Compuware Unveils UNIFACE Deployment
Strategy for Strategic Application Environments
Universal Deployment Architecture (UDA) Introduced for Seamless, Effortless
Application Evolution
FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich., September 30, 1996 -- Compuware Corp.
(Nasdaq: CPWR) today announced its UNIFACE Deployment Strategy, a dimension of
the recently announced "UNIFACE in 3D" strategic framework that allows large
IT users to successfully implement complex, business-critical applications in
the midst of business and technology change. The UNIFACE Deployment Strategy
enables users to build infrastructure independent applications that can evolve
to new application architectures and technologies and offers support for
advanced deployment scenarios.
"Changing deployment environments obsolete applications, tools and skills
before their time," said Frank Slootman, General Manager of the UNIFACE
product line at Compuware. "Our customers typically have large complex
systems -- they cannot predict what they will be basing their critical
applications on. The UNIFACE Deployment Strategy covers the critical areas of
deployment for them, allowing deployment considerations to be viewed as
tactical rather than strategic issues. This deployment strategy makes UNIFACE
applications future-proof."
The strategy is facilitated through the "Universal Deployment Architecture
(UDA)," introduced in UNIFACE Seven, scheduled for beta testing this fall.
The UDA provides three architectural properties:
- Separation of the development and deployment paradigms, allowing
application development to be carried out independent of the intended
deployment architecture;
- Architecture independence, providing breadth of support for differing
architectural configurations including host-based, two-tier client/server,
multi-tier client/server and Web-based application processing;
- Technology independence, providing depth of support for underlying
technologies including desktops, servers, databases, middleware and networks.
To fulfill the requirements of strategic applications, the UDA enables:
- Seamless evolution between deployment architectures
Strategic applications have complex and rapidly changing deployment
environments. The strategy supports this constant change through the
Universal Deployment Architecture. The UDA was designed for complex
environments and clearly separates the development and deployment paradigms,
therefore organizations can make changes without recoding and without moving
from UNIFACE's model-driven development paradigm.
- Infrastructure independence
UNIFACE applications today can run under any deployment
architecture-host-based, two tier client/server and, with the release of
UNIFACE Seven, dynamic multi-tier client/server and the Internet/Intranet.
Depth of deployment is provided for all underlying technology components
including desktops, servers, databases, middleware and networks.
- Mixing and matching foreign application components
The UNIFACE Deployment Strategy provides a framework for advanced
deployment scenarios and facilitates the integration of foreign application
components. UNIFACE becomes the enabling architecture within this framework.
"The days of single vendor tools or applications forming a complete
business-critical environment are gone," said Slootman. "We see the demand
for the ability to support a wide range of multi-vendor application
components. Users can start thinking about front-ending their applications
with Visual Basic, adding some C++ objects and integrating their mainframe
applications. UNIFACE will increasingly become the deployment framework, as
well as the development paradigm."
UNIFACE in 3D
The UNIFACE in 3D strategic framework allows large IT users to
successfully implement complex, business-critical applications in the midst of
business and technology change. The framework is based on the three critical
dimensions that shape strategic applications: model-driven development,
infrastructure-independent deployment and value-added delivery. UNIFACE in
3D extends the existing cornerstones of UNIFACE and combines them with
Compuware's track record of building large strategic applications.
Compuware Corporation
Compuware Corporation is a leading worldwide provider of software products
and professional services that help information technology professionals
efficiently develop, implement and support the applications that run their
businesses. Founded in 1973, Compuware today ranks as one of the 15 largest
independent software vendors in the world. The Company's products have been
licensed by more than 8,800 organizations worldwide. The Company's
professional services organization has a staff of over 3,000. Compuware, with
revenues approaching three-quarters of a billion dollars, is the world leader
in client/server development technology.