1. What is NetDynamics? From the online documentation manual: The NetDynamics Enterprise Application Platform enables you to develop data-driven, interactive enterprise applications and deploy them over the World Wide Web. These applications can be totally new, a retrofit of existing client/server implementations, or simply an advanced GUI on existing applications and associated databases. The NetDynamics Enterprise Application Platform provides the scalability and reliability required to support the millions of users that access the Web, leverages your existing business logic and data systems, and provides the tools to facilitate the development, testing, deployment, and management of these often mission-critical enterprise applications. Basically it's a Java-based platform for the development and deployment of web-based applications. - What does it do Again, from the on-line documentation: The NetDynamics architecture consists of several key components: * Application Server * Command Center * Studio * Object Framework * Platform Adapter Component (PAC) services * Platform Adapter Component Software Development Kit (PAC SDK) The NetDynamics Application Server--a high performance, multi-threaded Java application server built on an integrated CORBA infrastructure--manages all application services, and provides each service with maximum scalability, high availability, and flexibility. The Command Center--a Java application with a full GUI--supports remote or local administration of the NetDynamics server environment. Through its facilities, you can create, modify, save, and activate multiple system configurations, move components from machine to machine, duplicate components, and so on. The Studio provides a wizard-based interactive development environment (IDE) that lets you create both Java and HTML business applications. The Studio supports JDK 1.2, BusinessBeans (a value-added implementation of the Enterprise JavaBeans specification), a fully integrated debugger, and team development facilities. The Object Framework consists of hundreds of classes and event handlers that provide your application with fine-grained control of its visual, session, transaction, and data objects. The Object Framework is not only open and extensible, but also fully backwards compatible with previous versions of NetDynamics. A Platform Adapter Component (PAC) service represents an abstract interface to a database, packaged application, or legacy software system (referred to collectively as an external store) for which no other connectivity exists. Sun/NetDynamics and other ISVs and VARs provide a number of PACs that integrate NetDynamics with specific common systems and data stores that exist across the enterprise (for example, Microsoft COM, PeopleSoft, and SAP R/3). These PACs provide the immediate connectivity and data transparency you need to support the development, deployment, and management of your project applications. The PAC SDK (Software Development Kit) provides a development and deployment environment for implementing your own custom PACs. - What platform does it run on NetDynamics Studio * Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 4 NetDynamics Server * Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 4 * Solaris 2.6 (patched) * HP-UX 11.0 * AIX 4.3.2 PAC SDK * Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 4 * Solaris 2.6 * AIX 4.3.2 COM PAC * Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 4 Full details, including supported databases, JDBC drivers, web servers, web browsers, compilers etc: 2. What experience do we have with Net Dynamics? - high level knowledge - pre-sales engineer level knowledge - hands-on knowledge - which people, how much experience, etc. A handful of consultants have a basic/overview knowledge of the product. The only person with hands-on knowledge is Anatoly Osiko, who attended a course last year (Alan Chalmers also attended the course). Matthew Moyle-Croft has pre-sales knowledge. In fact, he discussed the use of NetDynamics with TransportSA. 3. How would we go about rapidly increasing our skills with NetDynamics? A reasonable amount of on-line documentation is available at: - buy the software Anatoly received an Evaluation copy of the NetDynamics 5 Studio and Application Server, for NT 4.0. - get a server We could install the app server on ntdev01 (one of the NetFinity boxes). We'd need at least one NT workstation to install Studio, unless it can be run via Windows Terminal Server. - formal training - self paced training Anatoly left his copy of the course manual on the bookshelves, but it seems to have gone missing following the big move. 4. Anything else that we need to know about NetDynamics that you think is important. * seems to make heavy use of JavaBeans, so may require skilling up in that area * also makes use of CORBA, which I don't think anyone in Consulting has training in or experience with * Studio can be configured to use alternative Java compilers, text editors, HTML editors, web browsers, source control systems etc * development IDE only runs on NT * database connectivity is achieved using JDBC, which is a standard part of Java since JDK 1.1; NetDynamics uses Wizards to facilitate database access, but several consultants have worked directly with JDBC * people have commented that previous versions of NetDynamics made use of non-standard Java wrapper objects (eg CSpInteger); this may have been changed in the latest version * highly Wizard-driven - need to try product to see if can enter raw code easily Other notes * JavaBeans: - software component model for Java - promotes modularity and re-use - standard part of JDK 1.1 and later - developed by and promoted by Sun - a Bean is essentially a Java class which follows naming conventions for methods, variables, events etc - allows builder tools to visually manipulate components, thanks to introspection - reference * Enterprise JavaBeans - extends the JavaBeans component model to N-tier enterprise applications - ie a specification for distributed JavaBeans - NetDynamics implements EJBs and calls them BusinessBeans - reference * CORBA - Common Object Request Broker Architecture - a technology which allows applications to communicate with one another in a distributed system, independent of physical location, hardware, operating systems, programming languages etc - CORBA specifies how objects can be defined (the Interface Definition Language or IDL), and how objects communicate with each other (the Object Request Broker or ORB) - NetDynamics uses this technology to provide interoperability with legacy systems, inter alia (called Platform Adapter Components) - reference * IDL - Interface Definition Language - IDL provides an implementation-independent way to describe objects (NetDynamics supports Java programming language and C++ implementations) - Java has APIs to implement IDL