News
CA's Dev Tool Supports SOA and Legacy Systems
- By Kurt Mackie
- July 31, 2007
CA is offering a Windows-based application development solution, called Plex r6, which supports the use of objects across service-oriented architectures and legacy client-server architectures.
A new capability in Plex r6 is its ability to "model and deploy applications as Java JAR files and .NET assemblies," according to an announcement issued by CA. It features a build environment that uses Apache ANT and MSBuild.
The Plex r6 product was renamed by CA from "AllFusion Plex," a solution originally developed as Synon Obsydian in 1994.
A CA white paper (PDF) describes AllFusion Plex as an "architected rapid application development (ARAD)" solution. It comes with prebuilt patterns for model-driven development, hence the "architected" prefix in the ARAD acronym. The product supports rapid development across .NET, J2EE and IBM System i Web services.
Plex r6 includes "hundreds" of patterns in its libraries. Developers can encode and reuse the patterns through an "object-oriented inheritance engine." Consequently, a change to a pattern will apply to all instances in the design model.
Users of the product include hosted tax compliance solution provider CCH, which used Plex to build its CertiTAX and ZipSales Returns solutions, as well as the Netherlands Chamber of Commerce. The Netherlands Chamber of Commerce used AllFusion Plex to supplement its COBOL-encoded trade register.
Plex r6 is offered through CA's network of authorized resellers, which provide extended pattern libraries for the product.
CA plans to hold its third annual CA Plex/2E Worldwide Users Event on Sept. 19-21 in Cincinnati.
About the Author
Kurt Mackie is online news editor, Enterprise Group, at 1105 Media Inc.