VF uses OfficePath/SMTP to deliver OS/390 application data to Lotus Domino

VF Corporation is one of the largest apparel manufacturers in the world. For 100 years, it has grown by offering consumers high quality, high value branded apparel. Through its Lee, Wrangler, Rustler, Riders and Britannia brands, VF holds nearly a third of the U.S. jeans market, while Vanity Fair is the leading intimate apparel brand in department stores.

Like most large organizations, the use of email is a mission-critical application for VF. It has been a committed user of IBM’s OfficeVision product for its mainframe users for many years and has developed many sophisticated integration routines between its mainframe application systems and email to streamline delivery of application information to its users. Additional, Lotus cc:Mail LAN based email was introduced at an early stage for the user base that had PC access.

When VF made a decision to update the email infrastructure to a Lotus Notes-based network, the user population gradually migrated from OfficeVision and cc:Mail to the Notes platform. Once completed, there will be around 80 Lotus Notes servers distributed across the worldwide network, supporting some 15,000 users.

One issue that arose in this migration was in maintaining the links with legacy applications on the mainframe. Mainframe data had traditionally been delivered through a mail-enabling interface called OfficePath/SNADS, a mainframe process that would convert an application batch report into an email message and deliver as an email to the user.

Without the OfficeVision mainframe email system in place, the infrastructure for running the OfficePath/SNADS system became expensive and cumbersome - it required CICS to run on the mainframe, SNADS for the message transport, as well as a SNADS gateway to interface between the mainframe format and Lotus Notes. After discussing the options, VF chose to replace the mainframe mail-enabling interface with a new product available through ReSoft, OfficePath/SMTP.

OfficePath/SMTP allows the existing mail-enabling interfaces to generate an email message through SMTP on the mainframe, rather than through the original CICS and SNADS environment. From this point, the message can be sent into Lotus Notes or to anywhere across the Internet. “As the OfficePath/SMTP interfaces are plug-compatible with the original application there was virtually no migration needed” comments Jim Klinger of VF’s Email team.