NeuVis Software Ships RAD Tool for OS/400

by Alex Woodie

NeuArchitect shares some of the features and benefits commonly found in fourth generation development tools (4GLs), such as built-in support for a variety of operating systems, relational database systems, and development languages. Companies that have invested in NeuArchitect rely on NeuVis to support new technologies with new releases of the IDE.

However, because NeuArchitect users create their applications by visually diagramming them using a model interface, the tool can't really be considered a 4GL. Although NeuArchitect developers can write code if they want to, they can create entirely new applications with a mouse by pointing and clicking, dragging and dropping--without ever writing a single line of code.

I participated in an online Webex seminar with NeuArchitect's developers last week, and although I don't profess to being a programmer, I have to say the process seemed impressive. The developers guided me through the process of creating a sample Web application that pulled data from an existing DB2/400 database--a program to check inventory status. Once they established the connection between the development environment and the company's iSeries, it was just a matter of pulling the DB2/400 classes into the NeuArchitect repository, choosing which pre-built templates to use to apply new business logic, formatting the visual appearance, choosing a target environment to compile the code to, and hitting the "Go" button.

NeuArchitect supports a wide range of source data stores. Developing new ebusiness functionality using existing applications running on a variety of systems in NeuArchitect is a matter of selecting the proper data source from a drop-down menu and ensuring the address to the database is right. Relational databases supported include IBM's various DB2 versions, Microsoft's SQL Server, Oracle's eponymous database, and Sybase Adaptive Server. The tool uses ODBC and JDBC for database connectivity, and NeuVis has a legacy connector for VSAM, CICS, and MVS data residing on mainframes that is available for an additional charge.

Similarly, NeuArchitect applications can be deployed on a variety of hardware and software platforms. As long as the server/operating system runs a supported Web application server, it's just a matter of selecting the target environment from a drop-down box and letting NeuArchitect generate the code. NeuArchitect applications run as Java or COM programs on IBM's WebSphere Application Server, BEA's WebLogic, Oracle 9iAS, Hewlett-Packard's HP Application Server, or using Microsoft's DNA. The company plans to support Microsoft's .NET architecture with a release later this year, and already supports wireless application by generating wireless markup language (WML) code.

For developing complex n-tier applications that use different platforms to run the database and application components, NeuArchitect provides an optional messaging connector that can use the Java Messaging Service, IBM's WebSphere MQ, Microsoft's Message Queuing Middleware, and TIBCO messaging middleware protocols.

NeuVis has supported the iSeries as a runtime platform at least since NeuArchitect 3.5 came out last year. According to NeuArchitect developer Jeff Douglas, the iSeries' ease-of-use and integrated database make it a first-rate match for the modeling tool. To read a good story on IBM's iSeries Nation Web site written by Douglas about his introduction and first impression of the OS/400 platform, click here.

NeuVis is a fairly young company based in Shelton, Connecticut, that has already seen a major strategy shift as a result of the dot-com meltdown of 2000. The company that would become NeuVis was founded in 1995 by Arun Gupta, a noted developer of RAD tools who also founded DataEase International in the early 1980s. Gupta would sell a million copies of his DataEase RAD tool before selling the technology to Symantec in 1992. Up until mid-2000, NeuVis was focused on providing Web development tools to dot-coms, which were being flooded with venture capital and public funding. Following the dot-com crash, Gupta shifted his company's efforts to the systems integrator market and focused on developing his tool's ability to work with legacy IBM systems such as the mainframe and AS/400.

So far about 20 companies have purchased NeuArchitect and added it to their toolbox for e-business application development, Gupta said. One of those companies, Waterford Crystal, used it to develop a WebSphere application running on iSeries.

Waterford Crystal's implementation is notable because it was developed by IBM Global Services. As related by Gupta, Global Services had been contracted to build a front-end application that would allow Waterford Crystal to place orders with IBM's Personal Systems Group online, a requirement that IBM had imposed on its customers. The application had to reconcile EDI orders with business rules that were governed by an SAP purchasing module. The problem was that the business rules were changing on an almost daily basis, he said.

IBM spent months trying to build the application to handle the constantly changing business rules, but it wasn't working. Global Service's consultants finally came to NeuVis a scant two months before the deadline, at which point they decided to try building the application using NeuArchitect. It took them ten days to build it, Gupta said.

A developer's license for NeuArchitect costs $6,000. The average cost of deploying a NeuArchitect application, including licenses for runtime components and messaging connectors, is around $150,000, officials said. For more information, visit NeuVis' Web site at www.neuvis.com.