Oracle’s Developer/2000 and Designer/2000 ScaleUp with Advanced Three-Tier Client/Server Architecture Support for TP Monitors and Application Partitioning Help Enterprises Achieve Concurrent Access for Thousands of Users NEW YORK, Mar. 6, 1996-At the Application Development Conference in New York City, Oracle Corp. today announced support for multi-tiered, scalable client/server application development in Developer/2000 and Designer/2000. Responding to burgeoning demand for more efficient, cost effective, and maintainable enterprise-wide client/server systems, Oracle's new three-tier architecture enables developers to build high performance OLTP applications that support thousands of concurrent users. Highly flexible systems can be built with Oracle's Flexi-Tier architecture which enables application logic and data partitioning across multiple tiers. Oracle's three-tier architecture results in a more distributed system that is easier to administer, reduces cost of maintenance and licensing, and allows IS managers to deploy department-level client/server applications enterprise wide. "High scalability and architectural separation of user interface, data storage and shared business logic are key customer requirements driving demand for three-tier client/server products," said Sohaib Abbasi, senior vice president of Oracle's Tools Division, who will deliver a keynote presentation on Oracle's tools business at the Application Development Conference on Friday, March 8, 1996. "Developers are objecting to the rigidity of current three-tier approaches, and demand not only the ability to split GUI, logic, and data, but also to place any of these functions at multiple locations anywhere in the network." Developer/2000, Oracle's second generation client/server development tool, achieves high scalability through support for drag-and-drop application partitioning, which can dramatically improve performance and reduce network traffic by eliminating repeated communication between the client and server. The other component of Oracle's three-tier architecture is support for TP monitors, including Tuxedo, TopEnd, Encina, and CICS. Oracle also announced its Flexi-Tier architecture, a major innovation in offering developers the flexibility break up and place the graphical user interface (GUI), application logic and application data on any of the three tiers and anywhere in the network. Developer/2000 will enable drag-and-drop partitioning of application logic between servers in multiple tiers in an application architecture. This functionality enables the flexible placement and access of both application logic (written in PL/SQL) and data (in a variety of databases) on any tier or on more than one physical or logical tier. Organizations can maintain all their business rules in a central location (as opposed to a proprietary application server) and ensure that the integrity and validity of the data is maintained. Designer/2000 is the only modeling and application generation tool that maintains definitions of application logic and database objects independent of their physical location. Application designers can easily partition and re-partition a system utilizing reusable objects inside the repository to generate components for multiple clients, application servers and database servers. All of the tiers in the Flexi-Tier architecture can be modeled and generated using Designer/2000. In combination with Oracle interfaces and third-party interfaces, Developer/2000 supports connectivity to open three-tier architectures, involving database-independent services, standards based middleware, TP monitors, and proprietary application servers. Additionally, future versions of Developer/2000 will support distributed debugging. This feature allows developers to transparently manage and debug partitioned application logic without having to know where each part of the application is located. Another emerging requirement of client/server tools is the ability to run disconnected on stand alone desktops as well as remotely on laptops. Developer/2000 supports disconnected processing using a local Personal Oracle7 or Personal Oracle Lite database, or remote access using Oracle Mobile Agents. Designer/2000 plays a key role in these environments in its ability to regenerate often differing GUI, application code and data. Developer/2000, Designer/2000 Developer/2000 is the first client/server development tool to deliver workgroup-through-enterprise scalability and the only tool on the market that uses the same programming language on both the client and the server. Scalable deployment is a reality with Developer/2000 because of several core strengths found in the product, including drag-and-drop application partitioning, object-orientation, team productivity, and tight integration with Oracle's Designer/2000. Developer/2000 also supports heterogeneous database access to a wide variety of databases, including DB2, Informix, Sybase and CA-OpenIngres. Designer/2000 is Oracle's design tool for modeling the business functions that underlie an application. The product supports business process reengineering, system analysis, software design and code generation. It is used to design an application before actually building it, and its code-generation capabilities allow developers to complete applications more quickly. Oracle Corp. is the world's leading supplier of software for information management, and the world's second largest software company. With annual revenues of approximately $3.5 billion, the company offers its database, tools and application products, along with related consulting, education, and support services, in more than 90 countries around the world. For more information about Oracle, please call (415) 506-7000. Oracle's World Wide Web address is http://www.oracle.com/. Trademarks Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. Oracle7, Developer/2000, Designer/2000, Oracle Mobile Agents, Personal Oracle Lite and Flexi-Tier are trademarks of Oracle Corporation. All other products or company names mentioned are used for identification purposes only, and may be trademarks of their respective owners.