The following Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) focus on communications and
VisualAge for Smalltalk:
What communications protocols are supported by VAST? |
| Communications Protocols are supplied in VisualAge for Smalltalk,
Communications/Transactions for OS/2, AIX, and for Windows, V3.0 and include:
TCP/IP APPC CPI-C NetBIOS CICS ECI (external call interface) EHLLAPI MQSeries
RPC Support for the following protocols was added for Win 95/NT with v3.0b:
EHLLAPI, CPI-C, APPC, MQ, and CICS. |
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What ORBs work with VAST? |
| Only IBM SOM works with IBM ST. There will be wide support for other ORBs
in the future as the various ORB-vendors (including IBM) implement CORBA 2.0's
ORB Interoperability function.
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How does MQ implement commits and backouts? |
| All get-put actions to the queue from the last commit or open of the queue
until the time you do a commit or rollback will be part of the "logical
unit of work". All those actions will be committed or backed out as a
group. The commit or rollback is on an app / program basis even though the queue
manager handle is used. Even if two programs where reading from the same queue
and one was processing the messages under a logical unit of work and the other
one was not, the messages that are part of the one program's logical unit of
work are the only ones affected by the commit or roll back.
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How does VA disconnect from a queue manager? |
| MQSeries scopes queue manager handles differently on each platform. For
example, on OS/2, MQ will return a unique queue manager handle to each thread
that performs a connect, whereas on Windows 3.1 the same handle will be returned
to all threads within an application. Since these handle control the breadth of
commit and backout functions, OS/2 developers have more functionality available
when developing multi-threaded applications. VA uses a class dictionary to
count the number of connect requests that have been made to each queue manager.
When disconnects are requested, the API is not invoked unless the counter
indicates that no more active connections exist. Since each connection (under
Windows NT and OS2 at least) from a different thread will have a unique handle,
this technique will not work correctly (unless maybe the handle is included in
the key to the dictionary). |
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Where can I get more information on CICS parts for VisualAge? |
| See GG24-4487-01, "VisualAge and Transaction Processing in a
Client/Server Environment". |
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Describe VAST's DCE support. |
| There are two Object Connection partners that provide DCE solutions:
CrossLogic Corporation's VisualRPC for DCE product provides parts to be used
from both VisualAge and Smalltalk to generate RPC (Remote Procedure Call)
communications code for OS/2. Windows support is planned for this quarter,
along with enhancements to support DCE Security (for both OS/2 and Windows).
This release will also provide support to link to existing DCE IDL's. VisualRPC
is available for $1,350 for the first license. Licenses 2-10 qualify for a 30%
discount, and licenses 11-50 qualify for a 60% discount. AIX support is planned
for 1Q96. Crosslogic can be reached at 704-254-1702. Open Environment
Corporation provides the Entera product which automates the incorporation of
VisualAge in distributed DCE applications. The DCE package provided in Entera
automates the use of DCE Threads, RPC communications, and Directory and Security
services, effectively shielding the developer from the complexity of DCE
programming. Development licenses are $16,000 per developer. Runtime licenses
start at $2,000 per server machine. Open Environment Corporation can be reached
at 1-800-562-5969. |
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Is DDE supported? |
| DDE is supported in the base product. |
|
What are the advantages of using IMS Connection to front-end my IMS
transactions? |
| VAST web connection + IMS features allow you to relatively easily reuse
as-is your IMS transactions via web pages generated from VAST. What does this
buy you? You have access to the complete power of VisualAge and Smalltalk (all
the parts, DB access, multimedia, web, ..., ...) via a true object model of your
business. You can then add, change, replace portions as you desire, while still
using your IMS code unchanged. |
|
Does IMS Connection generate "data objects" from the embedded IMS
DB calls? |
| The screen objects you are referring to are I believe the objects that
understand your existing IMS transaction screens. HLLAPI is merely a
communications protocol -- parsed screens with the IMS feature understand the
semantics of what is on your host screens. DB access can be as-is from your IMS
transactions of easily via VAST parts. Web Connection pages are generated from
visual parts you create targeted for the web. HTML is generated for you. You
have some control over HTML also. |
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Describe VAST's support for MAPI. |
| Synergistic Software, Inc. - an IBM Object Connection partner -provides
their Visual Mail product which is a framework for integrating common electronic
communications into your IBM Smalltalk and VisualAge applications. MAPI is
supported for sending information to mail-enabled applications such as Lotus
Notes, Microsoft-Mail, cc VisualMail also provides serial communications to
modem-based services such as CompuServe, as well as SMTP support for
TCP/IP-based messaging. Synergistic Software can be reached at 609-252-1850.
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