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Product Review HahtSite 4.0 - F

1. 0 5 HTML Interface Productivity As we can clearly see in the first positioning graph HahtSite is dedicated to HTML intranet application elaboration With a rating of 0 Java interface is not really the tool s strong point However HahtSite s results in terms of HTML interface generation and assistance make it one of the best on the market In regards to server side possibilities HahtSite release 4 0 offers even more than its forerunners It is the addition of Java as an alternative to HahtTalk Basic in its latest release that will allow HahtSite to attack a bigger market as a serious candidate for large enterprise projects Its average rating of 8 out of 10 in this area proves this point Beyond the application server s potential it is important to note the development tool s productivity as it makes quickly putting complex applications into place even easier Productivity Application Server IDE quality and RDBMS access HTML interface Language richness openness Java interface 0 0 Deployment Completeness is one of HahtSite s best qualities In terms of IDE the developer has on hand many assets to be productive quickly The only thing missing is a greater openness to complementary tools search engines modeling tools etc to broaden the development environments overall potential Furthermore with the exception of Java interface generation for which HahtSite is not designed the product provides good productivity
2. The application server can be characterized by the richness of its programming languages Java and HahtTalk and good openness to other RDBMSs But HahiSite s biggest force resides in its deployment potential with high application availability via the possibility of session level failover This strong characteristic of top of the line environments is thus installed in a historically script type environment which allows to best reconcile simplicity and performance The only lack is in terms of API richness and openness as low level fastidious programming is often necessary to meet specific needs TechMetrix Research 1999 5 Product Review HahtSite 4 0 Performances This is the number of dynamic HTML pages delivered per second by the HahtSite application server during the running of a mixed scenario stringing together of 8 modules with concurrent use of the application by 200 robots The HahtSite application was deployed on the platform without any difficulty The first tests showed the application servers solidity as it didnt show the slightest sign of weakness even with the maximum workload No error interfered with this stage of the tests HahtSite s behavior during workload Transaction Rate tests reveals the reliability and 200 consistency of the application server m eg 180 The drop in server side performance is only slight 191 and 180 pages second during the transition from 50 to 200 46 robots which means
3. An XML parser is available with HahtSite Unfortunately the documentation is only available in white paper format for the moment Comments For the application server there is the choice between Windows NT 4 0 Solaris Sparc 2 5 1 HP UX 10 20 and AIX 4 2 1 No Linux version planned The notion of site makes deployment much easier However environment specific configuration DSN ODBC alias of Web servers etc is not taken into account The application server supports CGI 1 1 and is totally independent of the HTTP server which can be either of the following Apache Commerce builder Microsoft ISAPI NCSA Netscape NSAPI 2 0 and 3 0 Oracle Web Request Broker Purveyor Spry Website WebSTAR Impossible to deploy the application on other servers on the market Failover and restart support depends on the selected configuration application isolation can be improved by the creation of several groups of servers failover is handled by replication the control host can be associated with a backup control host the multiplicity of foreground and especially background hosts guarantees user session transfer and thus that the context will be saved An application can be updated at any time without having to stop the slightest service Just be careful to empty the browser caches to have the updates The application server is physically linked to neither the HTTP server nor data server It can be made up
4. Product Revlew HahtSite 4 0 A report by TechMetrix Research TABLE OF CONTENTS is PRODUG T PROFILE eee sensei aa yin laa il la a ll a la ll lr 3 2 PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT S 1m1n mena anana anan anan sanan sanan anan anan anan anan amaa anan nana 7 Ga FE d ug ROI TON Zi a a a a ra ad len 7 221 ERE SUITS e al ahaa ahaa a a eo eral aa aan 11 3 FUNCTIONAL EVALUAT ON 1 amaaa anan aaa amana ENER ENNEN ENNEN ENN ARAM AA na 17 eae a ene i MY YY e 17 3 2 DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT QUALITY AND RICHNESS aaannnnaannnnnnunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnrnrnnnnrrrnnnnrrrnnnnrrnne 17 393 HTMLEINTERFACE GENERATION me aa Rk DK dees deve dees L LLE ADA LDE 23 3 4 JAVA GRAPHICAL INTERFACE GENERATION 26 3 5 IDE PRODUCTIVITY FOR SERVER DROCESSING 27 3 6 A TIN Vrs cade sete EE EE EE E Ee 32 A RINNE A E 36 4 1 WORKLOAD METHODOLOGY EE 36 4 2 FUNCTIONAL EVALUATION GRITERIA cccccssesssscesseucuccscarsunsursescussusaucecursarsursercurausauscesarsursensenees 41 Product profile 1 Product profile Identification HahtSite IDE and Application Server 4 0 Oracle Sybase Informix MS SQL Server all ODBC and JDBC HP UX Solaris Sparc AIX NT 4 Same as development platform Haht Software Haht Software is an American company created in 1995 by the founders of Q E Software mal Their product HahtSite is a complete tool for transactional Web application development and deployment Thanks to a development
5. and EJB SMTP and POP3 IMAP4 and LDAP support The processing server is an HTTP and FTP client Possibility of proposing different levels of security for applications SSL SET use of firewalls etc Rating WUE WUE CU WUE WUE WUE WUE WUE Comments Java supports polymorphism and Java classes can be included in an HahtTalk project With HahtTalk the flaw concerns defining structure tables No problem in Java Possibility of creating features and procedures in Java and HahtTalk they can even be recursive Variable management can be handled at session or application level using the out method Yes It is possible to force log out and to launch server side processing if the session expires Generation of print files goes through a specific development indeed nothing is planned for this However it is possible to dynamically feed PDF files No tool for generating GIF images the solutions can turn to a component such as ChartFX which thus only works via OLE on NT or other solutions such as shared library on Unix Yes No notion of business object mapping on the database The application server implements the CORBA 2 0 standard as it integrates Inprise s VisiBroker for Java playing the role of an ORB Naming Service and Event Service it is necessary to specify one s desire to install VisiBroker at the time of installation In this way it can behave as aclient and a COR
6. ESM for Seagate Crystal Reports allows for easy report integration It is not necessary to install Crystal Reports 5 0 or 6 0 on all development stations but only on those that will edit the reports RPT An ESM for Adobe Acrobat makes it possible to generate PDF format dynamic reports that can navigate throughout all data and to modify them in Adobe Acrobat Exchange No search engine The only solution is to configure that of the HTTP server HahtSite does not have any data modeling tools and does not offer an interface with another market tool it only offers a view of the database set up tables views stored procedures shared queries but no table index without being able to play with the definition of these objects The only way to query the database is to create a shared query This notion allows for the generation of SQL code that can be reused by the editor with the possibility of graphical assistance list of tables fields joins etc The project explorer offers a general overview of the project with all of the elements that make it up It is possible to create repertories that group together components such as HIML pages server code files client script files style sheets images and also Widgets database connections and publication sites A Design view gives a graphic view of how pages are linked together It also makes HTML page creation using templates easier with drag amp drop from the palette Finally it
7. completion property and method pop up windows etc The administration tool is simple and its HTML interface is quite practical Optimization solutions a testing tool and a workload tool would be welcomed additions IDE productivity for server processing Rating 10 7 9 3 TechMetrix Research 1999 31 Product Review HahtSite 4 0 3 6 Application server 3 6 1 Database access HahtSite uses ADO 2 0 to access databases Then we have the possibility of using native drivers which can connect to MS SQL Server 6 5 and 7 0 Oracle 7 x and 8 0 Informix 7 x and Sybase 10 and 11 If not there is the ODBC solution which allows us to access among others MS Access and micro databases HahtSite also supports JDBC and OLE DB SQL support is satisfactory as it allows for display modification of standard blob fields or long raw and recognizes specific SQL orders to DBMSs such as getdate of MS SQL Server The DataSource folder that is present in the project explorer groups together all database objects tables views system tables stored procedures and a new notion of shared queries For all of these objects a dialog box displays their properties e List of fields with their type e General survey of all result values e List of parameters with their type for stored procedures and shared queries Only the possibility to display the source of a view or a stored procedure is not provided Similarly it is impossible to
8. IDE by selecting the default browser that will be used to display pages Netscape or Internet Explorer Finally comes the installation of an application server dedicated to testing with automatic detection of previously installed HTTP servers and publication site configuration gt Documentation and tutorials 18 The printed documentation is quite good and often includes code examples It is made up of the following volumes e for the IDE installation manual programming manual user s manual and a Widget programming manual e for the application server installation manual and an administration manual which is also available in PDF or by download from the Haht Software Web site www haht com CN Shock avr Flash bien Afichege Lorke cata hahtsite 4 H HahtSite Tutorial A complete tutorial in Shockwave format provides a presentation of the product and a complete lesson in HTML format The tutorial is made up of 11 lessons which become progressively more difficult as well as two applications VB and Java which group together a large part of tool s features After a few hours the user succeeds in creating a small application and gets a good idea of the tool s features TechMetrix Research 1999 Functional evaluation 3 22 Composition of the product gt A complete environment The development tool offers a good level of integration grouping together the following on the same IDE e HTML pages
9. Java graphical interface Concerning the graphical interface HahtSite does not offer an alternative it will be done in HTML or it will be done with another tool If you want a tool which allows you to use Java for application and applet creation HahtSite is not the tool for you as it is difficult to imagine such type of development without a Java WYSIWYG editor without a components palette AWT JFC Swing JBCL etc without an objects inspector without the possibility of creating JavaBeans or without wizards Of course HahtSite allows for applet creation but offers no assistance whatsoever The developer would have to code everything 3 4 2 Evaluation No need to beat around the bush with HahtSite creating applets is only possible if you are a Java expert as no assistance is provided Java interface generation Rating 10 26 TechMetrix Research 1999 Functional evaluation 3 5 IDE productivity for server processing 3 9 1 Assistance in generating server side code With release 4 0 HahtSite adapts even more to Java Already in release 3 x it was possible to include Java classes source or byte code in a project Now HahtSite offers the choice between HahtTalk which is largely based on Microsoft VBA and Java as the programming language As soon as the project is created you must choose between HahtTalk with the possibility of including Java code and a project entirely in Java No matter the choice the editor
10. Step 10 Deployment Na 1 Description Multi platform application Unix Linux and Windows NT Server Support of several types of interface with HTTP servers CGI ISAPI and NSAPI Possibility of deployment on other application object servers ASP LiveWire NCA cartridge EJB JSP servlets etc Support of application level and session level failover Possibility of modifying the application without stopping the services on the fly modifications Possibility of spreading the server processes Oo across several physical machines distributed objects created with the tool or relying on the application server and of separating the HTTP server the application server and the DBMS server load balancing with the configuring the balancing Support of possibility of algorithm TechMetrix Research 1999 Rating WUE NZ We WUE WUE WUE Functional Evaluation Criteria It is possible to download an ESM Enterprise Solution Module from Haht Software s Web site This ESM makes it possible to easily connect to SAP R 3 this module provides among others components and wizards that support BAPI RFC HahtSite sells two e Scenario applications created in cooperation with SAP Another ESM Shadow Direct developed in collaboration with Neon Systems makes it possible to interface with such mainframes as CICS IMS DB2 VSAM etc It is also possible to interface with Tuxedo via an ESM
11. a Ve Pee EE EE St ya EN Dees d K A Widgets SO Cake S ch SEN a Sar et oc Zeen USER NAME be B Enter Customer Mumber n ai Ede Sihag i S ier e ER Ge eem WS ur ec WT OAI ORDER HIMIBERE II d es Dass M ADO Creche ai rn fe Beste Propels eis vder Lotel Uetatiier Hum strimg FOUT mili L i F e D Pablishing Ayras items to VLJYHASUETLER oke a 1 Fablishing statio rem to 2 D Fiblish seocesstolly completed SL irch ai kibir A Deeg A Ferlin Ba E The IDE allows for the creation of HTML pages and server side source code VB and or Java gt Openness to third party tools 20 HahtSite does not provide developers with profile features work group or versioning tools However it enables interfacing with a good level of integration with Microsoft Visual Source Safe but also with Merant Intersolv PVCS StarBase StarTeam and MKS Source Integrity To create multilingual applications HahtSite offers the use of ESM Enterprise Solution Module NLS 3 0 National Language support which is downloadable from the Haht Web site This tool is based on a dictionary that can be enhanced with an editor The translation language is deduced in relation to the browser configuration or it can be imposed during page loading HahtSite does not possess an HTTP specific server The application server is HTTP 1 1 client and thus recognizes most of the Web servers on the market Apache Microsoft Netscape Oracle Web R
12. be downloaded from the Haht Software Web site This factor prevents HahtSite from being a true packaged product On the other hand if we look at the interface offered on the client station we can see that HahtSite is entirely dedicated to HTML interface applications The richness in terms of deployment and development can be seen in the functional evaluation conducted for this report With the exception of Java interface generation a problem it is not designed to handle HahtSite received above average marks in all of the evaluated areas In terms of productivity HahtSite s greatest strength remains its HTML page design workshop This workshop makes graphically creating high quality HTML dynamic pages possible while allowing for the import export of these pages from your favorite design tool The development environment can be characterized by its simplicity However it still has some shortcomings in terms of its integration with other tools modeling tool project management etc which keeps it from being a true AGL Finally to improve productivity HahtSite provides relatively complete tools debugger source editor etc which are a definite plus when creating specific processes The application server also obtained good results As it was one of the weak points in past releases the editor made considerable efforts to help HahtSite move up a notch Whether it be database access language richness with high level generic methods or its depl
13. can give an order to pages within a repertory This makes their linking easier in the case of a static site TechMetrix Research 1999 10 gt Repository cross object references graphics components objects used by the IDE etc detection of unused objects export of standard objects etc For example during the deletion of a database connection object the IDE must inform the developer of the different uses of this object HTML interface generation Functional Evaluation Criteria Relationships between components static HTML pages images Java classes Widgets style sheets are presented graphically by the action Show References don t forget an Update Dependencies to update the information HahtSite does not possess an exhaustive dictionary that references all project components such as calls between pages are only made in a dynamic manner to preserve the context Show References does not allow us to establish complete application kinematics HahtSite does not offer any information on unused declared variables either not even on the compiler level the only solution is to use find in files grep on project files Deleting a database object does not inform the developer of its use Step 3 Automation of HTML interface generation N Description Rating Comments Presence of a WYSIWYG HTML editor The seve The HTML page editor is WYSIWYG one chooses the form field
14. environment with an integrated HTML WYSIWYG graphics editor and an application server HahtSite makes for good productivity right from the beginning of the learning phase Simplicity and comprehensiveness were the two main strengths of previous releases of HahtSite With a script oriented application server a development tool that was both rich and intuitive HahtSite seemed to be one of the market leaders in this category Since then however the product has been beefed up quite a bit and HahtSite is now playing in the big leagues The first step in this transition was allowing server side load balancing and thus no longer limiting processing to one physical machine Then the arrival of Java as a potential development language facilitated openness to existing information systems Although release 3 1 only offered a hybrid solution based on HahtTalk version adapted from Microsoft VBA release 4 leaves the choice between HahtTalk scripting language and Java object language entirely up to the developer At the same time HahtSite benefited from other important improvements notably concerning the application server For example session failover support guarantees great availability for the deployed applications Other elements presented as complementary modules make interfacing with Tuxedo accessing CICS mainframes and reusing SAP applications possible It is unfortunate that most of these interfaces called ESMs are presented as components to
15. modify a table or a procedure All of the features are natively accessible from the IDE or by using the ODBC Shared queries can be helpful when accessing a database that does not offer the possibility to make stored procedures because they have the disadvantage of not being able to be compiled on the DBMS However their use is very practical especially if we do not have a SQL query editor A wizard makes it possible to build a query in a graphical manner by proposing the list of fields table joins sorts etc In order to use a database connection on a page it is necessary to go through the DataAgent component It acts as the link between the data source and the form fields that present this data This component also allows for the definition of query field display formats There can be as many DataAgents as we would like on one page and each of them can be connected to DataSources referencing different databases In case of DBMS failure and restart HahtSite is capable of restoring connections automatically as long as the method getSharedConnectionByName is used To monitor the number of connections that an application can create on a DBMS HahtSite offers connection sharing The definition of this parameter is linked to the number of processes defined on the application server there cannot be more connections than processes HahtSite also adds a configurable cache feature on the DBMS connection level keeping a connection open during
16. remains the same for the HTML interface and the server code In this way on an HTML page in WYSIWYG mode it is possible to make the distinction between free form text HTML form fields client script code in JavaScript and server side code in HahtTalk or Java G Login html Hahtsession thesession Hahtsession Haht yetnessioni i Gi TourGuide theTourGuide thesession theTourGuide if theTourGuide bGuideOn false theTourGuide bButtononly truel in F1 Display showing both the HTML page and the server run code The Privileges intermediary can handle user profile management Once defined privileges can be attributed to different pages It then suffices to indicate the current privilege level at session level Some wizards make creating page types such as identification pages or master detail pages possible HahtSite then generates the corresponding server code and allows for the addition of other processes With a concern for modularity it is possible to create reusable modules called Widgets Some are included in the standard product and a wizard and a volume of the printed documentation are invaluable sources of assistance in creating new ones TechMetrix Research 1999 27 Product Review HahtSite 4 0 3 9 2 HahtSite allows for the creation of CORBA objects by defining their IDL but no assistance is provided It is however impossible to create ActiveX components or JavaBeans Sending and receivin
17. static or dynamic e images GIF JPEG or PNG e style sheets CSS1 e client script files JavaScript and or VBScript e processing files Java and or VB e reusable HTML components Clips e publication sites e database connections e Widgets server side code generating components All of these objects are compiled on the project explorer it is possible to create repertories to regroup components by generic theme Depending on the project component the editor plays the role of e an HTML WYSIWYG editor e anHIML tag editor e an image editor e aclient script editor e server side source code editor VB or Java Only the image map editor is an external application but it has a good level of integration with the IDE TechMetrix Research 1999 19 Product Review HahtSite 4 0 Tihs HAT li 7 O isilik Biri Dis Eri ee jmt Tgh Paed Tadi indo Hee omg pc Rogie MMM emen EEE RES EM nana EP oe FOB OF Boe ee x pil rel bular pan L C 2 it ARS QM gecURLF ie 1d trout 5 war AREL ETURLF Z d j TE EISE i ff Tua ET Fj Fas F Tia ie SA a ta Horas hire h F ka Iriran Les bird OG 0 lear Pre Pi iter is Logi hird Ke Oaircktes Glearbrebiltersilr Beni Helin en Si P Surin Ster Fit SUYU fees oo ogi e St Gi TE Ferir SUPA Fhrtcpri gupattpe Ups oe ELER e Iel Zo are gerilir slra Fg H Ger ri Lig Psckan lund 26 miki 15 b Lei Lita m e N a
18. that heavy use of the server does not result in a 2 1 10 50 100 200 On O CH O Ol O Pages second O debasement of behavior Number of robots Response time scenario With a single user configuration HahtSite takes 5 1 seconds to deliver 24 HTML pages which is not particularly quick Oo considering the material configuration With 10 robots application servers and data are better used because there is hardly any deterioration from the user s point of view This is also true with 50 concurrent robots Then the deterioration of response time is in proportion to the increasing number of 0 5 Number of robots 10 15 20 29 30 robots Seconds Technical profile Approximately 2 000 per developer Approximately 7 500 for 25 connected users then from on average 150 per additional user depending on the bracket tapering charges HahtSite 4 0 for Windows NT 4 0 workstation ESM NLS multilingual ESM for Crystal Report ESM for Adobe Acrobat 6 TechMetrix Research 1999 Performance measurements 2 Performance measurements 2 1 Introduction 2 1 1 Carrying out of measurements The performance measurements are carried out on an application developed by the editor This application is installed on the TechMetrix platform and subjected to sustained workload increases in order to assess and analyze the application servers behavior i
19. 0 robots 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 The workload increases went off without a hitch with HahtSite Whether it be in terms of deployment the running of the application or the application s reliability with maximum workloads no problem was encountered With 200 concurrent robots which represent roughly 1000 concurrent users in a real world configuration we can seriously talk about the good reliability of HahtSite s application server for an application with a high rate of usage gt Analysis of user side results Average 1 robot 10 robots 50 robots 100 robots 200 robots We notice that with one 10 or even 50 concurrent robots the response times are practically the same This highlights the relative slowness of the application server in a single user configuration The response times with a single robot are around 5 seconds for completion of a scenario stringing together of 8 modules or 24 dynamic pages which is rather slow considering the physical configuration used With 50 robots the times are practically identical which is more than satisfactory at this level After that during the transition to 100 and then 200 robots we run into a bottleneck that results in an increase in response time in direct proportion to the growing number of robots TechMetrix Research 1999 11 Product Review HahtSite 4 0 This consistency is extremely important as it shows the tool s ca
20. 1 It is possible to display modify and insert standard Blobs Long Raw fields However this can not be done using DataAgents it is necessary to establish a connection with the database and use a RecordSet The queries select getdate for Sybase and select banner from v version for Oracle work Stored procedures are grouped together on an object connection that identifies a connection to a data source with a diagram the object connection also contains tables views and shared queries It is necessary to update the diagram in order to bring the list of object connections up to date this operation even specifies changes made to an object Connection restart takes place as long as the method getSharedConnectionByName is used This is the method automatically used by the wizards Access to a data source from a page is handled by the intermediary of DataAgents there can be as many DataAgents as one would like on a page and each one can be connected on a different connection One can also connect in a controlled manner by establishing a database connection within the code Connection pool management in HahtSite Connection sharing is associated with a number of processes configured for the application server server group that thus defines the maximum number of connections that the sessions must share No multi instance forecasting connections are possible Connection caching backs up the idea of da
21. 26 The above graphs clearly show at which workload level the bottleneck occurs With 200 concurrent users it is the processing server s quadri processor HTTP server and application server that is saturated The four Xeon processors P3 at 500 MHz also find themselves practically 100 occupied Moreover only 150 MB of RAM are required on this server On the database the two Xeon processors frequency of 400 MHz are only 10 15 engaged while 150 MB are also required It should be noted that at this level the use of an Oracle 8 database significantly reduces consumption as an Oracle 7 database already took up 700 Kb 200 connections 140 MB for the database connections alone gt CPU consumption with 10 then 50 robots on the processing server 14 100 op Processing server HTTP server app Server iy he WAG ilk up i i T i i ai d ZU eu 10 robots 50 robots CPU consumption CPU consumption 4 500 MHZ on the processing server in This graph highlights from which point on the bottleneck appears With 10 robots processing server s four processors are nearly 70 available However with 50 concurrent robots the limit of maximum use is already reached This thus explains the results obtained and confirms why the response times worsen starting with 50 robots and then practically double It is indeed from this point on that distributing processes between other physical machines should be considered in order to gu
22. BA server Beyond CORBA support by VisiBroker HahtSite s application server also makes it possible to be DCOM client and instantiate ActiveX components thanks to the CreateObject method SMTP and POP3 are supported it suffices to use the objects Message and Pop However IMAP4 is not implemented For LDAP it is necessary to go through an ESM Low level API SSL integration takes place on the subsites repertory it suffices to place the pages concerned in this repertory Some pages can not be directly accessed by a bookmark a parameter must be specified in the page properties In a distributed application server architecture HahtSite allows for the easy integration of a firewall a standard configuration allows the firewall to separate a zone extranet in which one finds Foreground application servers from a zone intranet made up of Control and Foreground servers and which is the only one to keep information that is sensitive to business and user session Finally the application server and the Web server communicate using the encryption algorithm Triple DES TechMetrix Research 1999 16 17 18 Openness to ERP with business modules adapted to ERP SAP Peoplesoft etc monitors integration Openness to _ transactional Tuxedo Encina etc middleware MQ Series etc Consideration of XML XML application server reuse of XML components etc
23. RENT CUMULATIVE HELP Distributed Server Group Etude CREATE COPY DELETE o ete Statistics on Activity since Startup REFRESH VIEW Etude Totals Sessions active l 1 te Sessions started 2 a Sessions timed out G O B Sessions terminated ol o Dynamic pages processed 21 21 Secure static pages Secure static pages processed ol 0 E Errors reported ol o LU Pages with long run times Pages with long min times o o MAME STATUR Tin 1 l Pages per completed session Ave 2 2 Mazi E F d Session elapsed time 203 203 2331 355 9 010 0 010 Session run time 2 318 ee 318 j Zar Intranet local E Application server administrator t is also possible to implement an audit thus making it possible to trace for a given user the form field values the Web server environment variables dynamic page output etc We slightly regret the lack of optimization solutions a testing tool and a workload tool 30 TechMetrix Research 1999 Functional evaluation 3 5 3 Evaluation Server side code generation assistance covers all of the tool s possibilities whether we decide to code in Java or HahtTalk The simplicity and quality of the user context management is particularly noticeable as is the creation of data source transactions The product has a few shortcomings when it comes to tools Although the debugger carries out its task entirely the editor could use some more work
24. Z NZ Comments No No No Yes but no wizard nor JDK is provided No No IDE Productivity for server processing Step 6 Server side code generation assistance N Description Management of user profiles with application and page access security Configurable transactional Oo application creation wizards with the possibility of touching up the code after it has been generated Assistance in creating standard distributed objects ActiveX CORBA and EJB Server side assistance in sending e mail high level API examples documentation Automatic management of the unique session identifier Freedom to choose the context management used for transfer of the identifier URL longs cookies and hidden variables TechMetrix Research 1999 Rating WUE WUE WUE WUE WUE Comments To manage user profiles it suffices to define Privileges on the project level and to attribute them to pages The code that monitors page access is thus generated automatically The only thing left to do is to program using the addPrivilege and removePrivilege commands on the session object level in order to attribute rights Wizards make it possible to create pages forms lists etc which handle data source transactions To personalize these wizards it is necessary to create one s own components Widgets Creating ActiveX components or EJBs is not possible A CORBA object IDL c
25. a defined period of time this connection can then be reused reducing the time necessary to open and to close the connection This option can be useful for applications that open the connection at each page 32 TechMetrix Research 1999 Functional evaluation 3 6 2 Language richness openness With this release of HahtSite we have the choice between Java and HahtTalk which is in fact VBA Both of these languages necessitate an interpreter The choice between these two languages needs to be made at the beginning of the project It depends more on the philosophy and culture of the company than on a difference in performance because even if on paper Java appears to offer more possibilities and better performance it is always possible to include Java classes in a project coded in HahtTalk With procedural aspects of third generation languages and a strong object connotation Java provides a large array of possibilities abstraction encapsulation inheritance polymorphism but also features and procedures Most scalar type data is supported Tables are multidimensional and can be dynamic Structures are supported A library of mathematical functions string manipulation including format conversion etc is present For its part HahtTalk does not offer inheritance or polymorphism Variable management can be handled at session or application level with methods to add variables modify them delete them and read them The application se
26. ag form The editor thus offers syntax coloring and validates the HTML code entered In this way one keeps total control over the HTML The list of HTML tags and the associated values can be accessed from the form field properties Table creation is incredibly simple It is possible to include a table in a cell and merge cells horizontally and vertically The image editor recognizes GIF JPEG and PNG formats Even though an image map editor is not integrated into the IDE it allows for references to be made to project components A spell checker allows for the verification of a selected page or section of text Finally if despite all the features offered you wish to insert a Java applet or a multimedia component LiveAudio LiveVideo QuickTime RealAudio Shockwave HahtSite offers a wizard that helps you configure the object For an ActiveX object it is necessary to use the Widget with the same name gt Client side processing 24 In addition to the HTML properties of a form field it is possible to define the field validation criteria Form Freld Properties General Validation Style Custom Required onChange sl m Numeric Value must be oreater thar sl lo Value must be sl M Integer Only Data Type Te thousand Groupna Decimal Point Grouping 1 234 000 Decimala Annuler Aide Dialogue box allowing for the generation of input control JavaScript code The associated JavaScrip
27. ahtSite 4 0 4 Annexes 4 1 Workload methodology gt Introduction Objective To compare the performance and intrinsic behavior of intranet application servers by testing through the use of workload tests the various implementations of TMBench 1 0 specifications presented here How e By relying on HTTP and SQL standards rather than on products considered as references e By offering representative independent intranet units instead of a complete integrated intranet application e By making the implementation of test units easier Simple and straightforward HTML layout Characteristics of the intranet architecture chosen The application s clients are standard browsers the application generates only HTML The development tools used to implement TMBench 1 0 must have the following intranet development features e The tool must have a programming or scripting language e The tool s application server must allow for algorithmic calculation and processing e The tool must allow access to the standard databases available on the market e User context management must be possible e Finally the application developed by the tool must operate in multiple user mode for several concurrent users General principles of TMBench 1 0 The tool specifications attempt to highlight the services provided by the intranet part by relying on two standards HTTP and SQL 36 TechMetrix Research 1999 Annexes o Reguest Intra
28. an be defined but HahtSite offers no assistance whatsoever The Smtp and Message objects make it possible to send an e mail from the application server by specifying a minimum amount of information gateway addressee sender subject contents It is also possible to attach a document An example is provided within the help section The identifier statelD is generated by the application server when one makes reference to a dynamic page for the first time It then allows the user context to be restored HahtSite offers the choice between URL long and cookies for context management this parameter is one of the properties of publication site definition 45 Product Review HahtSite 4 0 Freedom to choose between a client side and server side stored context with the possibility of tracing the history NZ No Context management is only handled server side Assistance in File Uploading interface N A form field makes it possible to define the HTML interface An example is given in examples of code explanations the help Step 7 Tools and automatic functions provided by the IDE to improve productivity N 46 Description Good quality source editor with find and replace features context help completion syntax parser etc Complete debugger logs step by step choice of the application or tracing in functions methods procedures modification of variable content Assistance in mapping between
29. arantee equivalent performance TechMetrix Research 1999 See Performance measurements 2 2 3 Table of results gt Average time in seconds for each module of the mixed scenario Modules Number of robots 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 0 24 0 24 0 41 0 39 0 62 2 24 0 66 0 63 0 24 0 27 0 41 0 42 0 65 1 85 0 68 0 43 0 38 0 33 0 44 0 54 0 94 2 26 0 94 1 48 0 92 0 65 0 68 0 97 1 76 4 59 1 68 4 09 2 1 36 14 201 3 43 9 15 3 24 The average times obtained per module logically go up with the number of robots We found nonetheless two situations in which this is not the case Firstly the mean time to complete module 1 is longer with 10 robots 0 63 second than with 50 0 43 second This can be explained by the latency periods caused by the other robots that fluctuate in relation to robot use thus shifting idle time Module 7 was completed more quickly with 10 robots 1 85 seconds than with one robot 2 24 seconds In this case as we will see below the explanation lies more with the reuse of session related objects gt Average time in seconds for modules 4 5 and 7 independent scenarios Modules Number of robots 5 0 41 0 39 2 24 0 41 0 4 1 97 0 58 0 24 0 97 In analyzing these measurement details we can see that larger the number of robots better the response time for module 7 Given that there are 8 instances of launched applications per measurement increasing the number of robots results in the re
30. business objects and the application interface Presence of an application administration tool Presence of an application use consumption administration tool with graphics and optimization solutions Presence of a testing tool and or workload tool Rating ve WUE NZ Comments The source editor offers syntax coloring Contextual aid and completion would make this editor impeccable The debugger makes it possible to progress step by step and to know the content of local and global variables It also allows for modification of variable content It leaves one the choice of tracing the already browsed features or not It should be noted that the application server includes a log and a log for debugs mode There are not any tools that allow mapping between Java classes could act as business objects and the application interface Application servers can be managed from a distance thanks to their administration tools HTML interface These parameters can be modified on the fly The application server gives access to statistics for each group of application servers current connections number of sessions number of pages CPU time etc per connected station with a total for all stations the same information but from the launch of the application server history of a given period can be traced It is also possible to implement an audit thus tracing form field values Web server environment values dynamic page o
31. d hosts on different machines and especially background hosts are necessary as they guarantee a transfer of user sessions and thus guarantee that the context will be saved gt Load balancing In a distributed configuration load balancing is based on the modularity of three types of application servers control foreground and background The control host communicates with foreground and background hosts to balance the load of each in considering their respective weights It is the only parameter allowing for load balancing configuration The rest is left to the application servers that take a decision in relation to the information gathered concerning the load of each server 3 6 4 Evaluation The data access module makes it possible to cover the whole array of possibilities offered by the main DBMSs on the market With support for Java as a new server side programming language HahtSite opens itself up to new horizons and brings a touch of object method to its IDE The main axes toward which HahiSite turns are e business security ERP and CORBA Deployment facility has been one of HahtSite s strengths for a long time This new release of the tool confirms this with the contribution of an even more modular architecture even if some regret the fact that the application server is not available on Linux Application server Rating 10 8 8 6 9 7 9 TechMetrix Research 1999 35 Product Review H
32. d mark it as client script it then appears in a different color This manner of coding on the HTML page in WYSIWYG mode can be used for relatively simple pages However it shows its limits with more complex pages especially if the HTML page is dynamic in other words if the page contains server side code see section 3 5 IDE productivity for server processing 3 3 2 Evaluation The automation of HTML interface generation is close to perfection The presence of wizards the possibility to make page templates to define clips the CSS1 style sheet support and nested table management allows for quick and easy generation of a good quality HTML interface The flexibility and the freedom to choose client script as well as automatic generation of input controls and the presentation of the page DOM make for good assistance in creating a thorough and carefully prepared graphical interface HTML interface generation Rating 10 It is difficult to find a weak point in the HTML interface automation The possibility of personalizing wizards would have made the editor impeccable With regard to the assistance and potential of HTML interface creation the only things really missing are additional Java and ActiveX examples and a more complete HIML tag editor completion tag list truly contextual assistance TechMetrix Research 1999 25 Product Review HahtSite 4 0 3 4 Java graphical interface generation 3 4 1 Creation of the
33. e Systematic connection can indeed pose problems in terms of the amount of server side memory used or the blocking of some users if the maximum number of connections has been reached Even if connection pooling is supported in HahtSite release 4 the editor opted for the systematic connection solution In terms of launched instances the small number eight saves server side memory and leaves the machine available for other tasks The other advantage concerns the ease of the application s administration as it need not be configured in relation to the number of users present at a given instant The configuration tested on our platform addresses most issues and can thus satisfy applications destined to accommodate approximately one to 1000 or even more concurrent users gt CPU and memory consumption with 200 robots 100 on Database server op with 200 robots fall BO a0 CPU consumption 40 Memory used 30 N al e 1 GE m d I ys Ag IL VE 10 LAR es YY e D de RUE V AYA CPU consumption 2 400 MHz and memory used 1 Go of RAM on the database server in 26 TechMetrix Research 1999 13 Product Review HahtSite 4 0 100 on Processing Server OU HTTP zerver ZU application ED server with en 00 robots 40 EAR 20 10 CPU consumption Memory used CPU consumption 4 500 MHz and memory used 1 Go of RAM on the processing server in
34. e length of time required to carry out a scenario During workload increases each robot carries out the same scenario to simulate a sustained load equivalent to several concurrent users The mixed scenario In this context the scenario consists in stringing together each module of the application Each robot carries out the first module followed by the second module and so on and so forth until the eighth module Once module 8 is completed the total time needed to carry out all of the modules is noted This is the time required to complete this scenario We should note that step 7 which only consists in storing information in memory is carried out nine times Once the total scenario time has been recorded the robot carries the scenario out again and again for several minutes The average time is then recorded This represents the single user measurement Top departure Top arrival Measurement analyzed in seconds Description of mixed scenario with eight modules For workload increases the same operation is carried out successively with 10 50 100 and 200 robots that concurrently launch the same scenario stringing together of eight modules The average measurements are then recorded and correspond to the average response time needed per robot to complete a scenario The independent scenarios The mixed measurements can have some fringe effects on measurement analysis by saturating part of the application
35. elopment application server as well as definition of a publication site should not take more than half a day even for a novice Thanks to tutorials with a thorough and convivial interface learning to use the development tool is not difficult Those having experience with the previous release 3 1 are not destabilized general ergonomics is more or less the same and the new features integrate without any unpleasant surprises gt Summary The development environment provides a good balance between functional richness cohesion between the elements that make it up and simplicity of implementation The only hitches that demanding developers will find concern the lack of modeling tools object or relational openness to other market tools and an exhaustive dictionary that would have the role of establishing cross references between all objects of an application variables pages routines etc and even establish technical documentation IDE quality and richness Rating 10 8 8 4 5 TechMetrix Research 1999 21 Product Review HahtSite 4 0 22 The ease of installation and learning as well as the simplicity and ergonomics make for a promising first contact with the client The products completeness has some shortcomings notably its lack of a dictionary also some modules such as the report tool under a form other than HTML and multilingual support are available as ESMs ESM designates all the modules that Haht Software
36. equest Broker etc To create reports HahtSite offers ESM for Seagate Crystal Reports which allows for easy integration of reports coming from Seagate Crystal Reports 5 0 or higher Another ESM makes generating dynamic reports possible This offers the possibility of browsing all of the data in Adobe Acrobat PDF and even modifying it provided the user have Adobe Acrobat Exchange TechMetrix Research 1999 Functional evaluation gt Incomplete building blocks With regard to data modeling whether it be Merise UML or other HahtSite does not possess tools and does not offer an interface with another market tool such as Power AMC Rational Rose Mega etc This clear cut separation between modeling and creation is attributed to the business object aspect that one can expect from a tool based on an object language such as Java The development tool does not possess a true SQL editor to run SQL queries or to create stored procedures In fact there is a trick that allows us to go through a shared query but the ergonomics of such a solution is questionable In any case if the application structure is based on stored procedures a creation tool modification and deployment of stored procedures are indispensable If the application requires a search engine it is necessary to turn to the complementary HTTP server or to another product on the market 3 2 3 Evaluation gt Learning process The products installation IDE and dev
37. especting CSS2 Creating templates that will add themselves to the other page templates from an HTML page is possible in the IDE options it is necessary to configure the template repertory as being shared by all developers Inserting a Java applet in an HTML page is possible from the Insert Object menu applet properties can be indicated position parameters style etc To insert an ActiveX component in an HTML page the use of the Activex Widget is necessary one can thus select it in a list of all the ActiveX components present on the machine A dialogue makes it possible to configure the component The tool generates the adapted HTML code Client side monitoring scripts JavaScript VBScript are generated automatically for the form fields they allow for the validation of entry zones text numeric date and mask 43 Product Review HahtSite 4 0 Step 4 HTML interface development assistance and potential N 44 Description Rating Comments Presence of an HTML display tool and or an seve The HTML editor is WYSIWYG and allows for page display it can be configured to HTML source editor with syntax recognition Presence of dynamic HTML generation wizards page ee Import export of HTML pages and total eye command of HTML static and dynamic in other words generating HTML code by programming Assistance in entering HTML tag list completion documentation etc and client side scri
38. ete transaction Method used for workload tests Our method is based on pre prepared test scenarios which are conducted as shown in the diagram below These tests which involve the entire application architecture are applied to each TMBench 1 0 implementation in the same way Qo d ad MEASUREMENTS gt A 1 MODULE 1 TRANSACTION SERVER MEASUREMENTS r CLIENT RESPONSE TIME MEASUREMENTS PROCESS SERVER Test Scripts DBMS SERVER Workload test architecture TechMetrix Research 1999 39 40 Product Review HahtSite 4 0 To have a better understanding of the measurement analysis note that each unit makes up a test transaction and therefore a measurement in its own right This measuremeni corresponds to a request and to the obtainment of its answer The time required for a complete IB 001 transaction is equal to the sum of the amount of time taken to send a request and the amount of time taken to receive its result from the server For unit IB 001 this measurement corresponds to the time needed to go from page unit_ib_001_req htm to page unit ib 001 res him Performance measurements and indicators Measurements are made at three different levels e On the workload test robots by collecting time values from HTTP server requests and answers with which the simulated users are interacting e On the processing server with a measureme
39. g e mail is very easy The objects smtp and pop3 complete this task once the properties such as the gateway the addressee and the sender are filled It is also possible to attach a document Context management is the application server s responsibility It is situated on the same level as two fundamental objects the application and the session The application object is common to all open sessions in an application on the same server The user context is managed at the session level A unique session identifier StatelD is generated by the application server during the call for the first dynamic page URL long or cookies will then systematically transmit this identifier each time a page is called This enables the user context variables privileges parameters etc to be restored The methods put get and remove make manipulating session object variables possible Caution if a dynamic page contains a link to a static page the context is lost A dynamic page designates any HTML page containing server code During compilation this page will generate a byte code file hbb for HahtTalk class for Java that the application server s interpreter can run In looking at the server side source code we can see that the principle of dynamic pages is to reproduce HTML code in the HTTP flow by the intermediary of the instruction print When sending files text images etc from the client station to an application
40. h SAP e an ESM for DB2 CICS VTAM VSAM IMS provided by Neon Software e an ESM for BEA Tuxedo TechMetrix Research 1999 33 Product Review HahtSite 4 0 gt CORBA HahtSite s application server partially implements the CORBA 2 0 norm as it integrates Inprise s ORB VisiBroker for Java filling the naming service and the event service The desire to install VisiBroker s must be specified at installation It can thus act as a client and a CORBA server To be a CORBA client it suffices to recover the object IDL and add it to the project A HahtSite application can be a CORBA server in two different ways e Traditional the object instances provide a service than can be called from different clients In this example the application is launched as a service at the application server level e Session oriented a group of distinct instances is created for each application session gt But also 3 6 3 The application server makes it possible to be a DCOM client and to instantiate ActiveX components thanks to the CreateObject method ESM allows for the integration of LDAP making the implementation of single sign on work groups etc possible Deployment gt Multiple platforms 34 The application can be deployed on an application server installed on Windows NT 4 0 Solaris Sparc 2 5 1 HP UX 10 20 or AIX 4 2 1 It is nonetheless important to know the deployment target beforehand to avoid using APIs specif
41. ic to an operating system this information is indicated in the help menu of each feature It is unfortunate that the application server is not available on Linux and that nothing has been announced to let us think that this might soon be the case Digital Unix is not supported either The idea of site greatly facilitates deployment Publication sites are accessible from the IDE project explorer The publication consists only in copying static components pages style sheets etc on the Web servers DocumentRoot and the compiled processing dynamic pages code etc on the application server s project repertory The application server is not physically linked to the HTTP server It can be made up of several application servers spread across several machines but belonging to the same group of servers It supports CGI 1 1 but also NSAPI 2 0 and 3 0 and ISAPI making it possible to communicate with the principle Web servers on the market Apache Netscape FastTrack and Enterprise Server Microsoft Information Server etc TechMetrix Research 1999 Functional evaluation gt Failover Failover and restart Support depends on the selected configuration To increase application isolation it is necessary to create several server groups on the same physical server Restart in case of failover is handled by replication the control host can be associated with a backup control host that will take over A minimum of two foregroun
42. image maps and siyle sheets are accessible from the same user interface Printed documentation includes the following volumes for the DE an installation manual a programming manual a user s manual and a Widget programming manual for the application server an installation manual and an administration manual Online administration is accessible from the menu bar or with the F1 key and includes an index and a key word search An InstallShield installs the IDE easily it starts by updating the JVM if necessary by installing Microsoft s JVM 5 00 3165 If you wish to develop with Java it is recommended to install a JDK beforehand as the IDE will detect it and integrate it into its parameters automatically Complete installation begins by installing Apache 1 3 4 then the IDE by selecting the default browser Netscape or IE finally comes the installation of a an application server dedicated to testing with automatic detection of pre installed HTTP servers and publication site configuration Installation of the distributed application server is just as easy on NT Deinstallation poses no problem one must not forget to delete the services in the database registries However application server installation on Unix Aix 4 3 2 is not as easy and requires a numerous Unix specific prerequisites file system group user A Getting started menu offers a Shockwave presentation and a complete lesson in HTML format it pr
43. ix Research 1999 9 Product Review HahtSite 4 0 gt Configuration database connections number of processes number of threads per process Here we provide information on the program architecture that the editor implemenis to get the most out of his application server These are interesting points that can be used to judge the application server s possibilities on this level and to better analyze the results obtained In addition they make it possible to assess the potential behavior of a tool when faced with much larger workload increases and identify potential bottlenecks in different physical configurations gt Consumption memory CPU 10 The CPU and memory consumption of the two servers used is presented here One physical machine is used as both an HTTP server and an application server while the other acts as the database CPU and memory consumption make deducing the physical configuration required for the application server tested quite simple in relation to the number of expected concurrent users TechMetrix Research 1999 Performance measurements 2 2 Results 2 2 1 Synthesis of the results The application was entirely made with Java Development complies for the most part with traditional HahtSite development Only the DataAgents IDE objects that facilitate the link between form data and the database request results were not kept gt Reliability Average 1 robot 10 robots 50 robots 100 robots 20
44. lso a welcome page and a page that references the eight units TMBench 1 0 is therefore made up of a total of 18 HTML pages The application s kinematics is as follows TechMetrix Research 1999 37 Product Review HahtSite 4 0 Home pages Request pages Answer pages Start page TMBench 1 0 application kinematics all of the HTML links Role of each module The eight modules of the scenario allow us to center the analyses on basic features The goal is thus to isolate each of the desired features and using the dominant functional features of the desired application to be able to anticipate the behavior of the deployed application in relation to the application server selected Modules Role basic feature analyzed Module 1 Large Select than 5000 records returned without cache in a database Module 2 Sum of the small Select without cache in a database Module 3 Sum of the small Select with cache in a database Database updates simple insertion and updates Technical constraints The editor must respect HTML page content as described herein as much as possible while keeping in mind the following constraints e HTML files names are given for example purposes only you may choose others e At the top of each page there must be an HTML title and label standard HTML text indicating the test reference e A back to Start Page link must be found at the bottom of all starti
45. n extreme conditions All measurements are carried out by TechMetrix consultants After that optimizations made on the premises by the editor are evaluated The complete specifications of the application tested can be downloaded from the TechMetrix Web site Processing Server Quadri Xeon 4 500 Mhz 1 Go RAM DELL PowerEdge 6300 Ethernet Network 10 BaseT 2 SilkPerformer Agents e Response time measurements PIII 450 128 Mo RAM DBMS Server Oo 2 400 Mhz 1 Go RAM DELL PowerEdge 6300 Measurement station e Performance monitor e Network monitor p 1 SilkPerformer Controler PIII 450 128 Mo RAM 3 Test Robots Platform used for performance measurements TechMetrix Research 1999 Product Review HahtSite 4 0 gt Two types of measurements The application is broken up into eight distinct modules or units each of which represents one of the main needs of transactional intranet applications Each model is characterized by its focus on a specific intranet need simple search update calculations etc while remaining as simple as possible in order to put forward in a precise manner each of the elements to be analyzed A robot which simulates an application user carries out the modules in a predefined order several times The term scenario refers to the unitary stringing together of modules repeated many times in order to obtain an overall average time that is representative of th
46. n of written works musical compositions paintings or any other literary output printed or engraved in full or in part in defiance of the laws and regulations relative to the property of authors constitutes forgery and all forgery is a misdemeanor Forgery in France of works published in France or abroad is punishable by two years imprisonment and a fine of 1 000 000 F L no 94 102 5 Feb 1994 art 1st Art L 335 8 Legal entities may be held legally responsible under the provisions of article 121 2 of the Penal Code for infractions defined under articles L 335 2 to L 335 4 of this act
47. net Tool ee n e p U a eUser Context Management lt gi eServer Specific Processing O o j j espone Multi user capacity o a lt lt i O A basic transaction is defined by a pair request response The request is an HTTP request the size and format of the URL are not specified The expected HTTP response is entirely standardized the result and format of the answer are imposed In requests involving database access DBMS access is normalized with a SQL query Most SQL queries cited in this document can be used as they are but they can also be adapted to a specific intranet tool mostly concerning the data access possibilities that the tool offers gt Database and SQL queries The database model used is of a relational type No particular DBMS product is specified and the choice of a database engine common to all TMBench 1 0 specifications is made at the last moment during the tests The SQL queries must be as standard as possible in other words usable with the most popular DBMSs on the market The physical data model contains six tables three relationships 50 fields and a maximum of 60 000 records for a total data volume ranging from 10 to 100 MB These contents may vary at any time in order to accommodate the specific needs of different tests gt Bench application The TMBench 1 0 application is made up of eight independent units each including two pages one request page and one response page There is a
48. ng HTML pages requests 38 TechMetrix Research 1999 Annexes e A back to IB 00X link previous page enabling the request to be restarted quickly must be found at the bottom of all HTML answer pages request results e No JavaScript data input monitor is mandatory in the HTML pages e The request pages of IB 002 and IB 003 units possess hard coded SQL requests These values can be modified at any time thus making application evolution possible e The only freedom concerns URLs and their format URLs of the HTML links and the SUBMIT buttons as they cannot be imposed Format of normalized HTTP HTML responses and requests The format of HTML request and response pages must comply with the following guidelines as closely as possible e Resulting data are to be put in tables as soon as possible e The default table border must be equal to one e No specific format is to be applied to displayed data gt Performance measurements Once we have received and validated the integration complying with all of the TMBench 1 0 specifications a workload test simulating at least 200 concurrent users is conducted Breaking the application up into test modules makes it possible to define each unit as a test transaction independent from the others Each transaction called a scenario is subject to a measurement of client response times When a unit is used several times in sequence the whole of these iterations makes up a compl
49. nt dedicated to the development and implementation of intranet applications The release discussed in this study is HahtSite 4 0 on the market since February 1 1999 Development environment quality and richness 3 2 1 Installation gt Product description In this release HahtSite includes e adevelopment tool or IDE Integrated Development Environment e an application server reserved for tests e the HTTP server Apache 1 3 4 We will come back to the installation of a distributed application server in the chapter devoted to deployment gt Prerequisites The development tool can be installed on either Windows 95 98 or Windows NT 4 0 The PC must have at least a Pentium 90 with 32 MB of RAM and 60 MB of free space on the hard drive It is recommended to have a browser and possibly an HTTP server should you wish to use something other than Apache 1 3 4 that is provided with the HahtSite product It is equally recommended to have a pre installed JDK especially if you wish to develop with Java Nonetheless these products can be installed later but will thus necessitate configuration of the IDE and the application server TechMetrix Research 1999 17 Product Review HahtSite 4 0 gt Procedure The installation program InstallShield begins by updating the JVM if necessary by installing Microsoft s version 5 00 3165 The complete distribution option begins by installing Apache 1 3 4 and then the
50. nt station which traces and logs the percentage of CPU time and the memory used up which expresses the load generated by the application server e On the DBMS server by counting the number of connections opened by the application as well as the load generated by the SQL orders TechMetrix Research 1999 4 2 Functional Evaluation Criteria Functional evaluation criteria Each criterion is evaluated and then rated using one of the three following values verve or YES criterion supported correctly ve or YES Minus criterion supported partially or is complicated to use 6 or NO criterion not supported or is much too complicated to use 4 2 1 Development environment productivity gt Quality and richness of the development environment Step 1 Installation ease of learning simplicity N Description Quality of integration between respect of unique window Rating Printed documentation and online help with Yge search options Ease of use and installation The installation Ye ie mustn t call for too many prerequisites browser DBMS HTTP server The developer must be able to use the wizards quickly Richness and quality of the tutorials and examples provided The examples must cover all internet related problems script language DBMS access context management etc TechMetrix Research 1999 Comments tools Ye ie All of the editors HTML VB or Java server code client code images
51. odified after their generation One can complete the list by adding one s own page templates the page template is not part of the project but its availability depends on the path configured in the IDE options To easily put headers and footers in place or any other bit of HTML code that is recurrent on all pages the best solution is to define Clips and place them on HTML pages Any change to a clip is made to all pages containing it Style Sheets are another feature destined to optimize and homogenize HTML interface creation HahtSite fully supports W3C s CSS1 recommendation and CSS2 partially and offers an editor for creating style sheets gi Catalog Style css Font Background Border Layout List Positioning Custom Available Fonts Selected Fonts MS Sans Senf sans serif Down EEE Delete Bookman Old Style Comic Sans MS Courier Courter New List fonts used on sheet Finedsys j S Garamond C Listgeneric font Families Ce List locally available fonts Decoration Size Style None e 4 8 E T Underline Color Wariant C enone weight bold hi Overline Strikethrough Case l Elink Style sheets creation window TechMetrix Research 1999 23 Product Review HahtSite 4 0 An import feature makes integrating a page or a repertory into a project possible All pages even those imported can be displayed in t
52. of several application servers spread out on several machines but belonging to the same group of servers The principle of load balancing is based on the modularity of application servers Three kinds of application servers exist control foreground and background and can be answered on different systems The control host communicates with the foreground and background hosts to balance the load of each of them taking their respective balancing into account This is the only parameter allowing for configuration of load balancing The rest is handled by the application servers which make a decision in relation to the information received 49 A study conducted by TechMetrix Research Authors Franck Gonzales Jean Yves Haguet Translation and editing Gina Faucher Contributors Emmanuel Gourion Christophe Lauer Philippe Mougin Publication date September 1999 USA EUROPEAN HEADQUARTERS SWITZERLAND TechMetrix Research SQLI SQLI 6 New England Executive 55 57 Rue Saint Roch World Trade Center Park Suite 400 75001 PARIS Avenue Gratta Paille 2 Burlington MA 01803 FRANCE CH 1000 LAUSANNE 30 PO Box 476 Tel 1 781 270 7486 Tel 33 01 44 55 40 00 Tel 41 021 641 10 65 Fax 1 781 270 7487 Fax 33 01 44 55 40 01 Fax 41 021 641 13 10 http www techmetrix com htto www sgli r http www sgli ch info dtechmetrix com r amp d sali fr WARNING Intellectual Property Act Art L 335 2 All publicatio
53. oposes 11 lessons which become more and more difficult as well as two applications VB and Java that group together a large part of the tool s features 41 Product Review HahtSite 4 0 step 2 Completeness of the product openness to other tools N 42 Description Completeness of the product in terms of development deployment administration Presence of a project and project resource manager quality of the interface with PVCS VSS etc check in check out versioning Tool for developing multilingual applications listed in a dictionary post development extraction Test HTTP server and a local development DBMS Presence of report generating tool the possibility of interfacing with a report generating tool for DOC RTF HTML or PDF printing The reports editor must allow for controlled breaks and offer a test mode Presence of a search engine and or quality of the interface with a search engine Presence of a relational and or object modeling tool possibility of interfacing with Power AMC Rational Rose Mega etc SQL query editor with support for stored procedures run and display source code The editor must allow for query entry and provide in real time without passing by the application server the result of this query Tree structure and application display management tool From a page the tool must propose all of the called pages and the request pages Any change in the page name mus
54. or procedure stepping It even works in a configuration with a remote distributed application server All debugger activity is traced in a special log file on the application server and the number of debug sessions is limited gt Administration optimization and workload tests The administration tool has the big advantage of having an HTML interface It is thus possible to administer it from any station This tool makes it possible to define compiled file transfer repertories the number of processes and threads the JVM used encryption implementation etc and of course the stopping and restarting of instances The application server gives access to static information for each group of application servers e The current connections number of sessions pages CPU time etc per connected station with a total for all the stations e The same information but from the application server s launch e History of a given period can be traced TechMetrix Research 1999 29 Product Review HahtSite 4 0 HAHT site Application Server Administrator Microsoft Internet Explorer Fichier Edition Affichage Favors Outils 7 lim at 8 Bi Pr cedente Suwane rreter Actualiser A3 A3 Adresse Rechercher Favoris Historique Liens D marage Application Server Administrator J Le z A SS osmos sessions services appuicamons Distributed Server Groups j e l CUR
55. oyment potential HahtSite has certainly TechMetrix Research 1999 3 Product Review HahtSite 4 0 made a lot of progress The only lack is in terms of its openness to existing elements which is for the most part due to the need to use ESMs that are not integrated into the packaged product Regarding performance HahtSite with an application entirely developed with Java supported perfectly a workload of 200 concurrent robots On neither HTTP request or database transaction level did an error occur The response times recorded during the most sustained tests were good while with a single user configuration they were mediocre for the chosen physical configuration But the most important point remains the application s behavior during heavy use and in this context HahtSite proves to be very good This problem comes mostly from the deployment configuration where with a database connection per user the limitations could be seen during real world business deployment the number of database authorized licenses is rapidly exhausted if several applications access the same RDBMS In conclusion HahtSite is without a doubt from a technical point of view one of the most mature and complete environments available in the area of Intranet application servers Offering most of the basic services necessary to implement complex applications thanks in particular to the application server s completeness HahtSite can today be considered as a viable busines
56. pacity of supporting heavy use in a satisfactory manner gt Analysis of server side results 2 2 2 Average 1 robot 10 robots 50 robots 100 robots 200 robots 0 212 0 022 0 005 0 005 0 006 With 200 robots the rate of dynamic HTML pages delivered by the HahtSite application server is roughly one page every 6 thousandth of a second Even without using additional servers dedicated to HITP server management or complementary modules this already represents such a configuration in a particularly sustained usage situation From 50 concurrent users on the transaction rate remains more or less stable from 191 to 180 pages per second or 7 9 to 7 5 complete scenarios which goes to show the strength of the application server In fact it is with a single user configuration that HahtSite has the most trouble using the physical configuration available General characteristics Configuration 1 robot 10 robots 50 robots 100 robots 200 robots TechMetrix Research 1999 Performance measurements The deployment configuration chosen for the application is very simple Indeed the number of database connections is directly linked to the number of application users while the number of launched instances or processes and threads per instance remains steady throughout the tests For database connections this solution presents some disadvantages with regard to the use of a connection pool that makes limiting the slots to a RDBMS possibl
57. provides by download from its Web site htto www haht com and which fill the roles of some of the development tool s missing features The interest of such a solution is that each person can enhance the standard product with the modules that interest him Each module is designed with a sufficiently modular logic and offers a number of parameters However not all ESMs offer the same level of integration with the development environment and the hot line is not always guaranteed There are ESMs in different areas e report editing to create dynamic forms in PDF format in Adobe Acrobat e e commerce application access security e LDAP feature support single sign on workflow etc e openness to Notes e openness to mainframes by Shadow Direct Neon Systems e multilingual support with NLS National Language Support e openness to SAP R 3 e integration of reports in Seagate Crystal Reports format TechMetrix Research 1999 Functional evaluation 3 3 HIML interface generation 3 0 1 HTML interface design and optimization gt HTML page creation The HTML page editor provides a WYSIWYG mode Page creation is made considerably easier by the presence of a palette containing the standard form fields static text text box button checkbox etc and a dialogue box allowing for definition of their properties HahtSite provides page creation wizards connection master detail form and list they are configurable and can be m
58. pt language events objects authorized attributes and methods documentation etc Presence of client side script language ses components and Java applets HTML 4 0 DHTML and DOM are taken into seve account choose object visibility code images objects etc We can also display a page in a browser among those referenced in the configuration options The HTML source editor provides the same automatic indent when one passes in WYSIWYG mode and then goes back to tag mode find replace functions syntax correction and coloring There are several page creation wizards connection master detail form and list they are configurable and can be modified after their generation Importing makes it possible to copy an HTML page or even a repertory or site A project property allows for the definition of source visibility levels none possibility to make links with URL possibility to share code with another project same site same session Export passes through page save as a file For all pages static dynamic wizard generated one keeps control over HTML code In the description of each graphic object there is a custom tab that lists all of the HTML tags for this object and the properties attributed to it HahtSite also offers the possibility of modifying HTML code generation One thus has total control over the generated HTML The HTML editor offers neither a tag list nor completion only script monitor confi
59. rms the entered code s validity For client script code HahtSite provides entry help by presenting the DOM Document Object Model of the page and all the events offered in relation to the browsers There are many JavaScript files which are used for form field validation checks These can be personalized to display messages in a different language HahtSite also provides some Java applets HahtSite supports HTML 4 0 DHTML DIV SPAN etc and DOM entirely A DHTML example Layer and SPAN is provided HahtSite offers client script entry assistance by recovering the page s DOM Distributed Object Model in the form of a hierarchical tree here we find all of the possible event pages and the present fields with an indication concerning compatibility with the main browsers and their versions and manually coded routines TechMetrix Research 1999 gt Java graphical interface generation Functional Evaluation Criteria Step 5 Java graphical interface elaboration automation and assistance N gt Description Presence of a Java WYSIWYG editor Presence of a components palette AWT JFC etc Possibility of JavaBean components creating Possibility of creating Java applets Possibility of enhancing the Java graphics object palette and the presence of an objects inspector Presence of dynamic transactional application generation wizards with a Java graphical interface Rating N Z NIZ NIZ NZ N
60. rver defines time out by default but it can be modified at the session object level At the same time a method of this same object makes it possible to finish the session gt Security SSL integration takes place within the repertories subsites it suffices to define some repertories as secure static and to include the pages in them In an architecture with distributed application servers HahtSite allows for easy integration of a firewall A standard configuration makes it possible for the firewall to separate an extranet zone in which Foreground application servers are found from an intranet zone made up of Control and Background servers and which is the only one to keep sensitive information unique to the business and the user session Finally the application server and the Web server communicate by using the encryption algorithm Triple DES It is interesting to note the presence of page access profiles see section 3 5 User Privileges and an ESM destined to authenticate connections for e commerce applications on Internet gt ERP Enterprise Resources Planning Openness to ERP is one of Haht Software s key concerns Through joint developments with editors Haht Software offers solutions for connecting to the main ERP market players integration middleware and transactional monitors always using the same ESM principle e an ESM for SAP R 3 with BAPI and RFC support jointly developed wit
61. rying out a scenario We then compare this number of HTTP requests with the number of those actually sent and check the database to see if all the database transactions were indeed recorded gt Measurements time transaction rate and flow The measurements obtained are presented in three ways e The response time the average times obtained for a robot to complete a scenario Detailed measurements for each module are also given for information purposes These times are those of a robot in other words the average time a user will have to wait to complete a scenario in its entirety e The transaction rate knowing the number of HTML pages that are produced to run a scenario the number of pages per second is calculated using the average time needed to carry out a scenario Here the number presented is the number of pages delivered or the number of scenarios completed by the application server in one second This measurement gives a good idea of the number of dynamic pages delivered by the application server and of the number of pages that a user receives per second e The transaction flow the flow provides information on the processing time of one dynamic HTML page The user axis indicates the latency period for the display of an HTML page while the server axis represents the amount of time that the server needs to deliver a dynamic HTML page As soon as there are several robots the results on these two axes differ TechMetr
62. s from the developer does not need to know HTML in order to design his pages Numerous table manipulation possibilities cell mergers cell breakdown nested tables Presence of a repository for graphics components objects or groups of objects Possibility of creating style sheets not necessarily CSS generation simply on the IDE level templates and page models HTML code generation during the insertion of Java or ActiveX components and images in HTML pages Client side generation of monitoring scripts TechMetrix Research 1999 WE WUE WUE WUE Weve graphics palette The project components images HTML pages Widgets are inserted in the page by drag amp drop from the project explorer This editor makes it possible to define style sheets CSS1 clips reusable HTML code and frames The image editor recognizes GIF JPEG and PNG formats An image map editor can reference project components even though it is not integrated in the IDE The tool makes it possible to graphically merge cells horizontally and vertically split cells and to include a table within a cell of another table Besides the standardly provided form fields it is possible to define Clips or reusable parts of HTML pages for example headers and footers that can be used anywhere on a page and can be nested It is possible to define style sheets in respecting the CSS1 Cascading Style Sheet Level 1 standard and in partially r
63. s solution In addition its complementarity with its editors development tool makes it a complete product that covers the entire development cycle from the design stage to the administration phase The biggest weakness of HahtSite concerns its durability as the deployed applications could be in the balance should the company be purchased Architecture Tuxedo DB2 CICS SAP als BROWSER Native ODBC JDBC Database HahtSite respects the idea of universal client An HTML interface is offered during deployment while the proprietary modules remain server side Here the freedom to choose between the house VBA and Java allows the tool to adapt to different profiles and different functional needs HahtSite makes it possible to spread different application processes across different physical servers and opens itself up to the information system of a business thanks to ESMs The Pros The Cons gt Help in creating an HTML interface gt Lacks API richness gt Ease of learning and use gt No object modeling tool gt Failover strength gt Not open to Java graphical interfaces gt Presence of two languages 4 TechMetrix Research 1999 Product profile Functional Evaluation Interface Application server positioning positioning LI o Overall rating HTML JAVA o Overall Rating 4 Potential Productivity Java Interface Potential
64. server it is necessary to use the File Upload mechanism HahtSite offers a form field in its HTML components palette In addition an example that inserts an image in the database is provided and commented on in the help menu Tools and automation provided by the IDE to improve productivity gt Editor Java or HahtTalk source editors offer syntax coloring This allows for searches and cancellations but not for completion or property or method lists in a pop up window Even if the information provided is often very good assistance is not always contextual only for some words It is also unfortunate that there is no mapping tool between the application s business objects and interface especially for a Java approach that turns towards object modeling gt Compilation and debugger 28 Within the framework of an HahtTalk project HahtSite uses the BasicScript compiler provided with the tool TechMetrix Research 1999 Functional evaluation With Java compilation is handled by the default compiler that is defined in the edit options It is however possible to select a different compiler at the file source level as long as the parameters for this compiler are positioned In either case compiler returns error and alert information such as loss of a link etc The debugger for its part provides vital services stopping point step by step view of global and local variables as well as their modification It also allows f
65. server memory HTTP server response CPU consumption etc and thus resulting in artificially long response times for some modules To underline the product s real potential regarding certain criteria workload was only increased in modules 4 5 and 7 In this context each robot will repeatedly complete module 4 only several times Then once the times have been recorded all of the robots are started again and carry out the next module 5 and then only module 7 8 TechMetrix Research 1999 Performance measuremenis For each module load increases are carried out with 10 and 50 concurrent robots At one instant t all of the robots carry out the same module in other words first 4 then 5 and lastly 7 2 1 2 Analysis of the results obtained All of the measurements times behaviors etc are deduced from the physical configuration of the TechMetrix platform and according to the application tested It is for this reason that even if this context tries to be as representative of real world business needs as possible all of the results must nonetheless be situated in our specific context See the sections Platform and Annexes gt Reliability HTTP SQL This is by far the most important point as it indicates whether or not the application deployed was able to support sustained workload increase without showing sign of weakness To make this assessment we analyze the number of HTTP requests that are simulated by the robots car
66. t be monitored or taken into consideration by the calls A graphical view of the pages and or window is a plus Rating WUE WUE Comments In terms of development the Haht Software product provides an IDE Integrated Development Environment that allows for the generation of server side HahtTalk VB code and or Java and client code JavaScript VB Script There is also an HTML editor in WYSIWYG mode tag mode and an image editor A development application server is provided as is the Apache 1 3 4 HTTP server Finally a multiple user application server is necessary for deployment and test site HahtSite does not provide developers with profile features work group tools or versioning tools It allows among other things for interfacing with a good level of integration with Microsoft s Visual Source Safe but also with Merant Intersolv PVCS StarBase StarTeam and MKS Source Integrity A multilingual solution is possible with ESMs Enterprise Solution Modules are components that can be downloaded from the Haht Software Web site NLS 3 0 National Language Support The translation depends on browser configuration one can also impose a language using functions Development distribution is provided with Apache 1 3 4 However it does not include a DBMS It is possible to make reports in HTML by using either a page wizard or by going through the Widgets ADO Report Maker and ADO Report Next Previous Link An ESM
67. t features are thus generated within the HTML page Note it is possible to personalize the generated JavaScript source code by modifying the files that are found in the repertory HAHTSitelDEpath scripts FieldVal to send messages back in a specific language for example TechMetrix Research 1999 Functional evaluation HahtSite provides help with client script input by recovering the page s DOM Document Object Model as a hierarchical tree structure the client script explorer Here all of the possible page and present field attributes methods and events can be found with an indication regarding their compatibility with the main browsers on the market Netscape Navigator 2 0 and 3 0 Netscape Communicator 4 0 and Internet Explorer 3 0 and 4 0 for each of them The client script explorer possesses a client side node that groups together all of the JavaScript features defined for the page by the developer It is possible to create client script files within the same file The features contained in this file will be accessible from any HTML page or script file The client script can also be coded in VBScript However HahtSite will only generate JavaScript It is recommended not to use VBScript except in the case of an intranet application for which one is 100 sure that the browser target is Internet Explorer Finally the client script can be present directly on an HTML page in WYSIWYG mode Then all one has to do is select it an
68. tabase access optimization which consists in indicating the period of time during which a database connection is kept to be possibly reused by another query useful for applications that open and close their connection with each page 47 Product Review HahtSite 4 0 Step 9 Language richness openness N 10 11 12 13 14 15 48 Description Creation of functional classes that support object polymorphism Support of all variable types dates multi dimensional tables dynamic tables and structures Creation of features with transfer of variables and recursive elements Variable management at session and application level Presence of features methods which define the length of time out at session level dynamically and at application level for all of the sessions Presence of complete log out management features methods possibility to force the end of a session and launch a process when an event log out is received Server side generation of print files using values coming from the data source Server side generation of image files GIF standard formats using values coming from the data source Capacity to handle File Upload the tool must allow for the recovery of HTTP flow in a string for example Presence of an object relational mapping module Presence of a distributed objects system Possibility of interfacing with a standard distributed object model DCOM CORBA
69. use of session objects by several robots which means a reduction in the average response times However only extremely in depth analyses would allow us to explain HahtSite s behavior during module 5 insertions and data updates during which better response times are obtained with 50 automates than with 10 TechMetrix Research 1999 15 Product Review HahtSite 4 0 gt Distribution of time per module 16 Distribution of time between 8 modules 200 robots 12 1 15 3 7 5 5 1 5 2 12 9 Distribution of response time between the 8 modules of a with 200 robots in Module 7 uses the most time during the tests However the nine passages of this module designed to inflate the context for a mass insertion in module 8 generate 10 dynamic HTML pages module initialization followed by 9 result pages Thus if we divide the time obtained by 5 2 pages for the other modules module 7 of context management is not greedier than the other modules In fact it is therefore module 1 large select in the database and module 6 algorithm which take the most time However the distribution is relatively consistent and HahtSite does not present any weak point in particular TechMetrix Research 1999 Functional evaluation 3 Functional evaluation 3 1 Introduction Dink Created in 1995 by the founders of Q E Haht Software the Raleigh NC based company offers HahtSite an environme
70. utput etc for a given user Neither graphs nor proposed solutions for reducing response time No TechMetrix Research 1999 4 2 2 Step 8 Database access N Description Rating Functional Evaluation Criteria Application server productivity Comments Support of ODBC and or JDBC type 1 Ye ie HahtSite uses ADO 2 0 to access databases by ODBC It is an ADO specific driver Native database access SQL Net Dblib CTLib Inet and or via type 2 and or type 4 JDBC Support of Blobs Long Raw reading and insertion Support of DBMS specific SQL queries Ex select getdate select banner from v version etc Support of stored procedures with the transfer of in out parameters Support of failure and reconnections to the DBMS If the DBMS is stopped while there is an existing connection pool the application will take care of restoring connections itself At least a programming solution is possible Support of multiple data sources within one page or graphical window Possibility of creating standalone connections Extended management of connection pools multi instances and maximum number of connections TechMetrix Research 1999 WUE WUE WUE WUE WUE implementation that is used whether the project is developed with HahtTalk or Java HahtSite uses ADO 2 0 to access the following databases in native MS SQLServer 6 5 and 7 0 Oracle 7 x and 8 0 Informix 7 x and Sybase 10 and 1

Product Review HahtSite 4.0 - F

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