Midrange Stuff, OS/400 Edition

Developers who use Computer Associates' advanced set of programming tools for OS/400 and Windows now have another deployment option: Enterprise JavaBeans. Earlier this month the computer software giant announced that the most recent releases of its fourth-generation language (4GL) and template-based development tools, Advantage 2E 8.0 and Advantage Plex 5.1, now support the automatic generation of EJBs, in addition to generating source in native OS/400 3GLs, such as C++ and RPG.

Advantage 2E and Advantage Plex are the direct descendents the Synon/2E 4GL and the Obsydian reusable-template development tools, created by Simon Williams and his developers at Synon. (See "Lazy Software Targets Scalability with Sentences 3.0" for an interesting look at what Williams is up to these days with his new startup, Lazy Software.) Synon was sold to Sterling Commerce in 1998 for $80 million; soon thereafter, Sterling Commerce was acquired by CA. In its four-year history at CA, the development tools have had different names, most notably Cool:2E and Cool:Plex. Following a recent organizational realignment at the Islandia, New York, company, the name Cool:2E was changed to Jasmine Developer 2E. But since then, the names seem to have stabilized, with Advantage 2E and Advantage Plex having stuck through the better part of 2002.

Advantage 2E and Advantage Plex are application development environments that have built a following over the years, among both business technology consumers and ISVs. The technology allows developers to concentrate on coding their business logic without worrying about learning 3GL languages, such as RPG, C++, or Java. With integrated change management and testing facilities, programs generated with the tools can be changed and adapted with a minimum of fuss and manpower. That's the theory anyway, and quite a few users have taken it to heart, including such prominent OS/400 ISVs as Fiserv, CommercialWare, and International Business Systems.

The flexibility afforded by the Synon tools was looked upon quite fondly during the big client/server push of the 1990s. By being able to generate traditional host-based applications, as well as complicated client/server applications, with the distributed database systems that were in vogue at the time, Synon and tools like it reached the pinnacle of their popularity. Of course, the momentum behind client/server fizzled as soon as the commercial possibilities of the Internet cropped up, which caused people to question the wisdom of purchasing expensive CASE and 4GL tools. Nevertheless, companies that invested in 4GL technology--such as Advantage 2E or Advantage Plex, which is even more powerful--and stuck with their investments, are well positioned to ride out the industry's fickleness, for the simple fact that 4GLs and CASE tools are designed to be adaptable to new technology.

And that is exactly what CA is currently doing with Advantage 2E and Advantage Plex: building support for new technologies. Which is what it should do. With the newest releases of these two products, users can choose to generate their applications as EJBs, without having to learn Java. EJBs, of course, are platform-independent, insofar as an operating system can run a supported Java Virtual Machine. (OS/400 has one of the fastest JVMs in the market, according to IBM.) Users can also continue to maintain their applications in the Advantage development environment and generate EJB updates as needed.

The new EJB capability will help CA's ISV customers break into new markets. "The fact that Advantage Plex allows us to use our Windows and iSeries application designs for the J2EE [Java 2 Enterprise Edition] market is fantastic," said Roger Griffith, vice president of information technology at Computer Arts, which writes software for government and law enforcement agencies. Likewise, Fiserv Life Insurance Solutions will be looking to offer EJB versions of its OS/400-based products. "Being able to extend these solutions to the J2EE platform gives us greater flexibility and significantly broadens our market," said Terry Crawford, director of technical services at the company.

EJBs generated by Advantage Plex and Advantage 2E will run on a full spectrum of J2EE-compliant Web application servers, including IBM's WebSphere, BEA Systems' WebLogic, and Oracle's 9iAS. Users will need Advantage Joe 3.0 for EJB deployment, because this product provides a "common staging area" for deploying the EJBs to Web app servers, CA says.

Web development looks to be a priority for CA. Last year, the company released a product called Cool:2E Web Option, which provided a screen rejuvenation solution for applications running in 5250 mode on the iSeries. Today, that product goes by the name of Advantage 2E Web Option.

For more information on Advantage 2E or Advantage Plex, go to CA's Advantage Web site.

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