The Magic of uniPaaS

This Blog Has Moved

2012-06-11T14:23:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to announce a new name and URL for this blog:

The Magic Application Platform blog is now located at http://magicapplicationplatform.blogspot.com/

You will already find a number of interesting new articles there on Big Data, SNMP, Version Control and much more. I invite all Magic developers and anyone interested in metadata application platforms, mobile and cloud computing to continue reading there.

Why the change? As you may be aware, the Magic Application Platform has been rebranded and the old name of uniPaaS applies to prior versions. Beginning with 2.2, the new platform name is the Magic xpa Application Platform. So I decided to relaunch the blog as the Magic Application Platform blog. All of the old content will remain posted here and I hope you will all continue to find it useful. Many of the old links will be broken and I may or may not have time to update them. I have been quite surprised by the large size of the following for the Magic of uniPaaS blog and I hope you will all make the transition to the Magic Application Platform blog. The names have changed, but the objective of providing valuable educational content for developers and IT managers remains the same. Good reading!

Glenn Johnson
Blogger-In-Chief

Magic Application Platform: “Take Me to Your Developer!”

2012-05-17T05:00:00.000-07:00

Just when you thought you would never like a cross-platform mobile development platform, Magic Software has introduced a MEAP platform that makes sense. Previous MEAPs were either frustratingly uniform in their approach to user interface design or overly limiting in the way a native app could be designed for iOS. The Magic Application Platform iOS client has finally landed and the news is very, very good. It may seem like it was a long way coming, like an alien from a distant planet but “We’re Here!” and we are saying loud and clear: “Take Me To Your Developer!”

The Magic iOS client is a native device OS RIA application designed to take advantage of iOS mobile device capabilities, while being connected to a scalable, robust enterprise server. For those familiar with the Magic Application Platform, the Magic iOS client implements a subset of the capabilities of the Magic RIA client for .NET Desktop, as they are applicable on an iPhone or iPad device.

And you get loads of native device capabilities.

Let’s Play “Where’s Waldo?” er, “Where’s Waldo’s Phone?”

With the Magic Application Platform the developer can create applications for the Magic iOS Client that leverage the devices' GPS. The ClientOSEnvGet function can be used to query the current device location using the internal or connected GPS device. Function syntax in the Magic Application Platform is selected in an intuitive table driven development wizard interface. So for example,

ClientOSEnvGet (‘device_location’) will return the current device location, using available location options such as GPS or Network. The result is a string in the following format: “OK|Latitude|Longitude”, where OK is a fixed part for testing if a result was returned, and Latitude and Longitude are the coordinates of the current location. If a location could not be obtained, for any reason, an error message will be returned.

Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words?

The applications you create can also use the camera in the iOS client using the Magic Application Platform’s ClientFileOpenDlg function. Be sure to specify the path as camera, so that the camera will be opened. This will enable the user to take a picture and select it. The full path name of the picture will be returned from the function. It is then possible to upload this picture to the server using the ClientFileToServer function, or by loading it into a BLOB variable.

Developing Apps that Access Miscellaneous iOS capabilities on iPhones and iPads

In situations where it is possible to use device capabilities such as calling a phone number, sending an SMS, sending an email and opening a browser, the developer can create app capabilities for that. On the Magic Application Platform the developer can leverage iOS device capabilities by using the Invoke OS command with the URL of the required command.

All of the following examples would be valid parameters for the Invoke OS command:

tel:1-408-555-5555

sms:1-408-555-1212

mailto:chunkylover53@aol.com

mailto:?to=tcook@apple.com

http://magicsoftware.com

More than Window Dressing for iOS

Of course the Magic Application Platform delivers more than just window dressing for the iOS Client. Your developers can now build Magic mobile apps that run in a native iOS client and perform important business transactions. These apps are also easily targeted to Android, BlackBerry, etc. Regardless of which mobile client is connected, they can all access the same backend Magic Enterprise Server. So your boss can use your app on his iPhone, your colleagues can strut your apps on their BlackBerry devices and you can run it on your guilty-pleasure Android.

OK, now that you have taken the Magic Application Platform to your developer, take it to your leader and get the mobile apps you need today!

What is a mobile enterprise application platform (MEAP)?

2012-05-16T03:30:00.000-07:00

What is a mobile enterprise application platform (MEAP)?

MEAP, n., mobile enterprise application platform, an integrated development and deployment environment allowing for a single basis of development for multiple native client experiences across a variety of smartphones.

Gartner says that: "A Mobile Enterprise Application Platform (MEAP) is a development and deployment framework that provides tools for client, server and middleware for mobile. Targeting any mobile application on any device, ranging from a smartphone to a tablet; multichannel and offline capabilities. Best for companies that wish to deploy multiple applications on a single infrastructure, scaled to the size of their current mobile offering and available in an online and offline mode."

Ideally, a MEAP provides a unitary approach to the development and deployment of software for smartphones and tablets, i.e. mobile apps. Without a MEAP, the development effort grows exponentially and many enterprises have already wasted millions of dollars only to discover how difficult it is to develop for multiple, changing target mobile platforms.

As Jones et. al. put it: “Take for example a small apps company developing for iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7. They would have to employ three teams of developers, as often, skillsets don’t mix. They would have to maintain three different codebases, and synchronize feature additions and bug fixes across the three. This is a daunting challenge, and one reason why many apps are launched across stores with months of delay. Furthermore, quality and design consistency will vary when multiple developer teams are involved, and especially when the development for a new platform is outsourced to a third party. Support costs are also difficult to contain when developing for multiple platforms, as developer documentation needs to be built for three platforms, as does the internal customer support documentation.” (Jones, et. Al., VisionMobile: The Clash of the Ecosystems Report, February 2012, VisionMobile).

A MEAP provides an enterprise IT team with way to leverage a singles skillset – development capabilities in the MEAP language or paradigm – and still have the ability, perhaps for the first time, to produce mobile apps across a wide variety of devices: iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, etc.

While it may not be true that a consensus has formed around the idea that a MEAP is the only way to viably develop and deploy enterprise mobile apps for mobile devices, a significant community coalition is forming around this approach. As CIO.com states: “"Consumerization of IT" may be an overused phrase, but it is by no means a fad. Workers nationwide are coming to expect that personal devices will connect to corporate networks.” So the pressure is clearly being placed on IT departments to create mobile apps that run on a variety of devices. It is important that IT decision makers divorce themselves from their own religious zeal about their own favorite mobile platform and realize that we live in a pluralistic society, so to speak, when it comes to mobile devices. In today’s modern and technologically divergent world it is impolite to try to impose one’s own mobile device bias on another.

MEAPs are not immune to the debate over HTML5 vs native. Even a mobile platform such as Magic Software’s application platform which supports both HTML5 merge and native deployment via specific native RIA clients on each platform is finding itself stressed to take sides in the HTML5 debate.

As Jones et. al. state: “The perennial question for many developers is whether to use a web-browser approach to deploying mobile apps, or whether to create native applications. Web apps provide a large addressable market, at the cost of web-only distribution and a comparatively shallow experience. Native apps allow for much deeper device integration and experiences, but at the cost of a platform-specific addressable market.” (Jones, et. Al., VisionMobile The Clash of the Ecosystems Report, February 2012, VisionMobile).

But Krebs and Klein are less ambiguous with their opinion: “However, for enterprises looking to develop sophisticated mobile B2B and B2E applications across a variety of mobile platforms to a large number of users leveraging a MEAP currently represents the most viable option.” (Krebs & Klein, Native & HTML5 Mobile Apps: Not an either or, but a where and when…, February 2012, VDC Research.)

This bias against HTML5 is understandable. In recent compatibility tests, HTML5 was found to be less than a third compatible with the Windows Phone 7.5 Mango browser. HTML5 was closest to being compatible with the Firefox Mobile 10 browser and even then it was barely two-thirds compatible.

Compliance fragmentation is not without cost. “The result of this “compliance fragmentation” is that web app developers have to spend copious time and resources in cross-optimising their web apps for the major smartphone platforms. Perhaps most notable is the case of Assanka, makers of the Financial Times popular HTML5 app, who took 24 man months to create the news reader HTML5 application for the iPad, and another 12 man months to port that same application to Android.” (Jones, et. Al., VisionMobile The Clash of the Ecosystems Report, February 2012, VisionMobile).

And all of these technical fragmentation issues are occurring even as GUI standards are shifting; Business Processes are being “unbundled”; and Business Apps are being designed to compete for attention in the “attention economy.” In short, expectations are at an all-time high while standardization seems to be at its lowest point ever.

To overcome the lack of standards, enterprises need a shortcut. “MEAPs are perhaps best positioned for enterprises looking to develop sophisticated enterprise-grade mobile applications that leverage multiple data sources scaled across various devices and OS platforms and are offered to a multitude of employees.” (Krebs & Klein, Native & HTML5 Mobile Apps: Not an either or, but a where and when…, February 2012, VDC Research.)

Jones et. al. concede: “The cross-platform tools market is in a state of abundant developer volatility. Comparing the CPTs developers are currently using vs. planning to use or abandoning, we see continual flux, as developers try a tool, and then churn to a different one. This is a market with no clear winners or losers. It’s a market where there is little developer loyalty, and perceptions are still being formed. This is a great time for wellfunded vendors to establish a beachhead of developer marketing and inch themselves apart in terms of mindshare.” (Jones, et. Al., VisionMobile The Clash of the Ecosystems Report, February 2012, VisionMobile).

Magic Software (NASDAQ:MGIC) is fortunate in that it is one of the largest MEAP vendors in the market and the only entrant with a pure-play attitude, well established and scalable broker technology, and global reach.

Deploying apps from Magic Software’s application platform is highly flexible. All of the platform-specific options for app deployment are supported by Magic Software including vendor app stores. Magic apps can be launched from the home screen in iOS or the app drawer on Android devices. Magic provides an amazingly mature and well-established WYSIWYG drag-and-drop, form-based environment with table-driven settings used to define the business logic.

As the mobile enterprise application platform or MEAP approach gains favor amongst a growing number of large and midsize enterprise IT departments, Magic Software will benefit from the lion’s share of the new business being generated for MEAP platforms. MEAP is a mobile app development concept that must be taken seriously in today’s era of cost-conscious IT spending amidst rising consumer and business expectations.

Additional important concepts:

What is a mobile app?

How does mobile app designdiffer from design for desktop and webapps?

What is a mobile enterprise?

How do mobile enterprise application platforms (MEAP) differ?

How can I make money as a mobile app developer?

What job skills do I need to develop mobile apps?

In-Memory Computing: Future Proof Scalability

2012-05-15T11:11:00.000-07:00

At the Sapphire 2012 Conference in Orlando tomorrow SAP Chariman and Cofounder Dr. Hasso Plattner will once again address the subject of in-memory computing. SAP’s attempt to dominate the in-memory computing discussion risks burying a serious conversation about computing in a pile of marketing drivel disguised as academic research. But that’s probably alright. Technology is not science, but it depends on it.

The SAP HANA solution has finally developed enough that SAP has customers creating prototypes with it today. It is both different and more immature than say Hadoop or Gigaspaces.

All of these technologies present interesting possibilities designed to take advantage of today’s more powerful and ubiquitous hardware, enable multitenant cloud architectures and enable massive scalability based on parallelization.

We’ve been talking about the possibilities of grid computing for more than a decade. I remember a visit I made to IBM Research Labs in early 2001 and attending lectures by IBM research scientists on the subject of grid computing. At the time, IBM seemed poised to dominate the future of grid computing. But as always seems to happen, the dialog has evolved as technologies converge and paradigms shift. Now we’re talking more about in-memory computing and multitenancy than we are about grid computing.

As the technologies that provide the foundations for applications evolve, so too will application and integration platforms from Magic Software. As in-memory databases begin to replace traditional disk-based SQL databases the physical writing of the data to disk will be functionally akin to tape backup systems.

The benefit of these new approaches will be found in hyper-scalability of enterprise systems and elasticity in the cloud. As the underlying physical servers evolve and the data layer moves from disk to memory, the Magic application and integration platforms will keep right on running. Companies that seek to take even greater advantage of multicore architectures and the affordability of massive amounts of main memory will be able to continue using the Magic application platform to develop and deploy their applications. Magic sometimes calls our approach “future-proofing” which means that the platform adapts to the underlying changes so that your applications need to change as little as possible to take advantage of the new possibilities.

Hadoop is a slightly older concept and it has the distinction of being an open source project (depending on your bias/predisposition you may read that as good, bad or in-between). Gigaspaces is a more mature and commercial solution with a very complete stack that sits between (or within) the application infrasturcture and the application itself.

In its marketing and technical communications, SAP likes to focus on the difference between online transaction processing (OLTP) and online analytical processing (OLAP) and points out that OLTP takes a row based approach where data is read a row at a time while OLAP looks at data a column at a time. The nature of physical disks makes the physical arrangement of the data on the disk important to performance and therefore the data is read in either row order or column order. In-memory computing is silicon based and makes physical location virtually irrelevant. The same database can now be read in either row order or column order with no latency penalty. In this regard, they are really just “selling the category.” There is nothing proprietary about SAP’s in-memory computing approach in this regard. The HANA appliance has been alternatively praised as the future of the cloud and criticized as cloud-washing. The whole argument seems irrelevant to me as in-memory computing is definitely making the transition to the cloud easier. Oracle’s market response is interesting as they seem to be treating it more as a BI skirmish whereas SAP treats the debate as part of a full-spectrum IT paradigm shift. At the end of the day, its all just another good reason to align with the smarter, future-proof technology in Magic’s metadata driven platforms.

Defining the Mobile Enterprise

2012-04-23T02:08:00.000-07:00

Mobile Enterprise, n., a business whose primary nature or strategic advantage derives from the agility attained by deploying a significant proportion of its workforce in a mobile fashion and facilitating their interaction with customers, suppliers and one another without primary dependence on a fixed location.

In attempting to define the mobile enterprise, Rahul C. Basole, PhD of the Tennenbaum Institute at the Georgia Institute of Technology proposes that:

The mobile enterprise is built on a foundation of processes and technologies allowing full access and instrumented insight to all organizational resources, resulting in improved adaptability, access, and interaction among employees, customers, partners, and suppliers, independent of location.

His work remains useful in defining and understanding the mobile enterprise to this day. As Basole notes, the mobile enterprise can be comprised of two groups of workers, those who primarily work on-site and those whose work is normally performed off-site or independent of location. In the first group of on-site workers are the desk workers, on-site rovers, and site wanderers. In the second off-site group are the tele workers, off-site rovers, road warriors and global cruisers.

The initial response to the overall need for enterprise mobility has been to develop ad hoc native smartphone applications to serve the needs of many of these workers. As Krebs & Klein point out: “However, for enterprises looking to develop sophisticated mobile B2B and B2E applications across a variety of mobile platforms to a large number of users leveraging a MEAP currently represents the most viable option.” (Krebs & Klein, Native & HTML5 Mobile Apps: Not an either or, but a where and when…, February 2012, VDC Research.)

I am at the largest independent gathering Oracle Software users this week in Las Vegas and while on-site am conducting a live webinar with Microsoft. The challenge of enterprise mobility is an increasingly hot topic in business today. Users of enterprise systems have traditionally been deskbound workers and mobile, or off-site workers as Basole defined them, have often had access to little more than email, making them fully dependent on their office bound colleagues for execution of simple tasks.

With the introduction of the enterprise mobile mashup, users of mobile apps on a wide variety of platforms can directly access relevant data and execute context sensitive and mission critical business processes from the convenience of their smartphone or tablet devices. This evolution in capabilities provides revolutionary possibilities for business success.

Gartner says that: “A Mobile Enterprise Application Platform (MEAP) is a development and deployment framework that provides tools for client, server and middleware for mobile. Targeting any mobile application on any device, ranging from a smartphone to a tablet; multichannel and offline capabilities. Best for companies that wish to deploy multiple applications on a single infrastructure, scaled to the size of their current mobile offering and available in an online and offline mode."

Additional important concepts:

What is a mobile app?

How does mobile app design differ from DESIGN FOR desktop and web apps?

What is a mobile enterprise application platform (MEAP)?

How do mobile enterprise application platforms (MEAP) differ?

How can I make money as a mobile app developer?

What job skills do I need to develop mobile apps?

2012-04-05T13:43:00.002-07:00

Magic Software is pleased to invite JD Edwards customers attending the Collaborate 12 conference in Las Vegas to attend the JDE Alliance After Party at the Mandalay Bay Border Grill. If you are attending Collaborate 12 in Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay April 23-26, 2012 and are a JD Edwards customer, please drop by the JDE Alliance Pavilion located in Aisles 800 and 900 for your JDE Alliance wristband. The wristband and your Collaborate badge will get you into the party. While in the pavilion, be sure to ask how to qualify for the JDE Alliance USB flash drive.

To see a demonstration of the Magic Integration Platform while at the conference visit us in booth 332. While there, enter our Questopoly drawing for a Kindle Fire, pick up your free Media Lounger for your smartphone and get your upgrade to the 9s coupon for a $9000 cash rebate (see details).

While at Collaborate, please consider attending the education session by TOTO on Monday April 23.

3:45 pm - 4:45 pm Educational Breakout Session

TOTO Session 98420 “Enhanced Customer Satisfaction with JD Edwards+SalesForce+UPS World Ship Integration”

I look forward to seeing you all in attendance. Be sure to read the "Integrate My JDE" blog at http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/integrate-my-jde/

Collaborate 12 is shaping up to be the best Oracle User Community Event ever. Please make plans to attend and join in the excitement.

How does mobile app design differ from design for desktop and web apps?

2012-04-03T18:12:00.000-07:00

Designing business applications for mobile smartphones and tablets is often described simply in terms of screen size. While it is a factor, this is only one of the important differences to keep in mind when designing mobile apps. I’ve developed an acronym to help mobile app developers think about best practice when designing for mobile apps: P.O.O.D.L.E.

By considering the differences in context between desktop or web applications and mobile apps, we can begin to see the outlines of best practice design considerations. Consider these six dimensions of mobile app design when developing new smartphone and tablet applications whether with a Mobile Enterprise Application Platform or through more tedious native development tools:

Pressed-for-time. The mobile user is typically in a time crunch when compared to their desktop computing counterparts. Attention spans are shorter, the need for extensive information and data is far less. In fact, thoroughness of data and information will often be viewed as a negative an a mobile app. Mobile users want just the pertinent facts and procedures because they are pressed for time. They are often in the midst of doing something else and the use of the mobile app is literally an interruption to their current task. Pressed-for-time means apps need to be aware of the multi-tasking being done by the user. The app needs to allow the user to get in, get out and be done. POODLE Rule-of-thumb: Mobile apps should typically involve no more than 2-3 screens.

On-the-spot. Mobile apps are usually at their best when they are location sensitive. Accessing the GPS for location allows the application to lookup relevant data, display locations on a map and so on. Geocoding requires developers to think in new ways about data relationships. From a design standpoint a mashup of Google Maps or other geocoded information can be especially useful to mobile app users. POODLE Rule-of-thumb: Limit initial application scope based on where the user is currently or most recently located.

On-the-go. Keep in mind that the current location of the device is not always the location the mobile user is concerned about. A mobile user is often thinking about “where to go next” and not simply where they are. For this reason a mix of GPS, server-side geocoded data and user entry about desired locations will need to be a part of the application. POODLE Rule-of-thumb: Allow the user to easily indicate an alternate, more relevant location from where they are currently located.

Device-specific. Not only are mobile screens smaller and the interface method different (no mouse and usually no physical keyboard) but the devices vary drastically from model to model. Size, screen resolution, camera resolution, battery life can all make a difference. Poor application design that constantly drains a battery through GPS use or radio use can become a real issue. If a company has to program in different languages for BlackBerry, Apple iOS, Android and Windows Phone, this can be extremely resource costly. Consider a Mobile Enterprise Application Platform (MEAP) suchas Magic’s application platform to overcome these duplicate efforts. POODLE Rule-of-thumb: MEAP Platforms Reduce Development by 35-90%.

Leveraged-Data. When designing business apps, it is essential that the apps leverage backend data and business processes so that the mobile user is fully connected to the business without having to interact directly with enterprise IT systems. An enterprise mobile mashup will allow the business app designer to leverage data and processes for the most effective user experience. POODLE Rule-of-thumb: Enterprise mobile mashups increase app acceptance by 35%.

Expressly-Personal. With traditional business software, the user learns to navigate a series of screens and interfaces to accomplish their tasks. With a mobile app, user navigation is resource intensive and regarded as a waste of time. Mobile apps should learn the preferences of the user to personalize the interaction without the user having to set preferences and options. If I press the same three navigation buttons every time I use the app, shouldn’t that become my start page?

Mobile applications should be expressly personal experiences allowing the user to interact when, where and how they want to. Apps should be limited in scope so as to be more intimate and personal to the specific need of the user at that moment. Other apps can accomplish other tasks for other users. POODLE Rule-of-thumb: Tailor applications on-the-fly in a way that lets the user know you have been paying attention to their preferences.

What’s all the POODLE about? It’s just a way to organize a few ideas about mobile app development and how it needs to be approached differently than the development of traditional desktop and web applications. I’m sure we could extend the acronym further to POODLES and discuss security and other important issues. But for now, we'll let sleeping apps lie.

Additional important concepts:

What is a mobile app?

What is a mobile enterprise?

What is a mobile enterprise application platform (MEAP)?

How do mobile enterprise application platforms (MEAP) differ?

How can I make money as a mobile app developer?

What job skills do I need to develop mobile apps?

What is a mobile app?

2012-03-30T09:48:00.000-07:00

mobile app (n.) a software program that runs on a smartphone, tablet or similar device.

Many people ask this question about the definition of mobile app because they are looking for a precise technical definition. As with many commonly used technology terms, mobile app does not refer to a specific standard or protocol but rather to a general category of technology solutions.

What is a mobile app?

Mobile app is, of course, a shortened form of mobile application. Mobile apps are software programs that run on mobile devices including smartphones and tablets. Many use Internet protocols for transport and communication layers while others are standalone applications that run entirely on the mobile phone without any need for server side communication. They may run in the web browser of a smartphone, within a native rich client container or as a standalone native application.

Similar to other applications, a mobile app has a data layer, a business logic layer and a user interface layer. As with other client-server and web application architectures, when mobile apps interact with a server, there is also a need for a communication and transport layer as well as server context management.

The Magic RIA clients for Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Android and iOS are native operating system (OS) applications for any of these devices, implementing the Magic RIA client protocol. They are essentially mobile apps themselves that interact with metadata to run the client side of the mobile apps created using the development studio of the Magic application platform. This same development studio can also create the server side application running on backend enterprise systems (Windows, Linux, Unix and IBM i).

So with any of these Magic RIA clients for the different mobile devices, developers can deploy enterprise connected, highly interactive RIA applications on the different mobile devices: Android, BlackBerry, iOS and Windows Mobile. For this reason, the Magic Application Platform is considered to fully support the Mobile Enterprise Application Platform concept.

Additional important concepts:

How does mobile app design differ from design for desktop and web apps?
What is a mobile enterprise?

What is a mobile enterprise application platform (MEAP)?

How do mobile enterprise application platforms (MEAP) differ?

How can I make money as a mobile app developer?

What job skills do I need to develop mobile apps?

Metro UI Debate: Planned Obsolescence Ahead

2012-03-21T09:26:00.001-07:00

With all the debate suddenly surrounding the Metro design spec introduced by Microsoft as part of Windows 8, one cannot help but wonder whose PR department is whipping up the controversy: Apple’s or Microsoft’s? On the one hand, the discussion can be viewed as an attack on Microsoft by the Apple Dumping Gang while on the other hand it could be a “no publicity is bad publicity” ploy by the MSFT Gang That Can Only Design Straight. In my view the attention ends up helping Microsoft and Android while hurting Apple.

The differences in the UI design and interactivity standards are rather ironic. Microsoft has generated literally billions of dollars in revenue by releasing successive generations of its operating systems and driving their adoption by pushing user expectations towards increasingly complex and interactive design standards. Early windows design looked very gray, gradually became more colorful, then beveled, then shaded, then ray traced, then transparent, then animated. Each time the clear intent was to create a graphical case for the latest coolest operating system version and a feeling that applications using the older design standards were passé. It was plainly and simply a form of planned obsolescence little different from design trends in the fashion, automotive and consumer packaged goods industries.

With mobile devices, Microsoft correctly identified a conundrum. If you bring today’s highly sophisticated desktop design standards over to mobile devices then there isn’t really much of a look and feel upgrade path left. Planned obsolescence becomes difficult when your design trends have reached their logical plateau. And this plateau was evident on the desktop as well. The solution: bring the desktop and mobile UI standards down together to a simpler level and yet one which is so clean and crisp as to feel modern and chic.

Metro is not nearly as bad as most of its critics make it out to be. Sure, it is simple. But there are plenty of Swedish designers who will tell you that design simplicity is a value to be upheld. If you think they are wrong, take a visit to your local IKEA store. I disagree that Metro is classic or retro in any way, it is quintessentially modern and sleek. In this sense, I do not disagree that Metro is a workable and pleasant design and interface standard. Whether or not it is a superior standard is a bit of a subjective argument in my view. I disagree with the Metro advocates who suggest that it is the only effective GUI. It is an effective GUI and it can beat chaos design in side-by-side comparison tests. So what? Is Microsoft really going to enforce Metro UI principles with police-state like efficiency? No. As a result, design creep and chaos will eventually eliminate the consistency that is currently Metro’s primary advantage in UI metric comparisons. Once you eliminate its newness and therefore its consistency, the Metro UI will compare similarly to any other well conceived GUI.

Call me a cynic on this one, but I see the graphical aspects of Metro as a well-designed platform for planned obsolescence. Time will tell. In the meantime, designing apps for any platform, any device, any time leads me to Magic.

Hurdling Barriers to Enterprise Mobility

2012-03-16T14:20:00.001-07:00

Have you ever tried running hurdles? It takes practice. In the beginning, you’re so focused on jumping that you forget about running. Even experienced hurdlers can become so focused on hurdling mechanics that they forget the importance of sprinting mechanics.

A similar problem exists in enterprise mobility. We can become so focused on pushing enterprise data to mobile apps that we forget that the apps are mobile. The context of the interaction changes the functional requirements of the entire app. The danger is that we overload the mobile user with screens and data so that they need to scroll, tab and search until they are frustrated. Usage rates fall off, adoption fails and our app fails to become the solution it needs to be. But the issue isn’t just form factor, screen size or input method. It’s the context of the interaction. Mobile app users are typically remote and on the move.

Context Shift. To hurdle the most important barrier to enterprise mobility, we need to design applications that are aware of this context shift. In the past, the context of most computer automated enterprise business processes was within the confines of a data center, network, or office. The web extended reach to remote locations such as customer sites, home offices and laptops. But smartphones and tablets reflect an even more dramatic context shift.

When a business user chooses to interact with enterprise IT via a mobile device instead of their traditional laptops and desktops there is a reason: they are not simply remote, they are either on the move or so location and time constrained that accessing a traditional enterprise device is impractical. They might be dining with friends or family at the exact moment they are accessing your app to approve a purchase order. They might even be engaging directly with a customer on-site at the exact moment they are accessing the sales order entry app on a tablet. Interaction with an enterprise mobile app needs to be direct, unequivocal and brief. Designing apps that reflect the mobile paradigm is all about good business analysis, application architecture and interface design. These issues become even more accentuated with consumer facing branded apps.

BYOD. Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) policies present another barrier to enterprise mobility. BYOD often means some users have BlackBerry, others Android, still others iOS phones and tablets. Each of these devices has an operating system that requires a unique development language and compiler. With different user devices, comes a different culture of app interaction. An app designed for BlackBerry keyboard control and one designed for an iPad Retina touchscreen are obviously going to be quite different or at least they should be. Some businesses are making the mistake of using HTML5 to sidestep the native development challenge but they end up with unusable apps that are bland, unattractive or simply not functioning properly on certain devices. Overcome this barrier by using a Mobile Enterprise Application Platform (MEAP). A good MEAP will allow you to tailor your app to any mobile device without requiring you to create a uniform app or making you resort to several different programming languages to finish the job.

Backend Integration. Enterprise mobile apps don’t exist in a vacuum. Very few businesses are run with an IT system that is entirely run on mobile devices. No business of any size is. You have backend systems whose processes and data are usually determinative. The mobile app is supplemental. Your MEAP platform needs to be closely tied to an integration server that can automate integration and business process orchestration with large enterprise systems such as ERP, CRM, Field Service Management and other systems. Information from your eCommerce website, employee SharePoint portal or email server may be equally vital to the overall process. Only an end-to-end view as documented in a well designed use case analysis by your business analysts will get you to where you need to be in terms of required integration processes for mobile apps. And then you need to make sure you have the proper enterprise integration platform to facilitate easy integration of backend systems based on your business rules.

Customization. A lot of business “apps” are being foisted onto mobile devices by using a technique known as screen scraping where there is a one-to-one correspondence with backend screens in an HTML browser on the mobile device. The more sophisticated ones break the big screen and its multiple fields into several tabs and allow you to scroll down a long list of poorly aligned fields. This approach is not simply ugly, it is foolhardy to think any real long-term adoption will take place. These stopgap measures fail.

Furthermore, the new “mobile apps” from large ERP and CRM vendors are simply too generic. Their one size fits all approach does not accommodate your customizations and it the templates are completely constraining. Cookie cutters are fine for making cookies, but what if your business is not a bakery? Mobile apps need to be customized to deliver the proprietary differentiation your employees and customers need for you to stand out in the marketplace in terms of performance and customer experience. Here again, you business analysts and app developers should take extra care to create apps that reflect the true nature of your industry and your company. A MEAP platform will allow you to create integrated apps that are customized to your business requirements to outperform the competition and deliver outstanding customer experiences.

The barriers to enterprise mobility can be overcome. To do this, create mobile apps that are both enterprise connected and mobile aware.

Enterprise Mobility: They Also Claimed Women Have No Place In Business

2012-03-09T08:47:00.000-08:00

In 1948, my mother was fired from her job as a writer for KFOX radio station in Long Beach, California because she got married. In the 1950s, she was denied a raise because her male coworker supposedly needed a raise more in order to support his family. In my mother’s lifetime, people sometimes said and often believed that women had no place in business. The attitude seems preposterous and antiquated only fifty years later but these attitudes, which were predominately intransigence to change persisted for a long time.

So today, when I hear some people say and even more people act like the Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, iPad (and other tablets) have no place in business, I tend to smirk. Resistance to technology adoption within IT departments is rather ironic. Theoretically, the IT department should be in the forefront of new technology. But this is usually not the case. Too often, IT plays a game of vested interests and tries to defend the IT department’s turf against change. When barriers to change break down, it is usually because of competitive pressure or overwhelming evidence.

The role of the CTO or CIO is to push the business into productive use of technology. I think the time when anyone could claim that smartphones and tablets have no place in business and still retain their credibility has passed, any CIO or CTO who harbors such resistance is at extreme risk of being shown the door.

Businesses that pursue enterprise mobility are more productive, competitive and profitable. The iPAD is quickly being adopted in progressive enterprises as a business tool that delivers functionality in a mobile way. But tablets are much more than just mobile and the main benefit of their size is not simply the enhanced functionality that comes through more screen real estate.

The phenomenon that makes tablets a particularly compelling mobile device is that they are social. I am not referring to social in the modern sense of social media. But rather that tablets are a social technology in a more literal sense in that they allow for easy interpersonal interaction with technology on a single device. In other words, with a tablet it is easy for me to hold it and for you to see it. In some respects, it is the modern day equivalent of the clipboard. I can face the clipboard to myself and write things privately or I can position the clipboard for you to see it and involve you in the interview. But unlike a clipboard that has a few sheets of paper and a pencil for interaction. I have the full power of an interactive media device and enterprise IT behind it. Well, I should have the power of enterprise IT behind it, but in some corners resistance persists.

Fortunately, there are many examples where businesses are making great progress through the use of smartphone and tablet technology. Cleveland Golf has armed their sales force with iPad’s for order taking. Since Cleveland Golf has retail customers spread across more than 1400 locations, mobility is essential. The ability to approach a store a manager on site, show them pictures and videos of new products, and then instantly process orders for those new products is an awesome way to accelerate business performance through the use of smarter technology and a collaborative way of working.

The iPad is also ideally suited to assist in Direct Store Delivery applications. Route sales industries such as beverage manufacturing and food wholesalers are dependent on the ability of their mobile workforce to process orders and deliver product instantly on site. Tablets accelerate their ability to process orders, help store managers visualize current stock, and aid the route salesperson in the delivery of cross-sell, up-sell and other special incentives and offers for retailers.

The iPad can also be applied effectively in Field Service Management applications. Field service personnel can use tablets on-site to update service records, process parts and labor orders, query a knowledge base, and even watch video tutorials on how-to handle particular issues.

Multi-level Marketing, may be regarded as the red headed stepchild of business, but the nature of their “workforce” is prime for the advantages of enterprise mobile technology. Here again, I like the tablet for its ability to facilitate business interaction between two people engaged in a conversation. Not only can orders be processed and marketing messages be delivered, appointments can be kept, destinations can be routed, and organizational structures and contacts can be easily managed and updated on the fly.

Franchise Businesses are also prime candidates for enterprise mobility. Both franchisors and franchisees have need for mobile technology. The sales and operational teams of the franchisor tend to be highly mobile frequently involved in managing, servicing or selling multiple locations. A tablet is an ideal technology for working on the go from the car, in a franchise location ot back in the home office or main office. There are a wide variety of franchise businesses, but one of the commonalities is that franchise owners and their employees tend to be highly engaged with the public – their customers. They are frequently on their feet and on the go within a restaurant, store or field service environment. Taking time to sit in front of a stationary device to transact business takes them away from their main environment: the store, kitchen or field. With a tablet or smartphone, their information technology can keep up with them while they are on their feet doing their jobs across multiple points of interaction. Anyone who has experience mobile checkout in the middle of a store without having to walk to the register knows what I am talking about.

Mobility enhances the conduct of most any kind of business: financial services, manufacturing, retail, government, energy, distribution and more. Enterprise mobility solutions are just the IT department’s way of keeping up with the times.

Nothing but .NET

2012-02-22T16:14:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I just like the headline.

The uniPaaS 2.0 deployment engine supports genuine native .NET deployment of uniPaaS 2.0-based applications as native .NET applications. The new uniPaaS 2 engine uses the Windows Forms .NET library as the GUI front-end for applications, resulting in a richer user experience. This fundamental new basis for the client side container provides full integration with the Microsoft .NET framework to significantly enhance application design, functionality, interoperability, and overall user experience regardless of the underlying server operating system (Windows, Linux, UNIX, or IBM i). uniPaaS 2 provides the Magic, .NET, and Java composite application functionality all from a single highly productive and easy-to-maintain platform. Both the Magic uniPaaS Application Platform desktop deployment client and the Magic uniPaaS Application Platform RIA deployment client are fully native .NET based applications. For .NET applications, the uniPaaS 2 deployment engine is a native .NET client, and all uniPaaS applications that are deployed using it qualify as standard .NET applications.

This means that with the release of uniPaaS 2.0 as a genuine native .NET-based product, a whole new and exciting world of .NET controls and services has opened up to developers. The enhancement of .NET integration capabilities provides more functionality and improved productivity. Among the .NET integration features are:

· Variable Binding: Enables the binding of a uniPaaS variable to a .NET control.

· Dataview Binding: Directly connects complex data-bound controls such as grid controls to the dataview definition of a uniPaaS program.

· .NET in Table: Enables placing of .NET controls as automatically repeated controls inside a uniPaaS table control.

· Colors and Fonts Assignment: Enables direct assignment of the uniPaaS colors and fonts setting to a .NET control.

· Container Controls: Enable placing of uniPaaS controls inside third-party .NET container controls.

As we begin to see all of these capabilities rolling out into your applications, you have none of the hassle of traditional 3GL or 4GL development and all of the benefits of the .NET architecture. Perhaps the headline is right, you don’t have line-by-line tedious programming, you have nothing but .NET.

Elastic Scaling: Don’t Snap the Rubber Band if You Want Software Load Balancing

2012-02-21T08:32:00.000-08:00

In today’s over-hyped cloud computing market one hears terms such as “elastic scaling” being applied to capabilities for software load balancing. Load balancing is a term applied generically to any of a variety of computing methodologies in a distributed network whereby workload can be distributed across multiple computers or servers for the purpose of achieving optimized throughput, response times and resource utilization. Additional benefits in the form of greater reliability through redundancy and “failover” techniques are often closely associated with software load balancing.

Here in the Magic of uniPaaS blog we talk frequently about the differences between standard 3GL and 4GL approaches to software development and deployment versus the benefits of an application platform such as Magic Software’s uniPaaS application platform. Load balancing is a subject with rather significant implications because of the relative complexity of accomplishing load balancing without an application platform.

If you look at a cloud computing platform such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), you see that significant additional effort is required to achieve load balancing through the use of approaches such as Round Robin DNS or add-on software such as HA Proxy. In fact, Amazon says specifically that “Applications that require a persistent connection to a specific database or backend server are generally incompatible by default.”

But what if you had an application platform with built-in load balancing capabilities? That’s where the Magic uniPaaS Application Platform performs exceptionally well and can help you achieve the real potential of cloud computing.

For simple load balancing you should have at least two uniPaaS Enterprise Servers connected to the same Broker with the same application. The Broker will balance the load between the uniPaaS servers automatically.

A new option was added to the Magic Request Broker’s load balancing mechanism that will distribute the load evenly between runtime engines according to the percentage of executing threads out of the maximum number of threads allowed for an engine.

You can implement more complex load balancing by starting several different uniPaaS servers on several different machines. In addition, you can give each server a different priority level by setting the Options->Settings->Environment->Server->Load Balancing Priority.

uniPaaS provides a middleware agent known as the Magic Request Broker. The Magic Request Broker, also referred to as the broker, maintains the pool of available uniPaaS Runtime engines.

When a Runtime engine loads, it registers itself with the broker. Each subsequent engine also registers itself with that broker.

When the broker loads it starts listening on its defined port. The broker handles a list of all the available uniPaaS Runtime engines and directs each request from the uniPaaS Internet requester to the available Runtime engine for execution.

Each Runtime engine can handle more than one request simultaneously, each in its own thread.

The request broker provides load balancing and recovery capabilities to handle any fail over.

The main functions of the Magic Request Broker are:

· Queuing client requests

· Allocating available runtime engines for requests

· Logging all operations

· Maintaining and distributing the status of all submitted requests

· Activating programs in asynchronous (No Wait) mode

Usually, when you install uniPaaS, you don't have to know how the distributed application architecture is set up. However, sometimes when working with a Rich Client or Browser project, it can be helpful to understand what is happening behind the scenes, so that you can tweak some of the settings. The Magic uniPaaS Application Platform has this built-in ability to control the way the application platform implements load balancing. So if you seek true elastic scaling, consider the Magic uniPaaS Application Platform as your foundation for cloud computing applications that are truly scalable with software load balancing across n-tiered architectures and distributed computing networks.

Encore! Encore! Is it Time for a Little Sequel in Your Magic Applications?

2012-02-08T04:57:00.000-08:00

Migrating a flat file or Btrieve type application to the Magic uniPaaS Application Platform using a SQL database can deliver an organization numerous benefits. Structured Query Language (SQL) databases provide an enterprise class data platform for use in business applications. Most developers would agree that SQL databases are preferred for enterprise-class business applications developed on the Magic uniPaaS Application Platform. Why?

SQL provides: a more robust data functionality to support business requirements such as OLTP and data warehousing; higher levels of security for mission-critical applications; the ability to apply business rules from within the database; and support for increased levels of transaction activity.

Because SQL is a popular concept used in databases such as MS-SQL, DB2 and Oracle databases, it is widely supported by a variety of data management, business applications, reporting and business intelligence tools. Not only are connections to other systems simplified, applications built on SQL are more future-proof than other applications. Standardization on SQL makes it easier for an organization to manage its data regardless of its use context.

SQL databases provided an advanced environment for data security that can be achieved through high level tools.In addition, identity management and control over information access is simplified through SQL across multiple applications.

In general, SQL is better suited to very large database sizes and maintains a higher degree of transactional integrity and operational reliability. In other words, it is less likely to crash. Data integrity can be maintained on the database level and metadata is more easily tracked for purposes such as audit logs.

While there are costs associated with most SQL databases, there are also express or light versions of SQL databases available for more cost-sensitive applications.

Most Magic uniPaaS Application Platform installations rely upon SQL as their primary database, in part because SQL can deliver database level functionality not inherent to other approaches:

· Sequence and identity mechanisms are included in SQL databases for better multi-user application functionality.

· SQL statements provide functionality for better application maintenance such as version updates, updated field definitions, table structure conversions, and added fields and indexes.

· The Where clause is a powerful feature of SQL databases that allows for advanced filtering.

Because SQL can incorporate logical transactions at the database level, use of stored procedures, and an object-oriented methodology, it is often viewed as a superior choice for all sizes and types of applications.

Mobile-to-Mobile Integration in the Cloud

2012-02-06T06:30:00.000-08:00

The Super Bowl is over so it’s time to kickoff a super idea: “mobile-to-mobile integration in the cloud.” We’re all thinking about it but we’re just not saying it: the current end game is to have millions of mobile apps on billions of mobile smartphones all integrated via the cloud. The IT department will consist of one person, the CIO, who outsources all IT functions to a team in India/ China/Brazil /Ukraine/Tanzania (you choose), who implements the CIOs ideas based on a series of virtual use case interviews on a bunch of transparent virtual machines up in the cloud. Every pertinent interaction and piece of data created and consumed on one user’s smartphone is instantly and securely available as needed by all other players in the business process. Far fetched? Do you disagree that this is where we are heading?

When you think about it, Magic Software’s applicationplatform, mobile offering and integration platform combined with its planned cloud offering have all the components needed to make this happen, except of course for the cool as a cucumber CIO that it would take to have the guts to implement a strategy like this. The coming metadata world is so highly virtualized that it’s possible to use the world’s best infrastructure without owning anything other than smartphones.

That being the case, the future of software development is in mobile app development and cloud applications. As we move into the present capabilities more fully we will see a future where Mobile Enterprise Application Platforms (MEAP), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) are so ubiquitous that mobile-to-mobile integration in the cloud is not only expected, it will be demanded by business users.

Holding all of this back is simple adhesion to existing systems. But here again, if one can find a nearly transparent way to integrate existing systems with mobile-to-mobile integration in the cloud then organizational resistance is futile. Business leaders will drive the process of mobile-to-mobile cloud integration forward as the cost of dynamically creating integrated applications and apps becomes less than the cost to maintain the current state of data center possessing IT departments which are typically weighed down by excessive Java overheads and heavy, overlapping middleware solutions.

The pressure from smaller fiercely competitive organizations using agile concepts and metadata driven solutions will force Big IT to break ties with old ideas and embrace the mobile-to-mobile cloud integration future. In the meantime, billions of the rest of us will happily type on big keyboards safe inside the protection of our client server applications behind the firewall as colleagues foist loads of data over the firewall via Web applications. Either way, the technology sounds like Magic to me.

Dealing With Effectiveness Roadblocks in Software Change Management

2012-02-03T07:40:00.000-08:00

In our previous review of major concerns in the practice of software change management, we focused on communication issues and analysis and identification problems. Other problems areas identified in both academic research and the literature of practitioners include effectiveness roadblocks, decision-making challenges, traceability issues and problems with tools. We have already established that third-generation languages (3GL) such as Java, RPG, COBOL and the various C-languages (C, C#, C++) all have characteristics that contribute negatively to the ability of an organization to achieve best results in the practice of software change management.

At this time, I would like to engage in a high-level overview of effectiveness roadblocks in software development and software change management. Software development managers should consider how inadequate testing, poor tool support, hardware and infrastructure inconsistencies and the inherent constraints of direct source code maintenance contribute to developer sluggishness and overall software development ineffectiveness.

Concurrent or parallel development rears its head again as a source of development challenges. It should be cear that no one is suggesting that parallel or concurrent development approaches must be avoided in order for software to be effective. Although, many developers utilizing more advanced tools will suggest that a one person development team can accomplish more than teams working in parallel.

Obviously, concurrent development necessitates greater and more frequent communication between developers, business analysts, stakeholders and users. Communication is, of course, a vital and necessary aspect of any development project as previously discussed. Nevertheless, communication is a source of errors, or more to the point mistakes in communication lead to errors. But effectiveness issues also contribute to the problematic nature of parallel efforts.

Application platforms help deal with effectiveness issues in software change management and software development. A metadata-driven application platform provides software “applistructure” that helps avoid many concurrent development issues. By virtualizing the hardware environment, these platforms leverage metadata to reduce the programming effort.

Higher level approaches that avoid line-by-line coding are not prone to experience the problems introduced by code optimization. And even if an optimizer is used, readability is unaffected. The pre-compiled and tested capabilities of a platform are essentially pre-optimized.

Expectations for high availability rather than inducing high costs and practical limitations that prevent responsive software change management are better met with an application platform approach which introduces a higher potential for stability, scalability and robustness in finished applications. Application platforms are “maintenance friendly” because software changes introduce less risk. Ironically, change avoidance can ultimately put previously stable software at risk as changes in application environments introduce new unknowns as changes in operating systems, database and other systems inevitably creep in. Those concerned with software change management must pay careful attention to the future-proof nature of application platforms versus 3GLs. A metadata-driven application platform with a repository-based approach will go a long way towards providing the assurance that whatever underlying changes are introduced, the platform vendor will be able to provide a way forward that protects your investment in your applications and allows you to maintain your applications with a minimum of effort..

In parallel efforts, integration architecture is necessarily incomplete in the early phases of a project. Testing errors occur because it is impossible or difficult to in a 3GL to anticipate testing oversights. A more advanced application development platform may be a solution in particular because of the repository based aspects of some application platforms. Also, underlying architecture is part of the platform and not the development effort and so de rigueur testing has already been accomplished by the platform provider.

Other aspects of the project architecture, up to and including hardware requirements aremore likely incomplete at the beginning of a 3GL project, which leads to requirement changes on software created by subsequent architectural changes not anticipated in the beginning stages of the lower level efforts.

Source code optimization also relates to effectiveness problems impacting software change management and software development overall. For one thing, optimized source code is difficult to understand. Changes are more difficult because it takes extra time to figure out what is going on with the optimized code. It’s also difficult to pinpoint issues in testing to separate problems in the optimized code.

The Problem of Communication in Software Change Management

2012-01-23T04:30:00.000-08:00

In our previous discussion of software change management, we focused on analysis and identification problems. This is only one of the problem areas in software change management that have been identified in studies in the field. Other problems that tend to recur related to software change management include communication issues, decision-making challenges, effectiveness roadblocks, traceability issues and problems with tools. As we examine each of these areas, we can see that a number of important issues frequently appear, especially when third-generation languages (3GL) such as Java, RPG, COBOL and various C-languages are involved (C, C#, C++).

In this post, we will review at a high-level how communication issues in software development and software change management can lead to problems. How can we overcome communication issues between developers, business analysts, stakeholders and users to ensure more effective and satisfying outcomes in application development? Are there changes that can be made in the way we approach application development that will tend to reduce the impact and likelihood of errors?

Concurrent or parallel development can cause a need for greater and more frequent communication between developers, business analysts, stakeholders and users. This slows down progress overall and introduces the likelihood of communication errors and misunderstandings. This is especially true when communicating with non-developers. Developers figuratively “speak a different language” and this introduces a greater possibility of misunderstanding. Non-developers and developers can hear the same words and can take away different meanings. In addition, developers and non-developers will tend to attach different contexts, priorities and values to the meaning of communications. The need for greater communication caused by concurrent development, leads to a greater number of possible miscommunications leading to errors and unmet expectations.

Use of shared software components also exacerbates communication issues. Communication is required between more developers because of the shared nature of components. Developer A cannot simply change Component Y without considering the potential effects on development by Developers B, C, and D. This results in the need for distributed decision making on changes to components. Since computer languages are only readable by specialists, explaining the potential ripple effects of component changes can involve the need to communicate with multiple groups of business analysts, stakeholders and users.

A number of strategies can help to overcome these and other communication related issues in software development to help ensure more effective software change management. It is essential to have a communication plan, style and approach for development projects. The use of team development tools for source code control and other issues will tend to help avoid communication errors as well. Whenever it is possible to leverage more advanced development approaches to reduce the number of developers, this will have positive impacts on communications as well. More frequent development cycles by using agile or SCRUM development principles will likely improve communication as well. More frequent prototyping becomes very useful in reducing communication issues. Where human language fails to adequately portray software, prototypes can provide actual or simulated experiences that overcome communication and comprehension barriers. Leveraging repository-based development approaches provides a context for visualizing dependencies that is more effective than scanning a code base, for example. Making use of pre-compiled application platform capabilities will greatly reduce the development effort and minimize communication issues, especially thorny underlying issues in the environment that typically fail to capture the attention of business stakeholders but that can often lead to fundamental differences in judgment of software quality and completeness. If the platform selected allows for the leveraging of .NET based components in client-side development, there can be significantly fewer communication challenges as well.

More effective software change management hinges to a great degree on overcoming communication issues in software development. In our next entry, we will consider the question of effective decision-making or governance as a source of errors from a software change management perspective.

The Problem of Analysis and Identification in Software Change Management

2012-01-18T12:33:00.000-08:00

Studies in the field of Software Change Management have helped IT managers to identify a number of problem areas in software development. Problems related to software change management tend to occur in five areas: analysis and identification related problems, communication issues, decision-making challenges, effectiveness roadblocks, traceability issues and problems with tools. If we examine each of these we can see a number of important issues that frequently crop-up, especially within third-generation languages (3GL).

Today, I’d like to focus on a high-level review of analysis and identification related problems in software change management. How can we identify and analyze problems in our software to best understand and realize where we have errors that require correction. More importantly, how can we change our approach to application development in a way that reduces the impact and likelihood of errors?

Analysis and identification problems can be seen in several areas. First of all, problems with analysis and identification are driven by concurrent and parallel development approaches. The problems occur because with concurrent efforts it becomes more difficult to determine root causes of program errors. This is exacerbated by the fact that standalone testing does not find the problems leading to the error conditions. Solutions can be found by reducing the number of developers, engaging in more frequent cycles (such as with agile development or SCRUM), testing without compiling and ultimately by delegating more basic functions to an application platform in a post-3GL approach.

Another factor driving analysis and identification problems is code optimization. For one thing, optimized code, especially optimized C, C# and C++ code is very difficult to understand. In addition, with optimized code, object oriented development tends to create a ripple effect that is not apparent in typical source. Code optimization issues can be avoided by leveraging pre-optimized code, i.e., avoiding heavy 3GL development projects with more advanced development platforms.

A third factor leading to analysis and identification problems comes from the use of shared software components. Here we see impacts across the code base and ripple effects. These can be avoided through better pre-planning, wise use of inheritance principles and by leveraging a platform rather than resorting to line-by-line coding.

The need for high reliability makes the problem of analysis and identification of the impact of software changes particularly important. It is difficult to predict the impact of changes and at times corrective actions may seem difficult or impossible. Avoid this sense of being overwhelmed by engaging in iterative development and testing. Make use of an application platform to better overcome challenges in the analysis and identification of software change management problems.

Developing Portable Business Apps for the BlackBerry

2011-12-11T15:08:00.001-08:00

In the recent IBM Tech Trends 2011 report, IBM reported that 70% of the more than 4,000 members of its developerWorks community who participated in a recent survey planned to develop mobile apps for Android. Not surprisingly, a mere 19% planned to develop for iOS. It is interesting, however, that 9% have already indicated plans for WebOS. About 35% and 25% plan to develop mobile apps for Windows 7 and BlackBerry OS respectively. A population bias against Apple’s iOS can be expected in the developerWorks community, so no one should try to read the death of Apple into these numbers. If anything, this is a good indication that while most of the non-Apple crowd will be developing for Android, significant numbers will also develop for Windows 7, iOS and BlackBerry OS, and a growing segment has already focused its attention on WebOS.

Magic Software’s uniPaaS Application Platform provides developers with the ability to develop for multiple mobile operating systems and tailor the look and feel for each mobile environment without having to develop using multiple languages.

To get started as a uniPaaS mobile developer, try attending the live webinar Developing Portable Business Apps for the BlackBerry. The webinar will be broadcast live Wednesday, December 14, 2011 11:00 am Pacific Standard Time or may be viewed as an on-demand recording here after that date.

The webinar description states that: “Now you can develop business apps for the BlackBerry that can be easily ported to other mobile platforms as needed in the future. Get just the right level of functionality, interactivity and integration with back-end systems for your BlackBerry users today while preserving your options to deploy to native Android, iPhone or Windows Mobile environments in the future. See a hands-on demonstration and see how the same application platform can deploy cross-platform HTML5 apps as well.”

Building Apps Quickly with uniPaaS and the SQLite Gateway

2011-11-29T16:13:00.001-08:00

Magic Software’s uniPaaS Application Platform includes a SQLlite gateway to support the SQLite database. So does uniPaaS Jet, the free distribution single user version of Magic Software’s uniPaaS application platform.

Those already familiar with SQLite will know that it is a single user, self-contained transactional SQL database engine that does not require a server or any installation or configuration.

The SQLite gateway is integrated in uniPaaS and available with every installation of uniPaaS. SQLite can be thought of as a software library that implements a self-contained, serverless, zero-configuration, transactional SQL database engine. SQLite claims to be the most widely deployed SQL database engine in the world and the source code for SQLite is in the public domain.

uniPaaS Jet supports the SQLite DBMS exclusively. The SQLite database, a single-user database embedded in uniPaaS Jet, comes bundled with the platform, eliminating the need to install it separately.

Once again: SQLite is a single user database and is not intended for handling and manipulating data from multiple, concurrent users. Commercial releases of uniPaaS support multi-user databases such as Microsoft SQL, Oracle, IBM DB2, and any other data source through ODBC.

When working with SQLite in uniPaaS, keep the following in mind:

Table Position	SQLite supports rowid as the table position. The default position is ROWID. Every row of every SQLite table has a 64-bit signed integer key that uniquely identifies the row within its table. This integer is usually called the "rowid". The rowid value can be accessed using a special case-independent name: "rowid". The data for each table in SQLite is stored as a B-Tree structure containing an entry for each table row, using the rowid value as the key. This means that retrieving or sorting records by rowid is fast. Searching for a record with a specific rowid, or for all records with rowids within a specified range is around twice as fast as a similar search made by specifying any other PRIMARY KEY or indexed value. To be clear, a B-tree is a tree data structure that keeps data sorted and allows searches, sequential access, insertions, and deletions to occur rapidly and efficiently.
Get Definition	For SQLite, if the primary key is a single column that auto-increments, the Get Definition utility will not bring the key into the table structure. This is because there is not a separate index using the column. The index internally refers to rowid.
Hints	Hints are not supported and will be disregarded.
Isolation level	Isolation level cannot be changed. Any changes in the DBMS will be disregarded.
Joins	A join is used to combine rows from multiple tables. Inner Joins are the most common type of join. Inner joins return all rows from multiple tables where the join condition is met. Outer Join returns all rows from one table and only those rows from a secondary table where the joined fields are equal (the join condition is met).Inner and Outer joins should be implemented using the same syntax as in the SQL Server.
Transactions	A transactional database is one in which all changes and queries appear to be Atomic, Consistent, Isolated, and Durable (ACID). SQLite implements serializable transactions that are atomic, consistent, isolated, and durable, even if the transaction is interrupted by a program crash, an operating system crash, or a power failure to the computer. In uniPaaS, SQLite physical /deferred transactions are supported.
Array fetching	SQLite does not support array fetching. Therefore, the array size setting will be disregarded and the records will be fetched one record at a time.
Parallel execution	A single uniPaaS engine, or multiple engines on the same machine, may access SQLite via parallel programs. In such a case, only one thread/EXE can open a physical transaction, since the SQLite file is exclusively locked.
APG	Using the Automatic Program Generator (APG) in DSQL SELECT statements will result in the Null Allowed column property being set to Yes.
Identity	Identity should be defined as Type INTEGER PRIMARY KEY. SQLite does not allow more than one INTEGER PRIMARY KEY fields. Identity fields are stored as INT64 data types in SQLite; therefore, you should create a Numeric field to hold 8 bytes of data.

There are two other limitations of SQLite worth noting for the uniPaaS developer. You cannot use the ASCIIChr SQL function which converts a number to a corresponding character in the ASCII character set. You also cannot use the InStr function, which returns a number that represents the first position of a sub-string within an Alpha string or an Alpha expression, or at least you cannot use from within a SQL Where range.

SQLite is just another great addition this year to the Magic of uniPaaS.

Developing Web and Mobile Web Apps with HTML5 and uniPaaS Web Merge

2011-11-23T12:11:00.000-08:00

Developing Web and Mobile Web Apps with HTML5 and uniPaaS Web Merge

Developing for HTML5 with uniPaaS

With the rapid advance of HTML5 as the latest version of the hypertext markup language used by most Web browsers on the Internet, it is exciting to see how seamlessly Magic Software's uniPaaS application platform's merge technology works with this new standard. In uniPaaS, Merge technology lets the developer create dynamic Web pages on the server side as a response to HTTP requests.

HTML5 is the latest specification of HTML or Hyper Text Markup Language. This is the markup language that is used to build web pages. Development of this new version was initiated by the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) and then later carried on by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the organization that establishes standards for web technology.

The Basic Concept of Merge Programming

Using a set of tokens that are embedded in a regular HTML/XML file, the uniPaaS Enterprise Server can merge any application data into the HTML file to produce the dynamic Web page. These HTML files can be HTML 4 standard or the newer HTML5 formats.

Every request for a dynamic Web page activates a corresponding batch program. This program can receive data from the request, such as submit form variables and cookies, process the application data according to the request information, and process the application logic to produce the merged Web page result. With HTML5 there are superior options to cookies emerging however. Web Storage is a new HTML5 API offering important benefits over traditional cookies. Although the specification is still in W3C draft status, http://dev.w3.org/html5/webstorage/ all major browsers support it already. This means you can start using the API’s sessionStorage and localStorage objects and enjoy their benefits.

HTML5 subsumes HTML 4, XHTML 1 and DOM2HTML including most especially JavaScript. It provides enhanced levels of multimedia content such as audio and video. and as well as greater interactivity.

Characteristics of uniPaaS Merge Technology

In typical HTML merge applications of the past, the interaction between the browser and the server was usually manifested in the retrieval of new pages as a result of a request submitted by the previous page. With HTML5, the uniPaaS Merge application can process http requests that pass merge data back to more advanced HTML5 capabilities that are part of the included XHTML 1.x standard. A form is a component of a Web page that has form controls, such as text fields, buttons, checkboxes, range controls, or color pickers. A user can interact with such a form, providing data that can then be sent to the server for further processing (e.g. returning the results of a search or calculation). No client-side scripting is needed in many cases with HTML5, though an API is available so that scripts can augment the user experience or use forms for purposes other than submitting data to a server. These advanced capabilities would include new types of form controls such as dates and times, email, url, search, number,range, tel, color.

Form elements and attributes in HTML5
provide a greater degree of semantic mark-up than HTML4 and remove a great deal
of the need for tedious scripting and styling that was required in HTML4. The
forms features in HTML5 provide a better experience for users by making forms
more consistent across different web sites and giving immediate feedback to the
user about data entry.

The developer can still choose the HTML/XML version for the application’s Web pages and any other use of client-side scripts and modules. The developer can decide on the level of Web browser compliance by choosing the HTML/XML version and additional modules. This includes the decision as to whether to incorporate any API extensions to HTML5.

The logic for merging application data into HTML5 files is still server-side logic. Any client-side logic required for the application can be integrated with the uniPaaS-generated dynamic Web pages in the form of client-side scripts contained in HTML5, API extensions, JavaScript or VB script, and client-side modules, such as ActiveX controls and Java applets. uniPaaS provides capabilities such as MGREPEAT and MGIF_NAME that allow you to design your HTML5 pages without knowing how many records will need to be displayed and also to include conditional logic.

The fact that the application logic executed by uniPaaS is server-side only and that the developer determines the client-side logic, including the available hyperlinks and HTML5 interactivity, provides full control of the level of interaction between the client and the server.

Any request handled by the Enterprise Server is handled independently with no correlation to previous requests submitted by the same application context for a given end user. This means that the application flow context management should always be constructed and maintained by the developer.

uniPaaS Merge Tokens include:

MG_NAME Replaces the tag with a value provided by the server.

MGREPEAT Begins an area containing an unknown number of repeated values.

MGENDREPEAT Ends the area containng an unknown number of repeated values.

MGIF_NAME Begins an IF Block.

MGELSE Begins an ELSE Block.

MGENDIF Marks the end of an IF or ELSE Block.

MGINCLUDE Allows you to incorporate an entire HTML file.

MGENDINCLUDE Marks the end of an INCLUDE Block.

Other Considerations in Merge Development

Merge technology is suited for lightweight interaction between the browser and the server. This technology is designed for applications that mainly receive whole pages on each request or interact with HTML5 and API extensions.

The number of interactions between the server and the client is relatively low and the amount of information passed from the browser to the server in every interaction, for example an HTML5 form’s submitted information, is also low.

However, the result page for every request may be large as the page always returns not just the new processed data but also the entire HTML5 portions that define the interface and design. Fortunately, HTML5 makes better use of CSS thereby eliminating many formerly common HTML tags such as .

Given the fact that the volume of information passed from the client to the server, i.e. the uploaded data, is usually low, excluding file transfers, there is no need for a large throughput from the client to the server, i.e. the upload rate does not need to be great. With mobile applications, for example, HTML5 pages are almost always lightweight because of the relatively small screen sizes of the devices.

You should try to make your pages as light as possible or make sure that the end user machines have sufficient download capabilities.

The ability to create applications supported by all or most browsers lets you freely distribute a Merge-based application with no need to know the end-user machine specifications. Be aware, however, that API extensions may be supported differently.

If the Web application requires client-side logic, as the developer you will likely need to acquire knowledge and skills in client-side scripting based on the capabilities of HTML5 including JavaScript.

Enterprise Mobile Mashup Delivers Actionable Information

2011-10-24T11:43:00.000-07:00

It’s one thing to be connected via your mobile to relevant information 24/7 and it is quite another to be able to do anything about it. The difference between information and action is the difference between email and apps. On the other hand, action without proper access to information can be dangerous. The solution: enterprise mobile mashups.

As David Akka, Managing Director of Magic Software Enterprises UK points out: “Enterprise Mashup is not something new. Enterprise Mashup is a concept that has been used by many, many enterprises to try to bring information from multiple systems into one coherent view. If you look at the consumer market, for example, estate agents, it’s easy to take information from a property database put it on Google Maps and take information from a police database and put it on the same map in order to present some sort of information to a future purchaser.

“ The whole concept of that actually has started to take off with mobile devices,” says Akka, eagerly pointing out why mobile devices are so important to business today. “Gartner basically predicts that 50% of the workforce by the end of 2013 will use some sort of mobile device. There’s a big argument whether desktops are dead whether mobile devices will overtake them. It’s not really relevant for this point. The point is that on a mobile device the attention span of the user reduces significantly from about 2-3 minutes to about 1 minute.”

Since the mobile user may be paying attention for a shorter period of time, they urgently need accurate data streaming to their device and the ability to act on that information by providing an approval, submitting an order, updating location, etc. Enterprise mobile mashup requires the "round trip capabilities" to pull information from enterprise systems, display information in mobile apps, take action from the mobile device and update the backend systems. And with user preferences and loyalties to a wide variety of devices -- BlackBerry, Android, iPhone and Windows Mobile -- there is a need to provide enterprise mobile mashup via cross-platform, cross-device mobile enterprise application platforms that allow core application logic to be used on any mobile smartphone.

David Akka’s excellent interview on Computing.co.uk not only discusses the possibilities but also demonstrates the smarter approach that Magic Software’s iBOLT Integration Platform and uniPaaS Application Platform take in creating enterprise mobile mashup with backend systems such as SAP, Salesforce, Oracle, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards and so on.

Creating a Branded App with Magic Software's uniPaaS Application Platform: Mastering the Z-Order of Controls

2011-10-15T05:00:00.000-07:00

Creating a Branded App with Magic Software's uniPaaS Application Platform: Mastering the Z-Order of Controls

There is a lot of talk today about the branded app. These are usually mobile apps but sometimes a branded app needs to be a web app or at least an application delivered via the Internet such as a RIA app that floats in a window above the browser -free of all the security and reliability issues that the browser itself imposes. So recently, as the Magic teams from France, Germany, Israel and the Americas headed to Dreamforce ’11 (#DF11) I found myself wanting to keep track of all the sessions we would be participating in at the conference. Unfortunately, the Dreamforce Chatter application didn't have that functionality. It seemed to me that I ought to be able to add meetings and appointments to the My Calendar section of the Dreamforce app, but alas, I could only add the sessions for which I was eligible to register. So with a little creative daydreaming, I started to wonder, how I might create an event calendar application in uniPaaS and make it look like a branded app for Dreamforce. That exercise got me thinking about the Z-order of controls.

The uniPaaS Dot Net Tutorial provided the perfect sample program in Events .NET Calendar. But I wanted to make it look like a Dreamforce application. So with a little help from my browser, Photoshop and an understanding of the Z-Order of Controls in uniPaaS, I was able to get my sample application to look just the way I wanted. I wanted a branded app.

From the uniPaaS Jet Dot Net Tutorial, I clicked on the Programs Repository in the Navigation Pane in the upper right and then zoomed (F5) on the Events .NET Calendar. This opens the program in the Studio. I wanted to play with the look of the program because the Control itself was kind of a drab gray typical Windows control.

The first step was to find a couple of images that I wanted to use. My preferred graphic image editor is PhotoShop. I pasted a couple of images into PhotoShop and saved them as JPEG files.

Back in uniPaaS Studio, I selected the Forms tab and zoomed (F5) on the second form which was also named Events .NET Calendar. On the uniPaaS Studio Forms Control Pane, I selected the Image icon and then clicked on the approximate position where I wanted the upper left corner to appear.

Some tweaking of the image position was needed. So the precise X, Y coordinate can be set for the image’s Navigation Control Properties.

The Z-Order of controls in a form is the depth of the controls as you insert them. The Z-Order becomes particularly important when you superimpose controls on top of one another.

Here is an example where images and controls are partially overlayed. You will note that one of the two women in the photographic image is not visible. Why? Because the Z-order of the entire image is essentially underneath the .NET control that contains the calendar.

uniPaaS recognizes two groups of controls with regards to Z-Order:

Group I	Group II
Push buttons Check boxes Radio buttons Sliders Combo boxes List boxes OLEs RTFs Tree Control Subforms Browser Control	Images Tabs Static controls Edit controls Lines Groups

You can rearrange the Z-Order within the two groups, but not between them. uniPaaS automatically arranges the Z-Order between Group I and Group II controls. For example, if you were to place an Edit control on top of a Push Button control, the Z-Order would arrange the controls so the Push Button control would be placed in front. You cannot bring a control from the second group in front of a control from the first group. You use theArrange context menu or the Command palette to display or change the Z-Order of controls on a form.

To adjust the Z-order you have to make sure Automatic Z-Order is not selected on the Command palette. That’s the icon shown here. You should also learn how to use the other icons to Bring Forward One Level, Send Back One Level, Bring to the Front, Send to the Back and Display the Z-order.

So with very little effort, a ho-hum control can be enhanced with the use of images and become a branded app. When I deployed my Magic Software uniPaaS Application Platform RIA program in a Window over the Dreamforce web page the result was very pleasing from an aesthetic standpoint.

Learning to Program with uniPaaS

2011-10-14T08:04:00.000-07:00

Whether you are a beginning programmer or an experienced hack, learning to program with the Magic Software uniPaaS Application Platform is pretty exciting because of the way the application platform allows you to focus on the application design and business logic rather than on the underlying architecture and housekeeping tasks normally associated with programming. With uniPaaS you can create anything from mobile apps to cloud applications and of course standard client-server software as well.

Magic Software has provided about 1000 sample programs with the application platform to help illustrate all of the capabilities of the platform and make it easier for you to create your own programs.

The sample programs included with uniPaaS are installed in the SampleProjects folder.

Rich Internet Demo: Many of you have seen the Magic Software Rich Internet Demo that is comprised of several applications running in rich client mode. This means they are browser-free, require no plug-in and yet run via the Internet with full connectivity to the server. You can use this platform to create your own cloud or on-premise applications and the RIA demo helps illustrate what’s possible in very basic easy-to-understand samples. The project containing all of the sample programs of the live RIA demo is available at http://riademo.magicsoftware.com and the mobile RIA demo examples can be found at http://riademo.magicsoftware.com/mobile

Online Samples: A set of online (client/server) examples for multiple client/server ‘how to’ scenarios that are described in the book: Mastering uniPaaS.

Rich Internet Samples: A set of Rich Internet examples for many rich client ‘how to’ scenarios that are described in the book: Mastering uniPaaS.

Mobile Web Samples: Web templates based on HTML Merge technology for mobile devices.

.NET Tutorial: A short tutorial with examples explaining how to use .NET in uniPaaS.

All the projects are available with their source code, so you can use them in your applications.

In addition, to the samples you also have access to the complete resources of Magic Software University. You can also easily download a self-paced course for creating business applications. And for those adventurous programmers who are looking for an excuse to come to “the OC” in sunny California this November we offer uniPaaS courses in our classroom in Laguna Hills, California. Upcoming courses include:

07-9 Nov, 2011 Migration from eDeveloper V9.4 to uniPaaS Open Client

10 Nov, 2011 Insider's Guide to Advanced RIA Development with uniPaaS

11 Nov, 2011 .NET Components Unleashed with uniPaaS Applications

A Smarter Way to Do Asynchronous Programming

2011-10-13T08:45:00.000-07:00

The cover of MSDN Magazine this month carries the main headline: “Asynchronous programming.” Inside you will find three articles about these new proposed features that will make it easier to write code that will help to create efficiencies in Visual Studio applications for asynchronous programming.

The entire article is about how it will be possible in the future to write code that does what the Magic application platform has been doing automatically for its programmers for more than 10 years. Visual Basic and C# don’t have these capabilities yet, but they will in the future the articles proclaim, but it will still require the developer to add special code and the creators of these languages are so far away from a solution that they are using the magazine to solicit feedback on the idea. Wow.

I think it is easy for those of us familiar with uniPaaS seamless efficiency through multithreaded concurrent architecture to forget that other developers must tell their programs how to handle concurrency of task execution. I remember being very impressed with the initial analogy used to explain the Magic engine and the Magic broker: the example used was that of a restaurant with many waiters and a short order cook or cooks who were working on many meals in parallel, breaking down the meal preparation into discrete steps and jumping back and forth between tasks.

At Magic Software, we talk a lot about how our advantage is a metadata driven architecture, but when you read the articles in this month’s MSDN Magazine it crystallizes some of the low-level nonsense that other developers put up with every single day without realizing that it Is a complete waste of time for them to be creating business applications in those languages (and don’t get me wrong, Java is no better). The sad thing for these developers is that they have to add lots of instructions to their code to tell the program how to process tasks concurrently. Really, in 2011 programmer drones are paid six figure salaries and still writing the same code concepts over and over again?

Thankfully, there is a smarter way to do asynchronous programming and achieve highly efficient applications without giving it a second thought. That approach is found in Magic Software’s uniPaaS application platform. Even after Microsoft finishes its "enhancements" to C# and Visual Basic (tough luck if you're using a different Microsoft language) you will still have to manually add "await" instructions to your code. And since there was no thought put into forward-migration and everyone handled concurrency differently, you will have to manually strip out all the old concurrency code. Yuck! The three articles were nice, very enlightening as to the tedium on the other side of the fence, but as for me: here’s three cheers for uniPaaS!

To see a sample business application running in Magic Software's uniPaaS application platform see the RIA demo here. To read more about Magic Software's smarter application platform, see the information on the company website.