Name: Rocket Customer Webinar: HostExplorer Lifecycle
Uploaded: 2025-08-13T18:01:39.340Z
Duration: 52 min 56 s
Description: Rocket Customer Webinar: HostExplorer Lifecycle

Transcript for "Rocket Customer Webinar: HostExplorer Lifecycle": Hello, everyone. Thank you all for being here today. I am Evan Tackett. I am in the solution marketing group, here at Rocket Software. Really appreciate you all being here with us today, and I am joined by principal product managers, Chris Wall and Barbara Ballard. I I think that a lot of people already know them. They're they're, getting pretty popular. So, but I, honestly wanna go ahead and get the the session kicked off now that we're we're live, and, I think I will go ahead and hand things off to Chris to get started. But, actually, before you go, Chris, I wanna let everyone know that, the the session is is open. If you have, questions, comments, anything, please leave those in the chat and q and a. I will be keeping an eye on it. I will see them there, and we will have a q and a section at the end of the session. And I will make sure to bring those to Chris and Barbara so that we can get get questions answered. And, along with that, there is a, email address in the the deck that if you have questions that you would rather not share in the session or you come up with something after we're done, you can send an email to the the the email address that you find in the in the session, and we will get it there and get you an answer. So with that, I will now hand it off to Chris. Thanks so much, Evan. I think you have to advance. Right? So let's take a look at the agenda today. So, let's look back at history a little bit, see how we got to where we are today with regards to, this company, Rocket Software, and all the prior companies, that we were, and and and where this product, Host Explorer, came from, what the path forward looks like. So what are we doing in the future with regards to our terminal emulation business? The product life cycles are important. Customers know, you know, how long they have to be supported in certain stages of a product's life cycle. So we're gonna look at that a bit. And then, you know, we have some commitments to you. We wanna make sure that we're supporting you appropriately. We'll go over some, of that information, and then, yeah, we'll have time for questions at the end as well. Also, just wanna give a just a quick disclaimer in that, some of this information is forward looking. Today, we're trying to present information as accurately as we can. I'm sure there'll be some changes in the future that we can't anticipate, but for the most part, everything you see today, you know, is based on what we think is going to be true going forward. So just a quick disclaimer, to share there. So historical background. Now I know this, next slide kinda looks like an ant farm, but it really is a good, representation, provides a good reference point for how we got to where we are, our basically, our connectivity corporate journey. Right? So if you look at all the names of these companies here, I'm sure you recognize many of them, and and also the brands that associated with these companies. Right? So, Barbara and I started many years ago at a company called AttachMate. We did some merging with WRQ and then Net Micro Focus and then OpenText and then now Rocket Software. That's where we kinda our path to get to where we are. With regards to Host Explorer, in particular, was a company called Hummingbird back in the eighties and early nineties, had a product called Exede for the PCX server market. That company, acquired the, McGill University terminal emulation, product that that some students put together and they badged it, rebadged it, Host Explorer. That was back in, 1997. And then in about 02/2006, OpenText acquired Hummingbird and, kept, you know, Host Explorer and the Exede product lines going until, the divestiture in, 2024. So, basically, last year, we moved out of, OpenText and into ROC. And I say we, it's really the terminal emulation business. There's a couple of other businesses, COBOL and and so forth that, that moved over to Rocket Software. So, hopefully, that gives you kind of a nice reference point. I'm sure, you know, for the folks that are joining today, you look at a a chart like this, a timeline, and you can probably look and say, hey. My company has been through, you know, similar merger acquisition activity over the last, you know, twenty, thirty years. I think a lot of, corporate charts look like this. But that's how we got to where we are today to Rocket Software and, we're very happy to be here and and supporting, many terminal emulators, include including Host Explorer. Next slide is, Barbara. I'll turn it over to you. Talk about some of our, values and and so forth. Well, thanks, Chris, and good job on the ants. I like that. That last slide, it did look a little bit like ants. And as Chris mentioned, we he and I have been, involved in terminal emulation for years. I personally joined the company when I was 10, and and I'm almost ready to retire. So, so there's a this sounds a little bit cheesy when you when you look at, the slide. And I guess what I want you to know from me is, this is a different company than maybe you have done business with before, and and and that's really important for me to convey to you. Not only me as an employee, I really feel honored to be with Rocket, but you as a customer. It's I'm a real customer focused product manager. It's just, you know, I really believe that the more I know about my customers, the better I could make my product. I value those relationships. We're gonna give you email addresses here to contact us, and the only reason why it's not my personal email is because there's more than just me in back of that. But Chris and I talk to customers all the time, and we really do value your input. Well, here we are at Rocket, and the customer really values your input. They value your input. They understand where you are, and they wanna help you get to the next place. So that's really why we've included this slide. And every company has their mantra. Right? The things that they say about themselves. And for Rocket, what we talk about is our values, which is empathy, humanity, trust, and love. And, again, when I first started, my tenure at Rocket, it just felt a little bit fluffy to me, but but the reason why they felt fluffy is they felt like just words. But I can tell you, heartfelt, that Rocket walks the walk and talks the talk. They really do believe in these values. They really are at the center of everything they do, and they really now mean a lot to Chris and I as we try to talk to you, to our terminal emulation customers, about the product that you have and what's coming tomorrow. So, so it's a little bit more than just words on paper. It actually is our commitment to you, and everything that we do and say today are based on these values. So that's why we wanted to kinda highlight this. Alright. So let's talk a little bit about the path ahead. We we're on an exciting journey. Well, we might be if Evan moves the slide. Otherwise, we could just stay right here with the values. Yeah. Thanks, Evan. Sorry. I give you a bad time. We're on a really, really exciting journey. A lot has changed in the market, just over the last twelve to eighteen months. It's it's been pretty amazing. So so while I have been in the terminal emulation game for thirty years, the last ten years, I have really sat in this space about how do we bring in access to that mainframe or other host based platform into the modern era of enterprise security. And let me tell you a little bit why I did that. About it was it was in 2013. There was a a fairly large breach. It was one of the first ones that, kinda smacked us in the face, if you will. That was the OPM breach. It was the US federal government breach, the office of personnel management. And the reason why I bring that up a lot is because it was really one of the first large breaches that kind of centered around the use or impersonation of someone by using their username and their password to get access to information that they shouldn't be able to get access to. That was one of the first ones. And after that happened, of course, everybody scrambled, especially folks in the federal government or doing business with the federal government. They made some mandates really quickly after that. HSPD 12 came out after that, you know, saying you can't use usernames and passwords anymore. And it it was in the, in regards to stopping something like that from I did thinking about how can we help our customers, because we do a lot of large business in the federal government. So how can we help our customers? And now if you fast forward today, ten years later, we're still using user IDs and passwords, and we still really need to replace those. And then that's really where we're going here with the product we're gonna talk a little bit about today. Right? Your next gen terminal emulator and the platform that it sits within. It's really got, you know, two goals here. One is to help you secure your data, which is really probably the most important, but it's also to help you meet the, security mandates that are coming out. So these statistics here are pretty fresh, pretty new. We could, you know, we could post statistics all day long and tell you we could just scare the the g willikers out of you. Right? But that's not really the intent here. The intent is just it everything is moving. Everything is just, it it's we're at a place right now where things are a major uptick both in, the concerns about accessing sensitive data and in the regulatory compliance that protects that sensitive data. So so for me, I wanna I wanna talk about one thing on the screen, and that's that middle, thing, 71%, that middle statistic. That is a year over year increase of using stolen or compromised credentials. I just talked about 2013 where they got a person's user ID and password, and they got into the system, and they and they got data they shouldn't have got. And here we are ten, eleven years later, and it's still growing. People are still doing this. And it is not because we're not doing enough in our industry to protect our our sensitive data. We're doing the best we can. Sometimes change is hard. Sometimes it's hard to be able to connect those dots. When you have a mainframe in your organization, you know, you're talking about the mainframe user ID and password is likely different than the one you use out there in your enterprise. So there's it is not because we're also ignorant that these things are happening. It's because it's not easy to solve these problems. Well, that's what Rocket Software been spending the last ten years doing, is trying to find a way to help you with access to your host to be able to protect that sensitive data and meet your security mandates that are in front of you. So that's really kind of what I wanna bring this up in. And that's really the direction of this product. It is much more than an a terminal emulator. So go ahead and hit the next slide, and your path forward as a host access customer sorry, as a host explorer customer is a product called secure host access, much more than a terminal emulator. Certainly has a terminal emulator in it. It has two flavors of that. So so it's a stack, if you will. It's a product with three tiers. You could you could get in at whatever level suits you well. I'll talk a little bit about, the levels, but I'm not gonna spend a lot of time here. I'm, this it's a there's a lot of value here for you to partake in. The the replacement or the upgrade, if you will, for what you use today would be tier one. But there's so much value in tier two and tier three. We're gonna dig into that a little bit more. But the pro is really that thick client that you're used to. Now I think we've got some slides later on. This thick client that you would be getting has a whole bunch more security features than the one that you're using today. So there's just a ton of value in just that, but then we can bring in more value. We can integrate. We can manage that thick client and integrate with your IAM. And I'm gonna show you a little bit about what that means, but we can bring in your IAM from the enterprise in order to check and make sure they're a valid user ID before they ever connect to the mainframe. We can bring in single sign on. We can do it from both the front end and actually the back end depending on the host that you, log in to. And then anywhere includes all of that and an HTML five zero footprint, whatever you wanna call that, emulator. It's a web based emulator that's got no dependencies on the desktop. So no more worries about Java, no dependencies at all other than a modern browser. So that's the product in general. Three tiers. Again, one product, Securus access, and three tiers wherever you come in at. Okay. So here is where, and and a lot of my words kind of bleed into each other because I talk about this stuff every day. But this is what I'm talking about. I am talking about being able to help you on two fronts. One, protect your data. How do we do that? We integrate with your existing IAM. So think LDAP, think IntraID, think Okta, think, any frankly, almost. I I always say almost because I'm not a salesperson. I'm a product manager, and I I so I never wanna say a 100 because there could be an IAM out there that I don't know about yet that we don't integrate with, but there hasn't been one yet. So the IAM in your enterprise is we should be able to integrate with that and protect adding a layer of defense. That's what's important here. I'm not replacing the authentication on your on your host. What I'm doing is helping you add another layer to make sure that whoever's logging in is known in your corporate enterprise and is a valid user to be able to get access to your host. And on the right hand side, it's that ability to stay compliant with the mandates. I mean, there's a huge value just from an internal perspective, right, from security and your internal mandates because all of us have them. Right? We're all we're all in the business, where we have personally identifiable data or sensitive data that we're holding and we have to protect that. But this tsunami of regulatory compliance that is coming at, switch, you know, again, and I've been doing security for ten years. I've never seen this many mandates picking up. It's just changing all the time. So so some that we put on the slide, DORA now requires strong authentication for users and multifactor for admins. New regulatory compliance in the state of New York now requiring multifactor authentication if you're gonna do business with their financial services. US federal has had mandates, but they step those up. It's no longer don't use user IDs and password. It is now multifactor authentication. There's more out there. There's a lot of state. If you're in The United States, there's a lot of state run mandates that are coming out requiring that. And there's gonna be more. Right? I mean, I'm I I I try to tune into these all the time. I'm pretty sure HIPAA is gonna be, mandating, multifactor here in in not too long. So and and you might ask yourselves why they're doing that. Well, they're doing that because of the left hand column. Right? They're doing that because they have to protect that that, sensitive data that they govern. So rather that is your PII or your credit card information or your IP, it we all have to step up and protect that data. And, really, it is about the identity that's accessing that data. And if we can make sure that that is an identity that is well known and should have access, then then we have we have really done a good job here about protecting that sensitive data. Okay. So let's take a look at what the product looks like. So this is a market texture diagram, so bear with me just a little bit there. But, and and again, you know, I'm sure I'm gonna bring some questions up in your mind. We do have a way. We get, well, q and a at the end here, but we also have a way for you to get a one on one conversation, and Chris and I are the one that's monitoring those inboxes. So, so so please bring it on. We love conversation. So this is what the product looks like. So on your left hand side, if you're a thick client or a thin client, it's the emulator of choice. Right? It's that thick or thin. In the middle is what will be new to you as a host explorer customer. That is the secure host access server. Through that technology, we could connect to your IAM. Remember, it doesn't really matter what you're using. You know, Okta, Ping, Federated, there's just so many out there. We we really we work with them because we are specifications based. And what I mean by specifications is OIDC, OAuth, those kind of things. And and almost all of the IAMs out there today integrate with, other products based on those specifications. So that's why I'm pretty confident that we'll support your IAM. So we do that on the front end. Now we also have the technology to integrate with a component on the back end. So whatever host system. I'm gonna zero in here on z o s because that's what most of you have. But, really, my story is in it goes with any host based system on the back. Might have a couple of tweaks, but we can do what I'm about to tell you with any host based system. So what does this allow you to do? Well, if you think about it today, you launch host explorer, you have an IP address and a port, and you connect to the host. I'm sure you're using some encryption, but the encryption level is probably one dot two or below. In this new environment, we will not allow that connection, if you have it configured this way, unless you are recognized via your IAM. So instead of just launching an emulator and connecting to a host, we'll check you at the door. Are you who you say you are? And are you authorized to get to that host? And what do I mean by that? When I say are you who you say you are, I'm gonna prompt you for your enterprise credentials. Now I know. In your head, you're saying, oh my gosh. More prompts. That's not good for my customers, my users. If it is a single sign on in your enterprise, we'll abide by that. All we're doing is going off to your IAM and saying, do you know this person logging in? So that's really all it is. So we defer to your IAM. If you're walking around with a single sign on token, then that's valid. The IAM will tell us you're good, and you will go through without prompting for your, authentication. Now, normally, you would hit the mainframe screen. Again, I'm talking to zOS s here, so let's think rack f top secret a c f two. You would hit that login screen. Most of my customers today are using user IDs and password. And, again, remember, with the mandates coming down or just common sense security tells you that is not good enough anymore. So what we can do there is we can actually work with a component on the mainframe. The one that we connect that we do this most with is the MFA. It is an MFA provider. We have an integration with that that if they know that we've done authentication on the front end, they will actually assign a one time time limited token to that end user to be able to log in seamlessly without that username and a password. So I know that's a lot of information, but let me paint a high level picture. I launch an emulator today. I'm at a rack f or ACF two top secret screen, and I enter in a user ID and password. Not secure. Tomorrow, we're secure to access if it's all set up and configured correctly. I will launch that emulator. Behind the scenes, I will be checked by my IAM, and I will be checked in my user directory to make sure that I'm a valid user that should get access to a mainframe. And then I will so and then I have my single sign on token via your IAM, so I'm not prompted for initials. Then from the server to the host, I also have that conversation, that secure conversation saying, should this guy get in? And if so, give me a one time token. So they give me a one time token. Now the user has connected no exchange of credentials, but it is much more secure because I've used actually two different single sign on tokens. That's the value that this product is bringing to you. That's what we call security for host access. That's what we've developed, and that's why we think it's a great value to you when you wanna come on this journey with us. Alright, Evan. And before we move on, Barbara, we actually got a question, and I wanted to bring it while it's relevant. Matthew asked, does the secure host access server proxy the connection? Oh, okay. So let me think about that a little bit. I'm gonna think about that both from thick and thin. So and then I think so we do have what we call a security proxy within this product. So if you wanted those connections all proxy, they could be done via that. That's applicable, sorry, to the thick client. For the thin client, your emulation in itself is held on the server. It is just sent to the user via an HTML interface, so it is already proxied by nature through that server. So I and you let me know if that did not answer your question, but I believe that does. And it was a great question, by the way. Thank you. I'll keep moving. Yeah. And I I'll just say and add to that, Barbara, that for the thick client, you can either proxy it or not. I think that's what you said. Right? You can either put it through the security proxy, right, or not. So that's your choice. Correct. Yep. So so what that kind of means the reason why you would proxy is you want all this stuff coming from one place, not not several. Yeah. Yep. Okay. Let's talk about the next topic, which is upgrading to the secure host access desktop client. So let's let's put some more perspective on this. You know, we're gonna be we're gonna talk about this later, but we're gonna be supporting host explorer for some time. So, you know, don't stress about that. There are some regulatory mandates that are happening right now, and if you're, you know, working in a financial institution or working for a financial organization like a bank, there's probably a mandate to say that you need to implement, multifactor authentication or tech data no matter where it resides, as Barbara, you know, referred to earlier, which means at some point, you probably need to move to, you know, secure host access so you can implement multi factor authentication. And so for those of you that are kinda staring, you know, those sorts of mandates, in the face, you know, now is the time to plan that move to, the secure host access desktop client. So, you know, kind of we're doing as much as we can, proactively to make sure that this upgrade is as seamless as possible. In some cases, it's gonna be really easy. In other cases, it's gonna take a little bit of work. For the first thing, you know, when installed, the Secure Host Access desktop client can run side by side with host explorer. So if you have users that kinda wanna test out the waters with both products, you know, you can use those two at the same time. You know, also, the Secure Host Access desktop client can run host explorer configurations. So you can actually, you know, open a host explorer session with host explorer or you can open it with secure host access because it understands the format of those sessions. Terminal emulators have all kinds of configuration options. Right? You create sessions to connect to host systems. You create custom keyboard maps so a user can press a keyboard combination to have it do something on the host. You create different colors, themes, menus, toolbars, you know, ribbon interfaces. There's all kinds of things that you can configure in the product. And so what we try to do with Secure Host Access is make sure that the things that users most commonly customize can be used as is with Secure Host Access, and that's what we mean by these bullets here. You can open sessions with Secure Host Access. You can, open, keyboard maps and Secure Host Access, the desktop client will understand those things and reuse them as is without you having to make any changes. And you can see the screenshot here we have to give an example, and it's really small. So I I can't even read it to be honest. But, basically, it's showing how within Secure Host Access, which is the screenshot you're looking at, in a thirty two seventy mainframe session, you can actually open a host explore host explorer session document, a custom one, and those are, SAR dot HEP files, host explorer profiles. So, that's one way we're making it easier, you know, to upgrade to the secure host access desktop client. And then, yeah, moving on to the next slide. And in a similar manner, there's some things to be aware of. So Windows has a way of, you know, applications to run automations. And so when you're running macros, you can run them, you know, there's there's comm registration and so forth, those types of things within Windows that you have to adhere to. Right? So, for automations. And so Host Explorer can run its own macros. But once you want once you determine that you want Secure Host Access to run those macros, then you have to, you won't be able to run those macros with Host Explorer anymore. They have to be run with Secure Host Access. And so what I'm showing to you here is a screenshot of Secure Host Access and where you pick in the installation program, the install tree, the compatibility feature. So, Secure Host Access has compatibility capabilities with several different terminal emulators. Right? You see Extra, PCOM, Rumba, Host Explorer. Secure Host Access once this is installed, this component is installed, Secure Host Access can run macros from any of those, products, any of those, terminal emulators. So pretty powerful capability because organizations have invested a lot of time and effort in creating automations and don't want to have to recreate those and we totally respect that and that's why we built this run as is sort of, functionality into Secure Host Access. And then let's talk about a lot of the capabilities and, you know, benefits, the value that you're going to get by using, Secure Host Access going forward. Barbara alluded to this as well. You're gonna get a lot of new capabilities, that you never had previously. So, for example, a lot of the, a lot of the market is moving to TLS 1.3 for encryption. That's the latest version of encryption supported by, you know, open SSL and other, other encryption technologies, that's available, secure host access, FIPS one forty dash two and FIPS one forty dash three for those that are either fed Fedgov accounts, federal government accounts, or work with the federal government and have to, you know, share data with them. That data needs to be encrypted with the latest technology. Got the latest SSH encryption as well if you're doing, you know, UNIX, VT, Linux, connections, data redaction. So, several years ago, we implemented a capability that allows you to redact data on host screens for mainly credit card data. That's how it started to help organizations adhere to the payment card industry data security standard, which has since gotten really, a lot more requirements, really stringent, added multifactor authentication, and so forth. But one of the requirements is to protect data, sensitive data, by the data redaction. And now you can do that on a host screen, on a mainframe or a s four I say a s 400 IDMI. You you can take you can, define data that you wanna protect and then it'll be redacted on the green screen when the end user, accesses that, green screen. So very powerful feature as part of the privacy filters capability. There's been a lot of security vulnerabilities that have been, addressed, in in third party components. We track that with every release. You know, we do, run reports. We have third party tools that run reports on vulnerabilities, and we make sure those are addressed, going for the the high priority ones are addressed going forward. We have a regular cadence of security updates, so we're releasing, new releases of the software, new versions of the software. We're really on a with Secure Host Access on a quarterly basis release schedule. That's not full releases. These are partial releases. You can either choose to take them or not, but we just wanna make sure that you have access to the latest updates. And most of the times, those updates include, security updates. Productivity. So we have, in SecureOS Access, we have Office compatibility, which means we integrate with, Microsoft Office so you can send data from the mainframe very easily, exchange data back and forth between the mainframe and the Office apps, whether it's PowerPoint, Word, Excel, and so forth, make it much easier than, than in the past. And then the integrations, you know, imagine being on a, you know, in a a free form green screen and being able to do spell check and auto expand and auto complete, all those things you expect with, you know, desktop based applications and and, I guess, also with web based applications these days as the applications become more modern. But you can also do that in in green screens, which very powerful, capabilities, making your end users way more productive than they were in the past. Screen history capture, you know, what was previously entered in other host screens. You just capture every green screen that a user goes to. You can use that for auditing purposes. You can use it for being able to, recall what you entered in prior screens as an end user. So very again, a very powerful feature. Get a lot more in automation. All terminal emulators have supported Halapi, e Halapi for years and years. But with Secure Host Access, you're getting things access to, very popular automation platforms like Visual Basic for applications, which is pretty much ubiquitous in any organization. All IT folks know how to use VBA. This is the same VBA that's in Office. We get it from Microsoft, and you can build automations that integrate with all of your desktop apps through VBA. Again, very powerful. Dot net API, so those that have kinda moved to dot net and, maybe c sharp programmers or other, we have a dot net API built into Secure Host Access. We've talked about the macro compatibility. You've seen that. We can run host explorer macros, in within Secure Host Access without any, you know, changes required, especially recorded macros. Sometimes you need to do a little bit of, editing of of macros that have been previously customized, but, we get you, you know, 90% of the way there in most cases. And then robust, you know, value based road map. So we've got a lot of plans for this product. The, the regulatory mandate landscape changes on a daily basis. We're, constantly, you know, reviewing, regulatory mandates, making sure that we're implementing, security based features, value added features from a terminal emulation perspective, from an host access perspective. And you'll see that, you know, in our road map, going forward as as you, as you start using secure host access. And then, Barbara went over the three tiers of Secure Host Access. There's pro, there's enterprise, and anywhere. And you really wanna get to anywhere because that's where you get central management of thick and thin web and desktop terminal emulation, but you also get the capability and ability to implement advanced security features like multifactor authentication and single sign on to host systems. So very important, over time to get to, enterprise and and anywhere in secure host access tiers. Alright. And then, I think this is, you, Barbara, if you would. It is. You know, so this is just kind of I mean, I really do hope that you saw the value that Chris just went over. And, really, remember that that was really just in the thick client. Right? So that is just moving from what you have today to just the thick client. And then I talked about a lot of the goodness that you would get by going to one of the other tiers. And there's really frankly a a lot more there. I could talk about this stuff for hours and hours and hours. We're just highlighting the most, I think the most, the the features that we think you'll need right away with the multifactor and the single sign on and stuff. But there's also the ability to manage your thick client. Right? And, I mean, think about when you moved from SSL to TLS, for example. Yeah. To change every session. Well, we can do that from a central place to where there doesn't have to be anything done specifically on the desktop. So there's a lot here, and we and I'm hoping that you really see the value. So, this is really, you know, our guidance to you is, you you know, if the product is ready to go, it's already out there. You can get an evaluation copy today. To do that, you'd need to reach out to your account executive. If you don't know who that is, it's okay. I can figure it out for you. Chris can figure it out. So just email that email address. In fact, write that down because anything you need from in a host connectivity perspective, from moving to host acts sorry. Host explorer that you're on today, to secure host access, you can get through that email address. Our guidance to you is to start planning to do this sooner than later. You have not received a lot of updates on host explorer, and we're now in the game where you're gonna need those. You're gonna need TLS one dot three. You're going to need security vulnerabilities addressed in third party components that are inside that emulator. There's just a lot that you're gonna need that will be yours for the taking once you move to secure host access. And then, you know, we do wanna help you. So let us know how we can do that. Be Evan, before you move to the next slide, I wanna take just one step back because I think I realized what that gentleman was asking me, and I didn't cover it. So if you can go back to the market texture diagram, I'm just gonna say something really quickly. So you what you might have been asking me, Matthew, was do all of these sessions from the terminal emulator route through the server? And they do not. So your thick client sessions do not route through the server. There's no performance hit or anything like that. What they do is they go to the server. We route to your IAM to make sure you are who you say you are and you're authorized, and then the emulator will connect to the server or sorry, to the host just like it always has been. There's no fun tunneling through the server or anything like that. So I just thought about that after I read your question again, and that might have been where you were going. The thin client sessions are all based on the server. They go to the host based on the host protocol, like thirty two seventy, and then they go to the client based on HTML in their browser. So, I just wanted to go back over that. So thanks, Evan. And then I think the next session is about the product life cycle. So I think I'm turning it back to Chris. Nope. I'm actually doing it myself. Well, at least you know it's not recorded. So, so so in order for us to do everything that we've talked about today about secure host access, we are we're changing up the product life cycle a bit. Right? We are our innovation now will be done on secure host access. You haven't had a lot of innovation with host explorer. Hope you see the value because there's a lot coming your way with secure host access. You received a email on or around July 2, kinda telling you that this product is moving in this product. Host explorer is moving into maturity. Let me help you understand what maturity means. It is not end of life. That's really important. Again, Rocket values your business. We do not end of life products. We're not gonna walk away from you. That is not what this is meant to be. What it means is we will continue to evaluate the bugs that you report and any vulnerabilities against this product. And based on the severity, and we have to take into consideration workarounds and mitigations, but we'll address them if we feel like that needs to happen. Right? If a Log four j comes tomorrow and it impacts host explorer, we'll do the right thing. So we've got your back. We want you to know that. But all the innovation, all the big ticket items, all the new and cool stuff, all of the big security things. Let's talk about TLS one dot four because it's gonna come. That will all be done in secure host access. That will not be done against host explorer. So the new features and the innovation and the enhancements will all be done at Securys access. But we got your back. The other thing I would say is that almost every time when you when you, when you look at adopting Securys access, there will always be back grade rights to your previous product to host Explorer. We don't expect you to make this change overnight. We wanna be there to help you, and and we get it. Change is hard. So so we will you will have a window of time, usually a year, to be able to run both so that you are completely confident that everything is good with Secure Host Access before we expect you to walk away from host explorer. Now I think I'm turning it back over to Chris. You got that right, Barbara. So, yeah, let's talk about product life cycle a bit. So those of you who have joined us from one of our prior companies, so OpenText had a pretty robust product life cycle, you know, set of policies, and and some of the other companies, you know, that we brought products over from. And we're also doing the same thing here at Rocket. So, we're building our own policies, and it's taken us, I would say, just a little bit longer, I think, than I than we wanted it to, but we're very close now to being able to publish this set of policies. And just to give you a kind of a preview, if you look at the, diagram at the bottom, you know, we've got general availability, which is a a span of the first, you know, three years of a product release of a version release, and then limited support for a couple of years, and then something called restricted support for, you know, beyond six years. And then there's a bunch of other details related to this, which we'll we'll be sharing with you very soon as soon as we publish that, but that's, coming very soon. You know, the product support life cycles, yeah, they're new and improved. I think they're better than any of the prior policies, you know, that we put together in the past in in every prior incarnation of of them. They're easy to understand. They're easy to access. You know, you basically are gonna be able to find them on the Rocket Software website, so be able to get to them very well. They'll be available, from, the forum and the docs portal, the documentation portal. So you just go to docs.rocketsoftware.com, and they'll be posted within the next few days there. And then a lot of times, you know, there hasn't been a consistent, set of PLC policies across process so forth, all the emulators, and so we're really applying these across all the, you know, connectivity, host access emulators, terminal emulators, if you will. So, hopefully, you'll find, you know, over the next few weeks here as you get exposed to the new PLC policies, product life cycle policies, that they meet your requirements and if you have any questions, whatever, you know, we've got our alias there, the the email alias that Barbara referred to on prior prior screen, and that's gonna come up again in a later slide. You can send us questions about it there. We we field all kinds of questions on product life cycle. It seems like there's a bunch of regulatory mandates now that say you have to be using supported software. So organizations more interested in ever that in making sure that the the version they're running is fully supported by, vendors like Rocket Software. And with that, let's You know what? Before you move to the next slide I mean, it doesn't really matter what slide you're on, but I well, let's field the question from David because it's this it's kinda right in the Yep. Pick the things that we're talking about. So, so I'm gonna just read it off because I I think it's a little bit funny. I know that you said don't worry about host explorer. Glad you heard me say that. I don't want you to worry about it. But he what what he really wants is more specific, information about dates and support levels. So so what I would say to you, because I Chris and I have been working on this, on on the things that will be delivered to you through the product life cycle, but you haven't we have not done an update for host explorer that's been publicly available since, like, 2024, but we do have your back. I wouldn't say that there's gonna be a cadence of releases. I think it will be as needed. Right? So, as we see things coming up or as customers report them, then we will deliver updates or patches, if you will, on an as needed basis. It'd be fully supported, so you we will continue to take your calls. We we will continue to help you troubleshoot, you know, but I wouldn't say there's gonna be a cadence of specific real basis on the road map. It will be as an as needed basis. So Yeah. And that and that's a great lead into the next, set of bullet points, I think, here, Barbara. First one being, Host Explorer continues to be supported. Yeah. We're supporting it. But you can move at your own pace, right, to secure host access. That's that's part of our program here. Give you time to move. You got host explorer deployed and you've got a plan in place to move secure host access, that's fine. We'll support you for as long as we need to. You know, we wanna support you through I say, kinda put this in here, our modernization journey, your modernization journey, those kinda kinda go hand in hand. And so we just wanna make sure, you know, your journey is aligned with our our journey, and and we kinda go down this path together. And then, Barbara, I think you were Yep. Gonna talk about the rest. Thank you. You bet. No problem. So, I think I think what you've seen here conveys the value that you would get with secure host access. It's only gonna get better in the future. We are it's a it's a really cool, innovative road map. I mean, I just, again, I could talk about this all day long. There's just so much, that we wanna do with this product to be able to deliver value to you. The product life cycles are gonna go live as Chris said, but there's always work to do. Right? We can always make things better. If something doesn't work for you, if you have questions on that, just let us know. We will tweak those. But, so there's there's always work to do. And and we get that we're putting you in a relatively uncomfortable position. Right? Because we're we're asking you to come on a journey with us. We're a new company. We're not the same company that you have been doing business with us, you know, from the host explorer perspective. But I'll just tell you, it's it is a great place to be. We treat customers very, very well. We take care of you. We have your back. But we also want your darn feedback. So tell us what you like and what you don't like. We're here to listen. We can't always control everything, but, we get that we put you in a bit of an I think you've been in an uncomfortable position for a while, and we wanna make that better for you. So I'm hoping you see the value in the journey. I hope you'll go on it with us. But you know what? I totally respect it. If you don't or if you don't want to partake right now, I totally get you, and we will continue to support host explorer for you in the same way we've been doing or better. So I think that that is about us. Yep. So we'll open it up for questions. Yeah. I I think we've answered the questions that have come in so far. I know there were a few that I tried to answer, rather than publishing. So, we have a couple minutes left, though. If there are other questions, feel free to add them in the the chat or the q and a window. We can answer them here. I think one other point while we're waiting for any other questions, Evan, is, and and we've made this in other presentations, but as you as you look at the Antfirm image, you know, with with all the lines stuff and bunch of different products, and we counted up the number of terminal emulators that we're managing here at Rocket. And, you know, it's it's a very large number. And we we thought about, you know, do we wanna do try to do road maps and innovation on all these products going forward? And and the answer was, well, no. It makes more sense to move to a single product that we can upgrade and migrate customers to and really focus on providing additional value for that in time for all those customer bases, you know, into a single product. If we really focus in that area, we can, accelerate, you know, adding value, adding those security capabilities, much more rapidly. And people will get customers will receive so much more value over short periods of time, you know, than if we tried to do this in 15 different ways with 15 different products. Right? So really focusing on a single solution is really gonna be good for everybody. Well said. Yeah. I think that's a good point, Chris. Let's see. We had a question come in. Do you have any video recordings to install up set up Secure Host Access? I don't know that we have videos. Although, I will say some are coming. Again, compliments to Rocket Software. It's just a different world. Right? They have this whole team of people that do enablement, and that's what they're doing right now is all of these recordings. So those will be, released sometime in the future, but we do have lots of documentation on the Rocket Software documentation site. There is an administrative and install setup for the for the thick client. There's one for the servers. So look there, not videos again, and and I get that. But those are copying. It just takes a little while to get all this stuff, you know, cranked through. But but there will be a lot of videos available, in the future anyway. And and I would ask Wayne and feel free to just email us at the, alias on the screen, the email alias on the screen. But, which portion or what are you trying to install would be good to know. And, and we can direct you to the right. There there's documentation for it for sure. I don't know if there's a recording yet, like Barbara says. I think we're kinda waiting for some of that, but the documentation is pretty darn good, I have to say. Every time I go look at it, it's pretty detailed. And the other thing we could do, Chris, is we could also get a a meeting and somebody could demo stuff to you as well. Right? So Yep. I mean, that's what we're here for. So, you know, we want you on the product. So whatever it takes to help you get there. So And if it helps to take a look at the documentation, I just added a link to the the documents portal on the support page into the chat, and I've added a a a link to the forum that came up a little bit ago, if you'd like to join so you can stay in the loop of, all of the the updates around Secure Host Access and and, Host Explorer. Let's see. We've got another question from Wayne. We're using host explorer. That would be good to have a demo as well. What is, well, what is the cost for secure host access? And I know that's a tough question to answer since it and it really depends where you are and and everything else. But, you know, I'll I'll let you guys Yeah. So, Wayne, if you would email that email address just because I can't see your email address here. If you'll email that, we can set up a meeting. Chris and I are not allowed to participate in pricing conversations. Otherwise yeah. We'd be in we yeah. So, but we can get you the pricing. So that's not a big deal. You know, we are motivated to get you to secure host access. So, it's not your typical come buy a new product at a overwhelming price point. So Yeah. I think it's one of the few few times that we are here to help. So Yeah. If you, you know, reach out with questions or, if there's anything that we can do, we're we're here for it. This is really a this is a win win for both you as our customer as well as us for a company. So there's there's incentive here on both sides to get you to this new product and get you some value that you can take advantage of for years. Absolutely. Okay. Well, it it seems like the, questions have sort of slowed down, so I think we can wrap up for today. But, as we mentioned earlier, the recording will be going out. So if you wanna take another look at what we shared, you you can do so. Or if you wanna share it with anyone else who should see what what, Rocket Software has planned, please do. And if you have questions, if there's anything that that you didn't wanna raise or comes up later, just feel free to reach out to this email address on the screen, and Chris and Barbara will get it and can can reach out and help. So thank you again, Chris and Barbara. Thank you all for being here. We really appreciate it. Yep. Thanks for spending some time with us today. Have a great Thank you all. Bye.