMS data in 100% real time. The SGCO API consists of only a very small application the runs detached on the OpenVMS OS. It accepts JSON input via posts to it's listener that can be assigned to any port, processes that input, performs the requested tasks on the RMS files and returns and necessary response.
By leveraging RMS indexing in conjunction with the CDD/Data Dictionary for the target data we are able to access the needed data even as the RMS structure is changed.
SGCO programmers then developed secure web portals for HCC's inside sales reps, vendors and existing customers. The portals interact directly with the RMS data in real time.
The result
HCC now provides a robust, secure vendor portal through which vendors can follow each step of the underwriting process and review decisions in real time and existing customers can instantly view the up-to-the-moment status of their account as well as their payment history, account balances, pay-off totals online in real time.
See OPENVMS API
