InformationWeek

Transaction Aid

Sybase middleware controls database workloads on company Web sites

By John Foley
Issue date: March 31, 1997

Sybase is the latest player to take on the challenge of managing database transactions on the Web and corporate intranets. The software developer this week will unveil its Jaguar Component Transaction Server, middleware that helps control database workloads in computing environments where usage is hard to predict, such as company Web sites.

Jaguar CTS will be introduced at the JavaOne confere nce in San Francisco. A Jaguar software developers' kit will be available April 2 for beta testing from Sybase's Web site .

Also at JavaOne, Sybase is expected to announce general availability of its Java Database Connectivity software, jConnect, which provides a link between Java applets and Sybase's SQL Server and SQL Anywhere database-management systems. Jaguar CTS and jConnect can be used together to set up transaction-processing Web servers that run Java applications. "You want predictable performance in an unpredictable environment," says Gary Steele, VP and general manager of middleware and data warehousing at Sybase, in Emeryville, Calif.

Component Support
Jaguar CTS will support mainstream software components, including Java, Corba, ActiveX, C and C++. Sybase is licensing Visigenic Software's Corba-complaint C++ and Java object request brokers for inclusion in the middleware.

Sybase is positioning Jaguar CTS as an "agnostic" product that work s with other vendors' databases and development tools. Robert Craig, an analyst with the Hurwitz Group, a technology consulting firm in Newton, Mass., takes the claim seriously, pointing to Sybase's experience delivering cross-platform database middleware. "They have a good understanding of these things," Craig says.

Jaguar is slated to ship in the third quarter on Windows NT and Unix. Pricing has not been announced.

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