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Spring 1997
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We will start with an introduction and put to bed the biggest misconception by stating that the Internet is a combination of a multiple of tools and not a single entity as many suggest. Primarily it is centered on the distribution of information including text, graphics, sounds and videos.
Electronic-mail, or e-mail to a business, is one of the most exciting tools, offering a simple way of sending text messages to other people who have access to the Internet. Forget DHL or UPS, messages, spreadsheets and graphics can be delivered to the other side of the world in less than five minutes.
The World Wide Web (WWW), visually and in content is very similar to an on-screen newspaper or magazine with text, pictures, movie-clips, sound and animation. Navigation is simple through a point and click interface and while there are any number of entertaining pages to explore, there are also serious business pages. You can subscribe to a number of magazines, check the availability of flights throughout Europe, or more importantly have access to the largest and most accessible collection of information ever made available. Ask for any documents containing the words ‘Pick’, ‘R83’, ‘year’ & ‘2000’ and 8 documents are listed. Be more topical and ask for documents containing ‘COBOL’, ‘year’ & ‘2000’ and over three thousand documents are listed.
Newsgroups and mailing-lists are yet another exciting forum to explore. Join the newsgroup ‘comp.databases.pick’ and you can participate or observe discussions on the Pick database with others from all over the world. Questions are raised, job vacancies advertised, patch fixes announced. It really does bring the Pick community into your office.
Many businesses see the Internet as a global means of advertising and raising market awareness. Others take one step further and look to receiving on-line orders or allowing customers to query current stock levels and availability.
The latest players have taken one step back and are only looking at using the Internet technologies locally within their own internal networks, an Intranet, a market predicted to be worth $200 billion by the year 2000. Intranets offer a cost-effective, easy-to-use, secure and versatile medium for accessing information across the corporate network. Applications and information are distributed using the HyperText Mark-up Language (HTML), a simple and versatile language for defining the content and the look of a document together with embedded instructions. For example to display the title ‘Welcome’ using underline, bold and italic, the command would look like this:
<U><B><I>Welcome</I></B></U>
With over 60 different web servers available to handle requests for the HTML pages, over 30 different Web Browsers available for requesting, receiving and displaying these pages and a multitude of tools available for developing these pages, you are certainly not locking yourself into proprietary technologies. With the new “network terminals” or diskless PCs coming to market and the flexibility of using these, Windows PCs or Macs to run the Web Browser, and since the technology sits on the TCP/IP stack, Intranets are highly scaleable.
Making live information available within your business via an Intranet is in its infancy. The HTML language can be used to design forms with list boxes, input boxes, radio buttons and selection buttons. So take this Intranet idea one stage further and create complete applications using this technology.
Front-end your application using the HTML language and your applications will run in a true graphical, scaleable client-server environment. Develop your application with HTML in mind and offer your customers the choice of running your software using their preferred choice of web server running under Windows NT or UNIX and their choice of Web Browser (Microsoft provide free Web Browsers).
Let us not forget however that these Web-based products are only providing the medium for distributing and receiving information. You still need the database at the back-end to process and store the received data. You still need the features of the data-base for field validation, indexing and batch processing. Combine the power of the multi-dimensional database with that of this new Intranet technology and you have a winning combination.
I have at this stage however neglected to discuss how to bridge the gap between the database and HTML. Unless the HTML pages are generated on the fly direct from the database, the pages will be static and of no real use to the employees of the company. The bridge here is a product which will read information from the data-base and from this compile a HTML page. On return, this product will have to interpret the results of an input form or query and process back into the database.
This technology is now appearing. UniData are bringing to market RedBack, UniVerse have created a tool called UV Web and Pick have already made several announcements regarding their technology. In the same way, you will find every other database player providing proprietary solutions.
Unfortunately this is where the principle of the Intranet may be lost. As mentioned before, by using the Intranet you are certainly not locking yourself into proprietary technologies. However some of these bridges to the database are both the bridge and web-server in one, others only work with a limited number of Web Servers. Some only offer a limited use of HTML or sub-set of the commands available. More importantly, most will restrict you to only accessing the one database.
Taking these arguments individually: Web servers allow plug-ins including live
chat, virtual movies or credit-card orders. These plug-ins would not be available
in proprietary web-servers. HTML is a developing language now currently at 3.2.
It is important that any database bridge will fully support any new extensions
to the language. It is also important for developers to consider that they may
be locked into using one database. While you may be happy to work with only
one
data-base, as a supplier of an Intranet solution to your customers, they may
expect an open Intranet solution offering access to other databases they may
be using.
In considering a solution, look around the market and not just at your database provider. After all the Intranet solution is not proprietary, it is not database specific and encompasses more than just database connection. You have to consider the tools and the technology including page design and networks. If your database supports ODBC, there are tools becoming available which will provide Intranet development against your existing database.
Coyote Consultants Ltd provide such a tool which is both database and web-server independent and provide complete solutions and support including page design, site hosting and networking. Recent additions to this software are links direct into Pick, UniData, UniVerse and jBase.
To summarize, it is clear that those companies embracing the Intranet will have an edge over their competitors. The technology brings huge benefits in the shape of easier access to information, reduced costs and a much faster way of doing business. Look wider than the Internet as a means of advertising and think of the Intranet internally as the latest and most cost effective way of distributing applications.
It has taken over eight years for the concept of client/server to be regarded as an acceptable and mature solution. It will take less than two years for an Intranet to become an accepted solution. If they haven't already, your customers will soon be asking if you provide it.
Steven Drewett
Net Futures Ltd
Last Updated: 30 June 1999