TABEX4 FAQ

TABEX4 is better organized table management.

TABEX4 is the leading cross-platform standard software for high performance table access as well as for safer and more convenient table management and maintenance.

For nearly four decades, well-known top companies from different sectors (banks and financial services, insurance, industry and services) have relied on the functionality, reliability and stability of TABEX4 for their most demanding and mission-critical data management challenges.
Every day, thousands of users in operating and IT development departments work with TABEX4 table management functions, and application programs use TABEX4 access functions for billions of transactions per day.

Do you want to learn more about TABEX4?

In this document, we answer frequently asked questions about TABEX4. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact the BOI support team.

 

General questions about TABEX4

What is TABEX4?

TABEX4 is the leading platform independent standard software for high-performance table access and secure and comfortable table management for DB2 and other relational databases, optimally adapted to your specific requirements.

TABEX4 offers

  • high-speed table access with maximum performance
  • audit-proof, easy-to-use and ergonomic table management meeting highest security requirements
  • unlimited copying & moving of table data, flexible and independent of platforms and databases

Why TABEX4?

First-class software and high-quality service are our key success factors.

  • TABEX4 considerably saves costs: Resources, Time, Money.
  • TABEX4 increases your IT performance: TABEX4 reduces CPU-resources to a tenth at an average compared to direct access to DB2, thus leading to tremendous cost savings and contributing to your green IT strategy.
  • TABEX4 is reliable: For more than three decades, top companies have used TABEX4.
  • TABEX4 is up-to-date: BOI’s highly qualified development team works continuously to further develop TABEX4 and to meet the highest technical and organizational demands.
  • TABEX4 is stable: TABEX4 is to a great extent independent of operating system and programming language and can thus be run future-proof and stable.
  • TABEX4 is leading: TABEX4 is the leading standard software for table management and table access. Well known companies rely on TABEX4 for good reason.

Who runs TABEX4?

For 40 years, BOI has combined software quality with outstanding service. Notable companies from different sectors (banks and financial services, insurance, industry and services) have relied on BOI solutions for many years for their most demanding and mission-critical data management challenges and thus profit from cost savings and organizational advantages.

How does TABEX4 save time?

  • The completely configurable TABEX4 table management system minimizes your programming efforts: if you have spent, for example, up to one full programming day for just one single DB2 table maintenance transaction, this effort can be avoided in the future and you benefit from all of TABEX4’s advantages, e.g. the high security standard.
  • TABEX4 is independent of platform or database and thus a software solution for the whole company, eliminating isolated applications, improving corporate networking and common usage, and reducing redundancies and programming effort.
  • The high usability and the consistent look & feel of TABEX4 minimize time and effort for user training.
  • The standardized table maintenance routines of TABEX4 minimize time needed for application programming and maintenance. Thus your employees have more time and energy to accomplish core activities.

Why do BOI customers use TABEX4?

Our customers use TABEX4 for high-performance table access and management and administration of their corporate tables.

  • TABEX4 allows high-performance access to table data using application programs, irrespective of the database where the data are stored. Application programs use TABEX4 access functions for billions of transactions per day.
     
  • TABEX4 is used for maintenance and administration of all corporate tables. Table sizes range from just a few records up to several thousand records - easy and comfortable
     
  • With TABEX4 you can manage table data, mostly from relational databases without programming. For example, one of our customers modifies 10,000 DB2 tables using the TABEX4 table manager without any own application.
     
  • TABEX4 is used for the unlimited transfer of data across platforms and databases.
  • TABEX4 replication technique synchronizes tables across platforms; thus all data are available identically in different IT environments. So tables can be copied from one relational database in one specific platform to another database in another platform.

 

How much time and effort is needed for a new installation?

Installation itself doesn't need mach time. The customer specific configuration – the customization of TABEX4 to the individual needs of the customer – depends on the size of the enterprise. BOI supports customers during configuration. Our goal is to achieve a successful and satisfying customer configuration.

 

 

What is included in the TABEX4 maintenance contract?

The service contract includes

  • technical support and prompt debugging via telephone and e-mail
  • access to continuous enhancements of TABEX4 (regular releases and service packs)
  • access to updated TABEX4 documentation
  • support for current operating systems and database systems

Read more about BOI service on Service & Support.

 

Which advantages does TABEX4 offer?

TABEX4 offers better organized table management.

  • TABEX4 runs identically and stable in heterogeneous IT environments: ONE standard software for all platforms and all databases of your company.
  • TABEX4 offers comfortable and safe management of tables stored in DB2 and other relational databases (e.g. Oracle, MS SQL Server, IBM Informix, PostgreSQL, MySQL, …), without programming, but with easy-to-define check routines. Any checks e.g. for referential integrity may directly be inherited from the relational database.
  • TABEX4 fulfills all requirements of IT revision und compliance.
  • TABEX4 is multitenant: the TABEX4 instance concept (question 15 – What is the TABEX4 Instance Concept?) maps your organizational structures optimally: you can define instances for different departments or use instances to map different production levels, e.g. development, testing and production.
  • TABEX4 is fully configurable and thus can be optimally adapted to your specific requirements.
  • TABEX4 offers comprehensive options for data checks: check tables for complex checking rules, RI-checks (insert rules, update rules, delete rules), key-checks (check the uniqueness of a table key) and field check routines (check of value ranges).
  • TABEX4 runs independently of platform or database. Tables can thus be managed on various platforms and can be moved across different platforms.
  • TABEX4 offers an integrated authorization system. External authorization systems such as RACF or ACF2 can be integrated.
  • TABEX4 has an ergonomic browser interface of highest usability.

How does TABEX4 save resources?

High performance access to table data economizes resources: according to z/OS benchmarks, TABEX4 table access results in a performance improvement between 1:10 to 1:50 compared to direct DB2-access. This leads to tremendous license cost savings.

 

How does TABEX4 save money?

  • CPU-savings of up to 98% reduce license costs.
  • The standard software TABEX4 saves development costs and minimizes maintenance and administration costs.
  • TABEX4 works independent of platform or database and thus one single software solution can replace several backend systems or other table management systems with their respective license and maintenance costs.
  • TABEX has an excellent price-performance ratio.

Does TABEX4 fulfil revision requirements?

Yes, TABEX4 fulfils all revision requirements resulting from SOA and Euro-Sox:

  • access protection by a comprehensive authorization system; other authorization systems can be integrated
  • release procedure with four-eyes principle
  • complete logging and documentation of any data change
  • extensive checks to guarantee consistency and plausibility
  • integrated table versioning allowing access to version-controlled data which is valid to a given date.

 

How much time and effort is needed to migrate from another system?

The magnitude of features available in TABEX4 allows a quick migration from other table management systems to TABEX4.  We have successfully carried out migration from other table management systems for our customers. As TABEX4 uses a compatibility interface, no changes in the existing application programs need to be made. The time and effort needed for migration is thus very small: for example, a migration from TABSYS to TABEX4 took only one day.

Can I test TABEX4 before buying?

To give you an overview of the magnitude of features and benefits TABEX4 offers in terms of speed, security and usability, you can test TABEX4 before buying. Please make your request for a free three months trial using our contact form on our website.

 

 

Selected technical questions about TABEX4

Which operating systems are supported?

  • IBM z/OS
  • IBM z/VSE
  • Siemens BS2000
  • Oracle Solaris
  • Microsoft Windows: All Windows releases that are supported by Microsoft
  • Linux x86 und x86_64 (z.B. SuSE und RedHat)
  • IBM AIX

As only the TABEX4 kernel depends on the operating system, porting to other operating systems is also possible.

Does TABEX4 support 64 bit applications?

TABEX4 supports 64bit applications on all supported operating systems.

 

Which databases are supported?

The following relational databases are supported:

  • IBM DB2 (in z/OS via native CAF-Interface otherwise via ODBC)
  • IBM Informix
  • Oracle
  • MS SQL Server
  • PostgreSQL
  • MySQL
  • and other relational databases via ODBC connect

These data sources can also be accessed:

  • VSAM
  • sequential files
  • flat files, …

What are the system requirements?

The latest version of one of the following browsers:

  • Mozilla Firefox
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer
  • Microsoft Edge Chromium
  • Google Chrome

Web Application:

  • Servlet 2.5, JSP 2.1, Java 8
    e.g. Tomcat (Version 6.x or higher) or WebSphere (Version 7.x or higher)

Business Logic:

  • Java: Version 8 or higher

 

Can TABEX4 store multilingual text?

Text containing other languages can be stored in tables by setting the codepage for the appropriate field. All single-byte characters according to the UCS (Universal Character Set) can be maintained.

 

 

Does TABEX4 support cloud computing?

Yes. The TABEX4 instance concept offers various options for configuration of distributed applications. Thus the standard TABEX4 software is perfectly suited to be integrated in cloud installations.

 

 

Can TABEX4 tables be used with MS EXCEL?

Yes, it can. You can export TABEX4 data directly to MS EXCEL, or as csv file and edit that with MS EXCEL. After editing, you can import the file back to TABEX4.

 

 

Can nonprintable characters be stored?

Table data in character fields, which include nonprintable characters, can be stored and maintained with TABEX4. To maintain such data you must switch to hexadecimal display.

 

 

Does TABEX4 support shared data?

In TABEX4, data can be loaded into shared memory, e.g. in z/OS ESA data space or in shared memory segments in unix or Linux. This technique has the following advantages:

  • Only one copy of the data must be available in memory, even if more processes access these data.
  • Load and Reload of the data is controlled by load procedures (batch processes).
  • Data in the shared memory areas are protected and can not be overwritten by application programs.
  • Every application accesses the same data.

 

Which technical requirements are necessary for a TABEX4 installation?

TABEX4 behaves like any other application program and does not use internal functions of operating systems.

 

Which browsers are supported?

  • Windows Internet Explorer
  • Mozilla Firefox
  • Microsoft Edge Chromium
  • Google Chrome

TABEX4 has been tested on the latest version of these browsers. If you would like to use another browser, please contact our support.

Which web application servers are supported?

  • Apache Tomcat
  • IBM WebSphere
  • Jboss

In which languages is TABEX4 available?

TABEX4 is currently available in German and English. Documentation is provided in English.

 

 

Can TABEX4 optimize my hardware?

The TABEX4 Components can be distributed on different hardware. TABEX4 is thus perfectly suited for optimization of hardware use in data processing centers.

 

 

How can TABEX4 guarantee data security?

Data transfer from the web browser to the TABEX4 application server can be carried out via HTTPS. In this way, data are transferred safely through the TABEX4 technology of server authentification and data encryption via TCP/IP. Authentification occurs via a TABEX4 authorization system. Two options are possible:

Use of the internal TABEX4 authorization system

Integration of external authorization systems (e.g. RACF, ACF2, ...)

 

 

What is the TABEX4 Instance Concept?

TABEX4 is multi-tenant. Besides the general configuration of TABEX4 at company level, you can configure so-called instances as sub-systems e.g. at department level or for a group of selected users, but also for different levels of production. An instance is a predefined “configuration-set” that restricts contents and available features to specific user-groups.

 

Can data views combine multiple data sources?

Yes, TABEX4 can combine fields of multiple data sources to a view. For the user this view looks like a read-only table.