Host Integration Server demoes on Channel9
The dudes in Host Integration Server team showcase how a whole Microsoft development stack (SQL Server, ADO.NET, Visual Studio) can be used to program against IBM z/OS or AS/400 without additional installtion on both the host and the client side. You just need Host Integration Server 2006 in a box. It is indeed a far cry where by last time I had a website to connect to a AS/400 server using only OCBC calls but then we do not have transaction support.
The coolest thing is there is even a project wizard with VS2005 to code generate .NET objects based on definition on the IBM host. 
So no need to go back to RPG or COBOL or ask the host guy which is very hard to deal with sometimes to get the data you want. 
