Does Above All
Studio require Web services?
No. Although we designed Studio in anticipation
of the wide adoption of Web services, we also understand
that such adoption will take time. We designed the product
to support software operations from many different technologies,
so we can easily add modules that support a variety of
software services and operations such as ODBC, database
stored procedures and Microsoft Office COM operations.
Our product, therefore, offers a unique and evolutionary
roadmap for organizations that want to move to a service-oriented
architecture and adopt Web services incrementally.
What is a composite
application?
A composite application is a transactional
application comprised of multiple software services from
one or more applications. Composite applications looks
to the user like a regular interactive application, but
is an integrated assembly of pre-existing business logic
or data.
When are Above
All composite applications useful?
-
When
users must navigate multiple systems to accomplish
a single business process or task. A composite application
pulls together key functions from each system into
a focused, unified application that makes users more
efficient.
-
When users need complete, interactive access to information
and processes for a business entity such as a customer
or supplier. A composite application can create a
"360 degree" application that consolidates,
for example, a complete history of a customer's interaction
with your organization along with the business functions
to support those interactions.
-
When users need simple, focused access to a small
part of a larger, complicated enterprise application.
Licensing and training expenses often negate the benefits
of giving users direct access to the systems they
need. A composite application hides the complexity
of underlying systems.
-
When your organization desires more functional, modern,
user-interface access to legacy applications.
-
When you have or are developing Web and other software
services that need a user interface. The Above All
Studio can automatically generate those user interfaces
and deploy the application in a fraction of the time
it would take with traditional tools.
-
When you want to extend the capabilities of an existing
enterprise application. For example, your CRM system
is the primary system for your users, but it doesn't
support a critical process like creating orders. You
can embed a composite application inside the CRM system
and access it in the environment familiar to your
users.
Who within my organization
uses your products?
There are three primary types of users for our products:
-
End-users.
Also referred to as information workers or business
users, these employees use the composite applications
that Above All Studio creates.
-
Application developers and business analysts. These
employees assemble the composite applications using
point-and-click visual tools. Because of the minimal
technical skills required to assemble new applications,
a wide range of staff within your organization can
assemble composite applications.
-
Domain experts and architects. When necessary, these
employees use visual tools to define the business
semantics, relationships and transformations between
disparate services. These definitions are readily
reusable, often transparently, by those assembling
the applications. Application assemblers subsequently
do not require deep understanding of the underlying
systems.
What is the relationship
of your product to a service-oriented architecture (SOA)?
Above All Software products are a natural
complement to an SOA. In fact, they provide the "last
mile" of your SOA. In other words, our products extend
your SOA all the way to the desktop and your end-users.
The result is that you receive significantly more value
from your investment in software services and an SOA.
What are the technology
requirements and prerequisites for the product?
Above All Studio, which is used to assemble
the composite applications, runs on Microsoft Windows
based machines. Users access the composite applications
in our Runner product, which is a Windows-based client.
The applications can also be embedded in Web pages or
other applications using ActiveX technology.
Above All Software leverages the existing
software assets within your organization, including the
databases storing your critical data, the application
servers running your business logic and the enterprise
applications you've deployed over the years. We also work
equally well with .NET and J2EE infrastructures and are
a natural complement to Web service management systems
and BPM systems.
Does your product
generate Web services?
No. There are many technologies for wrapping
existing software components and publishing them as Web
services. This capability is both inexpensive to acquire
and fast to accomplish.
Above All Studio can also work with other software services,
such as database stored procedures.
How do you handle
mapping data between disparate systems?
Composite applications involve accessing
application data from different back-end systems where
the data is often related, but usually uses a different
structure and schema. Assembling the composite application
involves mapping data from one system to another and ensuring
interoperability. Above All Studio has several features
for ensuring interoperability between different systems.
These features range from simple field mapping using visual
tools to complex transformations. The capabilities of
these features for refining and relating disparate services
make it possible to assemble composite applications from
heterogeneous application functions.
Above All Studio does not move or copy
the application data from back-end systems. Instead, it
generates meta data about the disparate systems that it
works with. This meta data is used to map information
and subsequently generate composite applications.
Our white paper
details these various approaches.
Do your products
help simplify the complexity of my software services?
Yes. End points, schemas, transports,
authentication, and so on all contribute to a complicated
software services environment. Above All Studio simplifies
software services, regardless of type or location, by
decomposing them into common visual representations of
their business objects and operations and hiding anything
not necessary for using these services in the assembly
of composite applications. From that point, the services
can be further refined to make them easier to understand
and use. Hiding unnecessary elements, combining services
into composite objects and operations, refining parameters,
specifying defaults, establishing how disparate services
work together and many other refinements simplify the
"raw" native software services.
The net result is that detailed technical
and infrastructural knowledge about your organization's
software services is not required by those assembling
composite applications.
How does Above
All Studio store software services?
Meta data about software services are
cataloged and stored in the Application Dictionary, a
repository that makes the services easy to find, use and
share. The Application Dictionary also stores the composite
applications created and used through Above All Studio.
These repositories can be shared or private and exist
locally or be server-based.
How do you handle
security?
There are several aspects to security:
-
Above All Software products respect the security mechanisms
in place for the software services being accessed
and utilized in composite applications.
-
We provide multiple authentication styles that map
to common security models employed by the underlying
services. For example, some services utilize username/password
while others may employ a token. We've identified
and implemented more than half a dozen such patterns.
-
For a given service or group of services, we allow
users to enter credentials (e.g., their username and
password) appropriate for the authentication style.
The user can cache these locally or choose to re-enter
them as needed.
Above All Software also provides a security
layer for controlling access to the composite applications
and other items within the Application Dictionary.
How do I populate
my Application Dictionary with software services?
You can populate your repository incrementally
as various services are needed to build specific composite
applications. In some cases services can be "bulk
loaded" depending on the source. For example, our
salesforce.com Knowledge Pack loads the repository with
the complete set of services for interacting with your
customized implementation of salesforce.com.
The repository stores meta data about
the software services. Once loaded in the repository,
the services can be organized as desired. Studio and the
repository hide the technical complexity of the underlying
services and present the service in a user friendly visual
format.
Who are your customers?
Above All Software is working with a
variety of customers in industries such as health care,
government, and telecommunications. The diversity of their
composite application needs illustrates the flexibility
of the Above All Studio. Specific customer case studies
will be provided as they become available.
