Today, virtually all large enterprises¾ indeed, businesses of all sizes¾ are looking to profit from the reach, immediacy, and economies of Internet technologies. Internet applications are revolutionizing functions as diverse as information access, customer service, workgroup collaboration, and supply chain management, delivering competitive advantages most organizations wouldn’t have dreamed possible even a few short years ago.

Given the benefits of the Internet, few organizations can afford not to adopt this new, Internet-based model. Yet making the transition to the new systems architecture required to effectively support an Internet-based computing environment can present significant challenges. IT managers and developers must quickly develop and deploy robust, high-performance, scalable, and secure applications. At the same time, they must address the issues of multiple operating systems, diverse development tools, and differing development and deployment infrastructures¾ all while facing pressure to limit spending.

With rapidly increasing competition and shrinking product cycles, businesses are looking for ways to get products to worldwide markets faster, enhance customer service, respond to competitive pressures, and cut costs. Businesses must address the following issues and technological challenges to meet these goals:

• Increased use of the Internet. Almost all new IT systems and applications are being built using Internet technologies. Enterprise Internet applications¾ which can be deployed on the Internet, company Intranets, or the extranet¾ use special Internet technologies (e.g., a highly distributed, component-based, object-oriented model; Internet protocols; software components; and middleware services) and, at the same time, must often leverage the immense investment companies have made in their legacy systems and other traditional technologies.

• The shift from a classic, two-tier, client/server Internet architecture to a more scalable and effective, four-tier architecture. Widespread use of Internet technologies has also created a shift from a classic, two-tier, client/server architecture to a more scalable, effective four-tier architecture that uses a Web client, Web server, application server, and database server. Although a standard client and well-defined interfaces among these four tiers make it easier to build networked applications, each tier still requires new services, standards, protocols, and application programming interfaces (APIs) that differ from traditional components.

• Trend toward mixed C++ and Java languages. Today, Internet application developers are using C++ (appreciated for its robustness), 100% Java, or a mixture of C++ and Java. HP customers indicate that, by the year 2000, C and C++ will still be used for approximately 50 percent of new applications, while Java will account for 20 percent of new applications. There is and will continue to be a need for both languages, along with a need for language interoperability.

• The development of IA-64-based systems. Within a few years, all major computer vendors will offer systems based on the IA-64 architecture¾ now under joint development by Intel and HP¾ which will run either UNIX and Windows NT applications on a single hardware architecture. The need to support software providers and end users on these new systems will force major transitions. For example, these more powerful platforms will create a strong shift from 32-bit to 64-bit computing. Developers will want to quickly recompile and optimize their existing applications on these new platforms in order to take advantage of the performance boost that IA-64 offers.

• Mixed UNIX and Windows NT environments. UNIX and Windows NT are the preferred deployment platforms for enterprise Internet applications. Typically, these applications are developed on their own separate platforms. This approach requires differing skill sets and results in duplication of effort, divergent code streams for the UNIX and Windows NT versions of the application, and delayed application time-to-market. Today, the clear trend is to use Windows NT as the development platform. Compared to UNIX, Windows NT is more productive and uses less costly development stations. (By the year 2000, the percentage of software development on Windows NT is expected to increase from 39 to 55 percent.)

To help developers address these challenges, HP has unified and simplified the development and deployment environment through HP Domain FoundationTools and HP Domain FoundationWare:

• FoundationTools provides a complete toolset and build environment for either UNIX or Windows NT development through HP and our Developer’s Edge partners. This environment gives developers choices. It enables them to efficiently compile, link, and debug high-performance 3GL (C, C++, and Java) and 4GL/modeling enterprise Internet applications from a Windows NT-based platform, while allowing single-source code stream deployment on both UNIX and Windows NT. Alternatively, developers can choose to develop and deploy on HP-UX, as they do today.

• FoundationWare provides platform-neutral middleware services, including IONA’s Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA)-compliant, run-time Object Request Broker (ORB)¾ the basic infrastructure for creating and deploying object-oriented Internet applications¾ and Netscape’s single-server, Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)-compliant directory service. In addition, a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) provides easy deployment of Java applications across HP platforms without recompilation. These technologies are closely coupled with FoundationTools and bundled with HP-UX at no extra charge. FoundationWizards included with FoundationTools simplify the development process by allowing developers to generate code sequences to access FoundationWare services quickly for use with their 3GL and 4GL Internet applications.

FoundationTools and FoundationWare unify Windows NT and UNIX environments by allowing developers to build and deploy Windows NT and UNIX versions of the same 3GL and 4GL applications from Windows NT workstations using platform-neutral middleware, eliminating the need for cumbersome, divergent source code streams typical of multiple-platform deployment. This is an industry-unique capability that can significantly lower development and porting costs, reduce time-to-market for enterprise Internet applications, and allow organizations to use their existing Windows NT environment and skills to develop powerful, scalable, and secure UNIX-based enterprise solutions.

What’s more, FoundationTools and FoundationWare protect your technology investment by providing a roadmap for an easy move to IA-64 by allowing applications to invoke HP-UX 11.0 APIs that will run on the IA-64 architecture without any changes or recompilation. When IA-64 arrives, HP¾ and our customers¾ will already have a comprehensive, cross-platform development process in place.

FoundationTools lets you create robust, scalable enterprise Internet, Intranet, or Extranet UNIX applications from a familiar Windows NT platform. It also gives you the choice of using C/C++ (HP OpenStudio), Java (HP Java WorkShop and Java Virtual Machine), or 4GL/modeling (from HP Developer’s Edge partners) programming languages and techniques.

FoundationTools consists of the following:

• HP OpenStudio interface for C/C++ deployment on HP-UX. More than any other UNIX system vendor, HP embraces the concept of using a common environment for UNIX and Windows NT software development. Many customers use Microsoft’s popular Visual C++ IDE to develop and deploy C/C++ applications on their Windows NT platforms. With the industry-unique HP OpenStudio, customers can now take advantage of Microsoft Visual C++ to develop HP-UX applications, as well.

• FoundationWizards. These HP OpenStudio add-ons help developers create applications using the middleware and services already bundled with HP-UX in FoundationWare. HP FoundationWizards use simple-to-understand forms that ask a series of questions. The appropriate HP FoundationWizard then automatically generates source code for those portions of the C++ code that are always present when CORBA (ORB)- or LDAP (directory service)- compliant middleware components are invoked. Consequently, developers perform less manual coding, and enterprise Internet applications can be deployed much more quickly. FoundationWizards eliminate the repetitive coding previously required to interface with these Internet services. In addition, meta-wizard templates are available as an integration architecture for third parties who want to integrate their middleware solutions with FoundationTools and FoundationWare.

• Software Development Kits (SDKs). Developers can easily access FoundationWare middleware services using the appropriate SDKs. Kit media are provided with FoundationTools, with licenses and support provided by the respective vendors.

• The HP-UX build environment. FoundationTools offers a variety of tools for application deployment on HP-UX:

• HP Edition of Java Workshop 2.0. HP’s Java development environment¾ HP Edition of Java Workshop 2.0¾ allows developers to create Java applications for deployment on HP-UX platforms. With Java Workshop, the developer can access a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) with a just-in-time (JIT) compiler (provided free with HP-UX 11.0) and additional Java components and libraries (available from HP Developer’s Edge partners), resulting in simplified development and deployment of Java applications for HP platforms.

After your Internet application is built, it can be deployed using the HP Domain FoundationWare infrastructure¾ which runs on the HP-UX operating system. FoundationWare provides common middleware services for UNIX and Windows NT, insulating applications from their different architectures. Close coupling of HP FoundationTools and the FoundationWare infrastructure through FoundationWizards and SDKs speeds development time, enhances manageability, and increases code quality. And, because FoundationWare is based on open Internet standards, you can be sure your investment in this middleware will be protected.

HP bundles the following FoundationWare technologies with HP-UX at no extra charge:

• Object technology: Domain FoundationWare ORB. IONA Technologies’ Orbix-based object request broker (ORB)¾ a central "clearinghouse" that receives requests from local or remote applications and returns the requested objects¾ is a critical technology for deploying distributed, object-based applications. ORBs allow applications in a distributed environment to operate without knowing where objects are located, the hardware and operating platforms they reside on, the languages in which they are implemented, or how they communicate. Because C, C++, and Java all have interfaces to CORBA-based ORBs, a developer can use any of these languages for application development.

• Directory technology: Domain FoundationWare Directory. Netscape’s Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)-compliant directory service acts as the unifying factor between multiple directories containing information about human, computer, and network resources, allowing developers to "write once" across these directories. HP is bundling a "lite" version of Netscape’s industry-leading, LDAP version 3.0-compliant enterprise directory service, Netscape Mission Control Directory, with HP-UX 11.0. HP is also working with Netscape to create common definitions that applications and operating systems can use to share information. This effort results in an LDAP-based Directory Integration Kit that provides simplified systems and network user account management; common, Internet-standards-based user authentication; and minimized changes to applications that use LDAP-compliant directory services.
• Java Virtual Machine (JVM). HP has embedded a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) with the just-in-time (JIT) compiler into HP-UX 11.0 for simplified deployment of and exceptional performance from Java applications on HP platforms. HP is leading the industry in developing Java run-time environments for future IA-64 systems.

HP recognizes that developers have diverse needs. That’s why we established the Developer’s Edge program, which includes industry-leading technologies from third-party partners that complement FoundationTools and FoundationWare technologies to provide a complete, end-to-end development and deployment solution.

FoundationTools emphasizes core development capabilities, such as compiling, linking, and debugging. Developer's Edge solutions go beyond this to include other integrated development environments; visual modeling; components and libraries; wizards; software development kits for complementary, third-party middleware services; and configuration management, testing, and analysis tools. In addition, Java development environments available through third parties support the development and deployment of Internet applications on HP-UX and Windows NT.

To complement FoundationWare, Developer’s Edge partners provide higher-level middleware services crucial to enterprise-class Internet applications, such as application servers, secure transaction management, state-session management, load balancing, security, data access, and asynchronous messaging.

HP wants to make it easy for you to get the service and support you need to develop and deploy your enterprise Internet applications. That’s why, with HP’s Worldwide Enterprise Support and Professional Services organizations, a single call provides you with support for FoundationTools and FoundationWare technologies.

Internet technologies hold tremendous potential for building your organization’s competitive advantage¾ today. FoundationTools and FoundationWare, along with complementary Developer’s Edge technologies, can help you overcome the challenges associated with building that advantage by unifying and simplifying your mixed UNIX and Windows NT development and deployment environment¾ speeding application development and deployment time, reducing development and porting costs, and preserving the investment in your existing environments.

The FoundationTools and FoundationWare technologies we offer today are just the beginning. In future phases, HP and our Developer’s Edge partners will introduce additional tools, wizards, and middleware to help you unify and simplify Internet application programming and deployment. What’s more, you can be confident that HP’s use of the same tool and middleware architecture for PA-RISC- and IA-64-based systems will make your transition to IA-64 a smooth one.

To learn how HP FoundationTools and FoundationWare can help you implement the latest Internet technologies, call your HP sales representative or visit HP at our Web site: http//:www.hp.com/go/foundation.

Allen Bonde, Analyst, The Extraprise Group

Send email to Interex or to theWebmaster
©Copyright 1998 Interex. All rights reserved.