DBMS, April 1996

A Vote for Internet Client/Server Infrastructures

I enjoyed Judith Hurwitz's column "Battle for the Client/Server Infrastructure" in the January issue (page 12). As an analyst and software designer in the Internet/database world, I found it refreshing to see that you considered the Internet client/serve r infrastructure among the leading contenders.

I'm a product evangelist for Allaire LLC, a Minneapolis-based Internet development tools startup and maker of Cold Fusion. While not the founder of the company (I'm not the "Allaire" of "Allaire LLC"), I've played a substantial role in building a develop ment environment for delivering Web-based database applications.

Aside from my personal interest in the matter, the very subject excites me tremendously, so I feel obliged to put in my vote for the Net as the winner. Web clients and servers provide a near optimal environment for the future of distributed client/server computing. The Web client is evolving to become a desktop shell with a unified information interface to both public and private information.

The Web client/server combination meets several crucial needs in the emerging distributed era:

• It's lightweight. Web browsers leave a small footprint, involve a much smaller amount of data processing on the client end, and offload distributed database access to server applications. In a global distributed world, an ASCII standard makes sense, at least for some time.
• It's network-centric. The Web browser doesn't care where it gets its data -- the Internet's major protocols such as HTTP, DNS, and IP handle everything seamlessly. In other words, in a totally network-centric world, there is less overhead associated with establishing and maintaining connections and links.
• HTTP and URLs are becoming standards for both remote data access and application execution (akin to RPC, but more lightweight) as well as for employing a GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) in the uniform resource identifier scheme. It is the only exi sting and thriving standard for globally unique objects.
• Software development is easier. By offloading much of the processing and intelligence to the middleware server (read: Web Server apps), application developers don't have to worry about drivers, network communications, and other such fun things on th e user's desktop.
• Support and maintenance are easier. With a server-centric model, software updates, distribution, and troubleshooting are incredibly easier -- the cost of deploying a new version of software to a division is essentially zero.
• End users love it. The rapid adoption of the Web as the standard interface to online information was almost certainly related to the simplicity of the system for navigation and use. Multiple Document Interface applications (read: most Windows apps) are non-intuitive to many end users. The page metaphor and single-click environment appear to be substantially more compelling to the average computer user.
• Moving beyond the enterprise. Computing is jumping outside of the enterprise. As this takes place, companies will be forced to retrofit their internal technologies to integrate in a standard way with other companies' databases, enabling global, on-t he-fly collaboration and information exchange. No single network operating system or RDBMS vendor is in a position to impose that today. The Web will win.

Jeremy Allaire
allaire@worldmedia.com

Silverrun Also Evolves

In early 1993, Silverrun was the first data modeling tool to generate stored procedures and triggers. Silverrun was also the first data modeling tool to capture extended attributes and generate DataWindows and .pbl files for PowerBuilder. For example, Bo rland is building an interface from Delphi to Silverrun for broad data modeling capability.

Silverrun's Relational Data Modeler supports multiple models and can design logical and physical models with the distinction of being the only modeling tool available for Windows, OS/2, Solaris, and Macintosh platforms. In addition, Silverrun provides on line reverse engineering with its Relational Data Modeler and specific interfaces to DBMSs.

Silverrun is also available as a high-performance, team modeling tool with a multiplatform common repository. Silverrun-Enterprise enables customers to build, manage, and exploit an enterprise's entire portfolio of models, including business process, con ceptual, logical, and physical data models, and application packages as well as the model and meta-model of a corporate data warehouse. CSA also offers Datarun, an approach to designing applications that combines relational database design with object-or iented techniques. By focusing on nonprocedural specifications and object reusability, this method provides unprecedented productivity in analysis and design.

With a customer base of 5000, Silverrun is a significant player in the client/server application building arena and we appreciate this opportunity to provide DBMS readers with a more comprehensive portrayal of our product.

William Madaras
Manager, Public Relations
Computer Systems Advisers Inc.
Woodcliff Lake, N.J.

Silverrun was not completely overlooked, because I cited it as an example of products that integrate data and process modeling, and it appeared in the accompanying product chart. The article used several products to illustrate trends in the CASE indus try. It was not intended to be a comprehensive description of any one product. Also, while I do not doubt Silverrun has had its share of "firsts," I covered the earliest announcements of CASE tool support for PowerBuilder, and I recall that LBMS Inc. shi pped a version of SE/Open for PowerBuilder in late 1992. -- Maurice Frank

Overlooked Dimensions

Congratulations on Tom Spitzer's terrific article "Needles in Document Haystacks" in the January issue (page 84). Like Tom, I have been an information packrat for much of my adult life -- I have the file cabinets at work and home to prove it! The volume of information to be managed is growing at an exponential rate. People are at the point at which they realize that they need tools to manage the intellectual property (personal and corporate) that they deal with on a daily basis. Spitzer's article provid ed a good education for many users, including myself. Thanks.

I'm surprised Tom didn't come across Information Dimensions Inc., a software company based in Dublin, Ohio. We produce BasisPlus, a tool for managing large document collections accessed via a Web browser such as Netscape, with whom we have an alliance. P erhaps he overlooked us because we go far beyond text retrieval, because we are a relational database built for document management with an emphasis on security, version control, and so forth.

I'd be interested in knowing more about how he did his searches to come up with Verity, Fulcrum, and so on, but not Information Dimensions. That's a key concern to us as we focus on getting the word out on our new Internet direction (we have over 2000 cu stomers worldwide using BasisPlus). Keep up the good work.

Peter Tom
Business Development Manager
Information Dimensions Inc.
Dublin, Ohio

I appreciate your kind remarks. I researched the article over the Web (of course!), and followed up with email requests to some of the companies for more information. I do recall visiting your home page. While surfing, I was looking for PC-oriented te xt search products, and perceived yours as a server that runs primarily on larger systems. I ended up discussing some of both in the article, but it wasn't meant to be an exhaustive survey. A lot has happened since I wrote it, so there will be an opportu nity for an update. Please have your PR folks put me on their list of people to keep updated. -- Tom Spitzer