A high-end middleware solution from Bradmark Technologies is a fundamental building block in a proposed architecture that includes MPE/iX computers in an open system design. Bradmark's new Cooperative Open Platform Architecture (COPA) is getting a jump start in delivering more tangible value than most standards, because Bradmark is referencing the specification through two popular HP 3000 applications: Smith-Gardner Associates' MACS and CA's MANMAN.
Both of these products are getting interface and performance improvements by incorporating API components which use StarVision, Bradmark's middleware product that connects applications from 3000s and other servers to client-based resources. StarVision doesn't follow the ODBC database connectivity model. Instead, it uses standby technology to keep the software's listener ready so applications will be awake for the next request coming from the client.
The StarVision design increases the number of applications and sessions that can be open at once on an HP 3000, in part because it reduces the time to mount processes on servers like the HP 3000. StarVision's APIs are driving two solutions which are just emerging in the new and old 3000 heartlands of mail order management and manufacturing.
For mail order, HP 3000 customers can now use Web Order, a client-server solution that allows MACS customers to Web-enable their applications. Web Order is the interface layer above the MACS code, translating data streams from the HP 3000 and delivering them to a Web server. StarVision maintains performance levels close to regular OLTP connections through its API, which creates and throttles back processes as a function of hits on the Web server.
HP's Alvina Nishimoto, who's working as CSY's Internet R&D manager, commented that StarVision "is a viable solution for large scale systems or enterprises, because the API offers flexibility to the HP 3000." The size of the potential StarVision customer's operation is important, because the solution requires programming resource from either the customer or StarVision. This may not matter to customers who want to leverage a lot of existing code in COBOL or SPL applications, since the time spent to implement the API might be far less than writing a new application from scratch.
While StarVision may not care much for ODBC standards -- a position paper on COPA asserts that "ODBC doesn't seriously address the server environment" -- it does appear to be performance-friendly. Neil Meta of Bradmark is frank about where the solution fits. Load balancing isn't needed in casual connections between PCs and 3000, but it's vital to electronic commerce viability.
"When somebody comes to us and says they may make an ad hoc query once from Access or Excel," he said, "what am I going to tell them -- you need a Ferrari to do that? They need to use Minisoft's ODBC, or Omnidex or NetBase Client technology. But in the e-commerce area, we're carving out a nice niche for ourselves."
Following the common trade-off of non-standard design for superior performance, StarVision gets tapped by developers in places where ODBC overhead needs to be eliminated to justify a graphical interface. Designers who need to transfer data as needed from IMAGE/SQL-driven application databases to the rest of the enterprise are making use of StarVision, according to Meta. That's why the API has been deployed in StarMan, a set of GUI client-server programs that drive MANMAN on HP 3000s.
Bradmark, and partners such as The Support Group, are selling StarMan for MANMAN sites that want to distribute processing power between PCs and their MANMAN HP 3000 host. The graphical interface extends MANMAN's OMAR, Manufacturing, Sales Order Entry and CS/440 (purchase order entry) commands. A separate set of Purchase Requisition System, Quotation and Return Material Authorization modules feed MANMAN systems from Unix or NT servers and require an ODBC-compliant database. Bradmark's Brad Tashenberg said that StarMan "is an out-of-the-box product, taking very little time to implement."
StarMan is crafted by Quantum Software, the company that first offered similar AdvanceMan GUI modules through The Support Group for MANMAN earlier this year. (See "MANMAN sites get client-server for HP 3000s," February 1997 NewsWire.) Quantum rewrote the AdvanceMan modules using StarVision as its API and calls the product StarMan. StarVision's "standby agent" capabilities will let StarMan create processes in advance in versions of the software Bradmark is promising for release next year.
Quantum is resolving the differences between StarVision and ODBC access by writing application-aware DLLs that can link StarMan's MANMAN databases with PC applications such as Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Access.
Bradmark says it's committed to the development of such products that are "COPA-based," the practical definition of which appears to be "uses StarVision." In cases where performance needs override connectivity standards, Bradmark has helped HP 3000 applications such as MACS and MANMAN extend interfaces while minimizing the hit on performance. Bradmark is also working on aligning its own DBGENERAL database tools for IMAGE with COPA, using the StarVision API technology to create single-console management of databases on different platforms.
"We're taking some pieces from DBGENERAL Enterprise Management, some of the pieces from StarVision, and some of the pieces from our classic [DBGENERAL] product lines," Tashenberg said. "We'll be packing them in a very useful form for the HP 3000 user."
StarMan is priced starting at $8,000 for OMAR on lower tiers of HP 3000s (Series 918s, 948s and 950s, for example) with an extra $4,500 charge in that tier for 16 StarVision Connectivity Engine connections (required). The software costs $16,000 $21,000 per module in middle tier systems (such as Series 959s) and $20,500-26,500 for Series 969 and 979 4-way systems and Emerald-class 3000s. Discounts of 10-20 percent are availble for purchasing multiple modules.