Powerful workstations need not only be used to perform common desktop functions, the same interfaces can also access, update and reference legacy data. However, the connectivity required to deliver dynamic client-to-host communication with acceptable performance and adequate security is traditionally difficult to develop, cumbersome to deploy and expensive to maintain. Now through Construct Spectrum, just launched in South Africa by software group SPL, the complexity of developing and deploying networked components is eliminated.Schalk Viljoen, Applications Warehousing Division manager at SPL, says: "Construct Spectrum is an end-to-end client server generation tool, which uses a supermodel for distributed applications that takes a single high-level specification and automatically generates a component-based application, allowing the user to see the networked application and how it will operate within minutes. "With Construct Spectrum, network applications are equipped with the same security, performance and transaction logic services associated with traditional mainframe-class applications," comments Viljoen.Construct Spectrum optimises communications between clients and Natural servers - an open server for access to databases such as ADABAS, DB2 and VSAM. It provides the infrastructure allowing direct access from client components, such as Microsoft Visual Basic, to new or existing Natural server components through an encapsulated communication layer. Construct Spectrum also provides services such as server-based security, data compression, encryption, debugging and error handling.The solution automates the end-to-end generation and maintenance of secure, high-performance, distributed components that use thin clients to access Natural application servers. Client access to Natural application servers can be easily and cost-effectively established, while the generation and support of enterprise-wide applications built with distributed components across a n-tiered architecture. Because Construct Spectrum encapsulates and separates the middleware from the application, state-of-the-art interfaces can be easily incorporated with new or existing applicationsThe Construct Spectrum solution is an integrated product which takes advantage of Natural servers; Predict, as a comprehensive repository; Construct, for powerful model-based code generation; and Entire middleware, for high-speed, message-oriented communication. A typical approach for developing network applications taking advantage of the dispatcher would include the data and business rules defined and maintained in a repository by Predict. Construct then generates the Natural server code. With Construct Spectrum Software Development Kit (SDK), Construct also generates the Visual Basic client code and downloads the appropriate components to the Visual Basic client. The application and security privileges are defined to Construct Spectrum and the application is then deployed.
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