THE NETWORKOLOGIST

Activating Internet Applications

Developing a Web-based application isn't as simple as using a Web-modernized development tool to slap an Internet veneer on an existing client/server application. Yet strong is the lure of the thin client, three-tier Internet application architecture with the promise of lower cost of application ownership, and just maybe, at long last, the integration of information from client/server and legacy applications into a uniform view.

In September, Autodesk plans to deploy a Java- and Internet-based application that will enable its dealers to perform online order entry. If the pilot is a success, Autodesk will roll out this Customer Satisfaction Center application to hundreds of dealers during the ne xt six months. T he impetus for building the system is all too familiar. Autodesk's dealers were "screaming" for an online ordering system to increase efficiency, according to Fai Wong, Autodesk's manager of electronic commerce technology.

Autodesk's business data is locked up in 26 applications and databases on a variety of systems worldwide. Getting data out of so many systems and coherently organizing it is an expensive proposition, and many large companies in similar situations try a combination of client/server development and middleware. Autodesk put the word out of its wish to build an online ordering system, and after vetting 10 vendors and weighing the build-versus-buy decision, the company found that the technology answers didn't solve its business problem.

Fortune stepped in. Julius Salud, director of business operations at Autodesk, and his team sent e-mail to everyone they knew who was working on a solution to this kind of problem, and Jim Green and Active Software turned up.

Act ive Software is a br and new start-up with an enviable pedigree. Green, chairman and co-founder, started and ran Sun Microsystems' distributed objects program. Rafael Bracho, the chief technical officer, was lead architect for NEWS. Active Software's Java GUI builder is the visual Java builder in SunSoft's Java WorkShop. ActiveWeb itself was written almost entirely using Java.

Salud and Green had a meeting of the minds. Each independently described the same architecture. Salud was looking for flexibility. "I was looking for a lightweight messaging system in terms of the Internet and for modem lines as well as for the enterprise systems and databases I would use." He was looking for a system that would last. "I call it a Generational Interface (GI). Jim Green calls it ActiveWeb. The GI bridges my syst em from generation to generat ion, so if I want to change from SAP to Oracle, I can." Try that with traditional client/server. Salud was looking for a system that would hide complexity, not increase it. Using ActiveWeb, they have to interface with only six systems, which Wong calls "a maintenance and a development blessing." Because ActiveWeb includes a communications system, middleware and a Java development tool (including a visual developer which Autodesk didn't use), Autodesk programmers could focus on the business logic and leave the rest to Active.

Salud views ActiveWeb as a solution to another nagging problem of enterprise systems. Despite their grand scope , in order to be manageable they must be implemented in components, which their architecture does not easily facilitate. ActiveWeb lets Salud build and roll out in manageable units.

Autodesk dealers will use the Java-based order entry system to communicate via the Internet or modems with the ActiveWeb Information Broker at Autodesk. The I nformation Broker handles commun ications with the different resources such as databases and applications, which in the case of the order entry system, is SAP R/3. The Information Broker ensures guaranteed delivery of the messages, routes the information in the enterprise network, queues information until it can be delivered and filters information on behalf of the receiving application. ActiveWeb Adapters enable users to publish information from the databases to client applications that have subscribed to them.

The next phase of the order entry system will support electronic payments over the Internet. Future plans call for a contract manager, serial number manager and license manager, developed using ActiveWeb.

Patricia Schnaidt can be reached at pschnaidt@nwc.com