ASNA Releases Database Toolkit Version 4.7
Relations between folk on both the client-server and on the AS/400 sides of the computing fence can get a might bit strained – especially when they’re bickering about programming languages. But because it’s now more important than ever that client-server programmers learn to coexist with their AS/400 counterparts – and vice-versa – two new tools from Amalgamated Software of North America Inc. (ASNA, San Antonoio) could be just the ticket for more than a few AS/400 administrators.
ASNA’s newest release – The ASNA Database Toolbox (ADBTB) 4.7 – draws upon the strengths of the company’s Acceler8DB (ADB) database, an RDBMS designed to interoperate with Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and with the Active Server Page applications used by Internet Information Server – the Web server platform that comes bundled with every copy of Windows NT 4.0 and with Windows 2000 Server.
The ANSA Database Toolbox 4.7 connects the ADB database to Win32 and to ASP Web applications to provide VB developers with record-level access to data stored on DB2/400. And when Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 Server is leveraged as a database platform, on the other hand, ADB provides what ASNA terms an “AS/400-like” database management system that retains AS/400 object authority and object locking; provides an RPC implementation that features automatic program initiation and activation of programs; and provides access to CL commands by virtue of the AS/400’s CPF error messaging.
On the Windows side of things, the ASNA Database Toolbox for Visual Basic comprises ADB, Visual Basic header files for the various APIs associated with ADB, and a variety of wizards that can generate Visual Basic source for classes or ActiveX controls to encapsulate the attributes of a file. ASNA says that the ADB APIs let VB developers manipulate AS/400 and DB2/400 files at the record-level and make it possible for them to call programs with parameters residing on the server. And sometimes a name just isn’t a name: ASNA claims that its Database Toolbox for Visual Basic will work with virtually any Windows-based development environment.
On the flip side of the coin, ASNA also ships a tool called ASNA Visual RPG/Caviar (AVR), a development environment that uses a fixed-format RPG syntax so that AS/400 programmers can develop Win32 and ASP applications using RPG -- and so that VB programmers can write AS/400 programs using AVR’s Caviar syntax.
According to ASNA president Anne Ferguson, her company’s products make it possible for client/server VB and AS/400 RPG programmers to not only coexist with one another, but also to actually complement the work of one another.
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Microsoft, ASNA Integrate Visual RPG, Visual Studio A Different View of RPGRelated Information:
Amalgamated Software of North America Inc. (new window)Database Toolbox Overview (new window)