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Dataface, Inc. |
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Software and services without fluff or bit-twiddling! |
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Smart Clients |
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DEFINITION
Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) The state of the art in large-scale application design is to build a framework in which different applications can exchange data and perform services for each other by respecting strongly defined interfaces, usually called contracts. This architecture makes it possible to evolve the system by re-engineering individual parts without disturbing or destroying the entire edifice of the enterprise.
Web Services and Smart Clients The primary technology for building such an SOA is the Web Service. A Web Service is an entry point to applications on a server or host system. On the desktop, a program which invokes Web Services is called a “smart client” in the Microsoft world, sometimes referred to elsewhere as a “rich client”. The terminology distinguishes the SOA environment from earlier ASP and JSP technologies, which use a “thin client” (a web browser) on the desktop and do essentially all their processing embedded in a web server. Thin clients were a reversion to the mainframe and green-screen model of 20-30 years ago.
THE BENEFITS
User productivity The other important benefit is that users can work better when they see their data on screens that are more complex and helpful, instead of the slower and more simplistic screens provided by web browsers or by terminal emulators.
Maintainability Many organizations are suffering from such a high burden of maintenance costs that their I.T. departments are paralyzed and incapable of responding to business needs. It is widely reported that 80% of corporate I.T. budgets are devoted to urgent maintenance. An SOA offers a safe way to make incremental improvements and replacements of business logic.
Processing capacity A service oriented architecture makes more economical use of installed hardware because most processing takes place on desktop PCs that would otherwise be idle, rather than on a server farm that needs constant upgrades as the number of users and the number of applications increase. It reduces not only the cost of centrally located hardware, but also the cost of administration, because the Web Services are far simpler to manage than a web server with huge numbers of HTML pages and embedded script fragments and program libraries. Finally, it makes better use of bandwidth, because only data is exchanged, not layout and scripting information.
WHAT WE PROVIDE
We have expertise and components to guide smart client development for both departmental applications and software vendors. We focus on satisfying business needs with safe and simple techniques, avoiding the temptation to play with the latest technology. The rapid evolution of technology is a tremendous burden on computer departments – early Visual Basic implementations are already considered “legacy” applications. We are very conscious that a customer may need to unplug one technology and replace it with another at some point in the future, so we design cautiously to avoid welding our business logic to external components that may well change beyond recognition. |
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Dataface, Inc. |
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Software and services without fluff or bit-twiddling! |
