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June 22, 1998

Make The Web Work For You

continued...page 6 of 6

SilverStream's development platform is conducive to building sophisticated transaction-oriented applications that integrate with systems that manage unstructured data. The development environment is targeted to build powerful and rich applications in Java, although the system can automatically generate HTML renditions of the applications for low-speed lines or deployments with unknown browser types.

SilverStream uses a tiered development approach, which allows different classes of users to contribute to the development effort. Developers with little experience can develop basic parts of the application without any programming or scripting. More experienced personnel can use simple agents to write scripts to perform certain tasks.

Finally, the most experienced developers who need flexibility can write Java code for the application, or modify the Java code that has already been built via the agents and drag-and-drop development. However, the system lacks some productivity features such as color coding and fully interactive debugging.

SilverStream is strong in tying unstructured data to structured data in applications such as sales-force automation. For example, structured data such as customer information from a database can be linked with unstructured data such as meeting notes and electronic documents such as proposals and faxes. SilverStream is also good for collaborative applications in which users interact with databases and repositories.

The SilverStream application server is solid in principle, providing many of the services required for Web applications. All application information and metadata is stored in a relational database, providing granular security on objects. The server ties in closely with Windows NT's Domain security model and provides its own security model as well. It even includes Fulcrum Technologies' full-text indexing and search engine, and support for seven different languages, including English, French, Dutch, Spanish, and German.

However, the server still lags in areas such as scalability and availability. It doesn't provide enough in the way of multiserver support, dynamic load balancing, or connections to back-end legacy and enterprise data stores. SilverStream has targeted enhancements in these areas for future releases.

Tengah Application Server 3.1
WebLogic's Tengah Application Server 3.1 is an enterprise application server, as opposed to a full-featured end-to-end integrated development environment. The Tengah Application Server is completely based on Java and runs on Windows and Unix platforms.

Tengah's reliance on Java programming skills is one of its biggest strengths, but also one of its biggest limitations. With a fully open Java platform, Tengah provides the freedom to run applications on any platform and provides a great solution for companies that are dependent on Java. But you'll need experienced Java programmers to build your applications.

Since the product doesn't come with an IDE, developers can use their favorite Java development tools to build applications. Tengah takes advantage of most Java standards such as Enterprise JavaBeans, Java Server Page, Java Transaction Service, Java Messaging Service, Java Naming Directory Interface, and Java Database Connectivity. In fact, WebLogic has developed its own JDBC drivers that come with Tengah, but they are also available separately and are bundled with other products, such as NetDynamics.

The Tengah Server is designed to run any application written in pure Java, with no modifications required. This is possible even if developers have used components such as custom Java classes and JavaBeans to shield them from low-level development. This simplifies the migration of existing Java applications to the Tengah server.

With this approach, any Java application can automatically take advantage of Tengah's robust enterprise features and services. Tengah provides services such as multithreading, database connection pooling, and load balancing. The custom code for these services resides beneath the native interfaces, so developers don't have to deal with these custom classes when building applications for Tengah.

Jeetu Patel is VP of research with Doculabs, Jack Porter is Doculabs' expert on development, and Joe Fenner is Doculabs' senior technical writer. Doculabs is an advisory firm in Chicago that specializes in information-management technologies, including Web application development tools, knowledge management, document management, and intranets. Contact Doculabs at 312-433-7793, or info@doculabs.com.

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