cgi..bis or maybe wow 1

[demetrio]

hello.. I need your oppinion based on your experience (if you have ever worked, of cource, on these products)
Since now ,one of my clients is working an rmcobol application on a sco unix server and the users can have access on it from a terminal emulation on their pc's (all of them using ms windows)
Now is thinking ,if it is possible,to have acces on it via their browsers as well.
What do you suggest to use.. ?
Thank you in advanced

 

[theotyflos]

Hi demetrio,

I think that cgi is kind of out-of-date.

I haven't tried BIS (yet) but, from what I hear, it sounds very efficient.

You can also consider using WOW (have worked with it a lot and found it excellent) as an interface, combined with rm/infoxpress to access your data. As an alternative, you can use thinclient.

Hope this helps.


Theophilos.

-----------

A few weeks of trial and error can spare you lots and lots of minutes reading the manual.

 

[Truusvlugindewind]

How is your screenIO coded? Are you free to switch cobol-compiler vendor?

Acu-cobol has the so-called "thin-client" extended to be able to use java-based client. I would imagine that this can be implemented as an applet in a browser.
If your code is embedded in the "screen section" you could establish this without changing your code.

 

[k5tm]

Hi demetrio,

Since your goal is to target the browser, I think your best choice would be Business Information Server (BIS). You did not say how many screens you wish to have in the browser. Is it just a few (less than 30), or everything in a large application?

BIS 'plugs in' to an HTTP server. In the case of SCO Unix, that would be Apache. (BIS is also available for Microsoft IIS.)

If you wish to create a single-tier web application (that is, having COBOL directly control the browser), you should seriously consider BIS-Express, available here from England Technical Solutions. There are several examples here; try the Online shopping sample in the middle of the page. It is also interesting to note that BIS-Express itself is a BIS application, written in RM/COBOL, which uses the browser for its user interface.

I would recommend against using COBOL-WOW, since it is specific to Windows. In the thin client, browser mode, WOW still requires the installation of ActiveX on the client machine, which means it can only use Windows clients using Internet Explorer. Some of our customers have encountered security policy issues when trying to use the thin client. I also have the strong opinion that Windows-specific applications are 'yesterday' and browser-based applications are both 'today' and 'tomorrow'.

I hope this is helpful. You may find more information about BIS and all our products on the Liant web site, the link to which is below. Thanks for your interest!

Tom Morrison

http://www.liant.com