ju o WsecCa common standard

Pace 84

Second of a
sertes of articles
on the IBM Re-
posuory, a stg-
naftcant compo-
nent of IBM's
appications-de-
velopment strat-
egy for the
19905.

The IBM Re-
pository, an:
nounced last:
month, establish-
es a common
standard for de-

sign specifications generated by comput:

er-aided software engineering (CASE)
products and other development, tools.
As described in last week's article, the
Repository represents a critical compo-
nent of AD/Cycle, which provides a
standard development environment.
within IBM's Systems Application Archi-
tecture (SAA).

Users demand an open software-devel-
opment environment in which tools

—— rom many vendors can be used inter- —

echangeably, sharing specifications from
a cominon repository of design informa-
bon. In defining a repository standard,
IBM is taking a major step toward pro-
viding support for an open software-de-
velopment environment.

Many vendors of software-develop-
ment tools claim compliance with IBM's
application-levelopment standards; still,
is important to determine the level of
conunitment!, that the vendor intends to
make to the standard.

four levels of compatibility with the
AD/Uycle standard for an applications-
development. environment; standard:

" Compliance with CUA. Entails Sup-

AH applications, using (he Common User
nl Mo ACGeza services specified by SAA.
Ji o" Compliance with AD/Cyecle. Entails
| a na for design
JO. "pecifications, as defined by the . ..

MO AD/Cyele Repository.
ooo, Sempliance with External Source
Me 5 Format CESF). ESF is an IBM specifica-

language used to
UM ea Development (CSP/AD), the desig.
UM a VE SAA application generator, —

JU o Ping Interface (CPI) services. Such

As (he figure shows, there are at least

Por for a common user interface for all

import/export de-
Vo Cross System Product/A pplica-

» interfaces provid-

ik ii nape

cations-development tools and applica-
tion models. ESF can be used within an
integrated project-support environment

formation reguired for complete CASE
development, such as that stored in the
CASE Encyclopedia of Texas Instru-
ments' Information Engineering Facility
or KnowledgeWare s Information Engi-
neering Workbench. IBM is working in-
tensively to expand its current Reposi-
tory design so that; it will eventually
provide all the facilities reguired by
powertful, high-end CASE tools.
One of the more pivotal consider-
ations is compatibility with the ESF.
Currently, CSP/AD runs as a develop-
ment tool only on S/370 mainframes.
However, it generates code that can be
executed on AS/400 midrange machines
and PCs. IBM has announced that;

To Comply with AD/Cyele j
Softuare Developihent Tools May Be.
Oite br More EleHen

a variety of library and configuration-
management tools.
To date, several vendors of applica-

ESF support, including Index Technolo-
gy Corp., KnowledgeWare Inc., McDon-
nell Douglas Corp., Nastec Corp., Sage
Software Inc. and Texas Instruments
inc. These vendors are committed to
producing an ESF tag language to inter-
face with CSP/AD.

When CSP/AD version 3 is available
on the PS/2 as an SAA application gen-

Fout Ways

Coinpatible with

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John Avakian

Pa O lea possible to use CASE tools
a o different CASE vendors, all of which interact
ca common knowledge base of design information.

| CSP/AD elon 3 t
the PS/2 wor WI be available on erator, it will be used to generate exe-

ponent of SAA.. 2 workstation in June 1990 as a | vili
ija ' standard itself, the SA job Plication-generation facility. seči a ode for all SAA environments.
de Repošitory is a key integra. Gross Slej senca Mterface to the. — sjoogim o! Ca Use CSP/AD ver-
- Jng Fnetor in providing an open develop. — tppojy o, PoduCt that enables poni that role through the mecha.
ea otvironment. The Repository de. — Csp/Ap, ns oe lO Connect with — A. of ESF, m
a the objecis reguired to support all — Marko it is represented as a de) ENI night decide not to use
phases of the development life-cyele pro. man a Buage (GML), which is a hu: ta a.e, Me Sode generator Peak
cess, To be fully compliant >24€ pro-. man-readable lane Pija RA there are other appli ti zase
AD/Cyele, tools from ind nan and attributes (hence, the comnor a ehnigues that may be zarenablini
gora must incorporate repositries that. can be ugod propa 6 006). ESP. CSP/AD me delo (O ONCourage the use or
a Ja be same metadala model tions from design and ooo one Ped0ce | AD/Oyele. Howe jao SeNEralor for
Al YCyele žena by IBM (or the nents of CASE tools to build skala Ops a more power ul dia Yomlor devel-
IBM recognizes (hat its current Renr or partial applications using the — IBM does not want to preciixlo te
to: v coninir NE o urrent Reposi- CSP/AD code enerato m Rather, IBM's intent is tl | use,
'Y contains only a fraction of the ij prnerator. Specifications Benerators, as well as ihat other code

: CSP/AD, may be

Fan also be imported from other appli- — used, proslavi that they

Conform to the

ooo III ae rame

to import/export; design specifications to

tions-development, tools have announced

iso

- ada) Techn

Repository standard, obey SAA stan:
dards and create code that s portable
within SAA environments.

Many users view the introductim of
the IBM Repository and the AD/Cyele
applications-development environment
as the first steps toward the develop. "14
ment of a software-backplane capabilit; H;: ii
The objective of a software backplanes '//Y
one of enabling users to select a variety (4

sign tools, code generators, project-man
agement facilities and other support IMA
tools that share design information from ///|/
a common Repository. "ul
A hardware backplane is based on the
concept of plugging standardized hard:
ware modules into a common backplare
structure. Similarly, a soltware
backplane uses the concept of plugging
standardized software modules into a
common design database. However, the
database needs to store more than just
design information; it needs to be a
knowledge base containing all the rule
processing associated with objects in the
database. The design repository should
'be an object-oriented database that:
"stores both data'and'"rules. Ifralr vendars
use the same object-oriented database
with rule-based processing, then they
can share design information.

Common Knowledge Base

The Repository contains definitions of. |
all of the objects that are specified bva |
CASE tool—entities, relationships, data
models, process models, normalized da:
tabase sehemes, procedural code. The
attributes of these objects are then de-
fined in the form of a normalized rela
tional database.

Next, the rules that must be obeyed
by all of the objects and attributes are
defined. The database provides the

PM
šegi

structure of a software backplane. In ca:

this way, it will be possible to use CASE
tools from different CASE vendors, all Ho!
of which interact with a common
knowledge base of design information.

There will be a diversity of ideas from |

different vendors and a wide range of ci |
views on what constitutes the most | m
powerful tools; however, the tools must | /
be portable, they must interconnect, and |.

they must have integration down the
value train across the corporation. One
application in the value train might be
built with one tool; a different applica-
tion might be built with another tvol.
However, the tools must integrate across
applications, Building a computerized
corporalioti reguires the acceptance of
standards, as well as a fully integrated
development environment. | |
Next week, I will describe a strategv
for CASE based on the most powerful
soltware-development technology. 8

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