which IBM'
epa

One of the
most urgent
needs in the
computer field.
today is the re-

guirement to
| retool informa-
tion systems
(IS). Organiza-
tions can no
longer wait
months to re-
spond to a com-

petitive threat.
They must re-
act rapidly to
competitive challenges through in-
creased integration and computeriza-
tion. In most organizations, IS is still
| using manually oriented technigues to
| develop new applications and main:
| tain existing code. With these ineffi-
cient, technigues, maintenance and en-
| hancement of code may consume up to
80 percent of the resources of an IS de-
partment. This cripples the ability of

IS to respond to new challenges.
|. Manually oriented technigues must

be replaced by powerful development

and maintenance technigues.

MARTINO

These new technigues are based on :.

dramatic improvements in both hard-

| ereasing power of PCs and worksta-
tions; the rapid growth of end-user

| computing; the development of inte-
grated CASE (I-CASE) tools capable of
generating 100 percent of the code for
an application on the desktop; the in-
troduction of new prototyping metho-

| dologies such as rapid application de-

| velopment (RAD); and the use of inte-
grated computing architectures such as
IBMs Systems Application Architec-
ture (S igita's Network Ap-

AA) and
plication Support (NAS).

Within a year, leading I-CASE tools
will support desktop generation of

BankAmerica 05/2 Development with COBOL.

Continued. from Page 57

"We wanted to put the processing out on
workstations partly to off-load the main-
frame CPU, partly to give very good re-
sponse time and partly because we needed
to hook a currency counter to the PC,"
" Unlike DO:

— Unlike DOS, OS/2 will allow bank trans-
zlske to ooo ja while database
pdates are performed in > background
he noted. vne s

- The Automated ault System,
OM s Extended Edition Data-

st corporate customers, Tellers HI

stacks of bills cash-counting ma-
chines attached to PCs, which šeste, de

sulting dollar count into an SEE
Manager datab: Je OS/2Z A LADA

Previously, this reco

done by hand, making it. | ko ze
point the source of errors. "We wanted to

code for entire applications in COBOL
and C for a variety of target environ:
ments. They will be compliant with
standards for a graphical user interface
and will be nearing compliance with an
industry-standard repository. Support
will be provided for simultaneous access
to specifications by multiple analysts on

K mi
PT NE mi

po WEEKNAPPLIGATION DEVELO

APPLIED INTELLIGENCE

IS Must Move to Powerful Develop

The Evolving Environment
For Program Development

PMENTO

The next step for CASE tools is f
compliance with industry-standard re-
positories of design information and

with the services provided by integrated

| | »"h as SAA
com uting architectures such as SAA
and NAS. Within two years, leading I

CASE tools will be capable of automatic

construction of cooperative-processing

And Re-Engineeting

All facilitieg showh are expected to be
tivnilable within tivo to three years.

s.
Pa

| Productivity

aids tools

Sea Na NEPRE CE ee NIT di ur BE EL EP ra ei
a de - PNE Se AE 1 ae

| Unstructured code |

"-i ič, laga mm melja oma am oni 1

Source code |

a LAN, as well as consolidation of speci-
fications on a high-speed file server.

In addition, I'CASE tools will support
the development of real-time applica-
tions and applications targeted at the
Unix environment. Increased support
will be provided for project-management
functions, configuration control and re-
guirements traceability.

improve throughput, and improve track-
ing so we could locate problems guickly,"
Bunday said.

The pilot system, which runs on 10
workstations connected to an IBM PS/2
Model 80 server, employs a fault-tolerant
data-storage system that, distributes data
over multiple hard disks.

By 1992, the company plans to deploy
the system to 900 workstations dispersed
across 22 LANs—one located in each of

- the bank's California vaults. Once the ap-'

plication is fully implemented, the data

will automatically be posted to a centrally

located mainframe that houses critical in-
- formation about customer accounts.

Out of the Mainstream
-nstead of opting for the mainstream

This tool lets developers crae
windows and menus through a
šereen description language and a screen

Hestructuring |

Restructured code |

Forward | s Mi |.

for selected . | do JIN
engineerin še Va

/|. Kaverse- |
btigineeting
4. tools

MI He-eniglneetind F
tools z

Speciflcatiohs |

PP ON JE Ena —
k a Ve S

m CASE repositoty
zlu. AD/Cyele compatible

John Avaklan

and client/server applications that are
fully compliant with SAA and NAS.

As ICASE tools mature, they will pro-
vide a wealth of additional functions, in-
cluding embedded methodology aids,
just-in-time training aids, expert-system
support and a powerful icon-driven in-
terface that may replace the use of con-
ventional structured diagrams.

painter.

"We were looking for a product to build
screens and panels without too much of a
learning curve, and we didn't have much
experience in PM two years ago (when the
project began)" Bunday said. "In Dialog
System, you can design a very complex
panel in a few minutes."

Also, the screens created during the
prototyping phase can be used in the final
application, he said.

Although most of the application has
been coded in COBOL, the bank was forced
to write C programs to handle access to
0S/2's Communications Manager and Da-
tabase Manager, since IBM does not pro-
vide COBOL application programming in-
terfaces in this area, Bunday said.

IBM confirmed that, COBOL support is
limited in OS/2.

"COBOL is not a multitasking system,
and C is," said IBM spokeswoman Tracy
O Neill in White Plains, N.Y. "For that rea-
son, there's more support for C than CO-
BOL in 0S/2" ao

ment, Technigues

z RANČ

ai | ea t a ua poli alo - of ti ; JI

| tion! and Spoke in Europe, while

AUGUST 20, 1990

Major ch es will also occur in the
o am maintenance environment. aa
These changes will include the progres"
sive integration of produ vity aids,
tools and rever 1 eering systems. .
The specific mechanism for integra

ing these tools is compliance with a

common repository, such as AD/Cyele.

Once the tools are integrated, it will be

possible to use structurin ing tools to con-

vert unstructured, existing code into
eguivalent fully structured code; re-en-
gineering tools to analyze the pro-
gram's data definitions, and structure
and populate a repository with design
information; and reverse-engineering
tools to extract specifications for both
data and pro that are indepen-
dent of the target environment.

Reverse engineering is likely to remain

an interactive, user-assisted process.
Specifications extracted by the reverse
engineering process are entered into the
design repository, where they may be
used for design enhancement and
reimplementation of the application.

Many of the facilities discussed are
available, and all will be available
within the next two to three years. An |
important challenge for management is
to use the major improvements in ap-
plications-development technology to

žge , ' bt —i
gl Pa ni b iš
ah - pe zr ee pan l pe Kraner
" zar ie Mi — zle ani d Pi h a LI pe
di

da]

Kakgiro

ti yic
tion, not a bottleneck.

The concepts embodied. in this article
are described in the CASE volume in |
The James Martin Report Series. For
more information on this volume,

call (617) 639-1958. For information
on seminars, contact (in the United
States and Canada) Technology

- Transfer Institute, 741 10th St., San-

ta Monica, Calif. 90402 (213) 394-
8305. In Europe, contact Savant, 2
New St., Carnforth, Lancs., LA5 9BX
United Kingdom (0524) 734 505.

Alliance V Alcatel,
ExperTelligence
Combine Forces

Continued from Page 57

The earlier Macintosh version was limited
because it, followed the Mac interface
guidelines very strictly, he said.

Spoke is written in C and generates both
C and C- code, said Bernard Vargel,
president of Alcatel ISR of Paris. It sup-
ports the object-oriented concept of dy-
namic object classes, which can be created
on me fly at any point in program develop-
men

As part of the agreement between the
companies, Alcatel will market both Ac-

ExperTelligence gains the right to market
Spoke, as well as its Action! program, in
the United States. Spoke costs $10,000 per
copy. Action! costs $3,000 per copy.

ExperTelligence can be contacted at
(805) 967-1797. m