The Sybase Users' Group of Texas - October 2004 Newsletter (www.sugtx.org)


[Houston City Skyline]

 

Table of Contents:

 

 1)  SUG-TX September 28th Meeting Highlights

 2)  Upcoming October 26th SUG-TX Meeting – “The Power of PowerDesigner 10

 3)  SUG-TX  November 23rd Meeting

 4)  Membership Portal Announcement

 5)  Houston User Group for Sun (HUGS) Meeting

 6)  Sybase Events

 7)  Sybase Training (Oct - Jan)

 

 

1) SUG-TX September 28th Meeting Highlights

 

The Sybase Users’ Group of Texas held their meeting on Tuesday, September 28th with a round table discussion on "PowerBuilder to Web Strategies" and other innovative uses of PowerBuilder.

 

Don Clayton, President of SUG-TX, welcomed everyone to the meeting.  The group went around the room and introduced themselves and held a Q&A session.

 

Don started the discussions by reviewing the various approaches to moving PowerBuilder to the web.  Don's slides are available as a PowerPoint show.  Covered approaches included the "screen scraping" in Appeon® for PowerBuilder®, Application Partitioning (the process of moving PowerBuilder business logic to business objects for subsequent deployment to the middle tier) and PowerBuilder NVOs as SOAP-based Web Services. The Appeon® for PowerBuilder® discussion proved to be especially lively as the group debated the pros and cons of the approach and when and where Appeon is a good fit.  There may have even been some converts to the Appeon fan club. The Web Services 101 discussion reviewed the advantages to the SOAP Protocol (HTTP, XML, etc.) in a distributed environment and the composition of the SOAP Message. Don also touched on the security considerations and how each web service participant is involved (provider, UDDI, client).  Using PowerBuilder to both build and consume web services is where things got interesting... consider the sheer power and opportunities available to the average PowerBuilder developer. 

 

Don then turned the discussion over to Bryan Roberts of Intertech Consulting, Inc. who reviewed a real-world example of integrating PowerBuilder with other technologies and languages, including an innovative use of PowerBuilder in the middle tier.  Bryan outlined the aging production system and the need for it to be retooled using PowerBuilder and EAServer.  The final solution was made up of an existing PowerBuilder client that connected to the EAServer containing unmodified C++ business logic components.  Those server components in turn communicated with the database through a custom PowerBuilder Data Abstraction Layer (DAL) component.  But, why PowerBuilder? "It's the DataWindow... stupid!"  A PowerBuilder component, using dynamically created DataWindows, was able to efficiently package and return the data in any format or layout using the native power of the DataWindow.  Code that would have taken a number of weeks to develop in C++ took only days in PowerBuilder.

 

Rick George of Parkelle, Inc. closed out the discussions with a review of his experiences using the EAF framework to move PowerBuilder to the web.  Rick reviewed the architecture (browser, web server, JSP engine, PB components, and database) of the typical web application, the challenges of moving to the web and some advantages of using EAF.  He also highlighted some of the more interesting administrative and development features of EAF such as the Variable Manager, Email Manager, PDF & Excel Reporting, Enhanced Error Messaging, Global Logging and the Log Viewer.

 

 

2) Upcoming October 26th SUG-TX Meeting – “The Power of PowerDesigner 10

 

The Sybase Users' Group of Texas will hold their next meeting on Tuesday, October 26th.  The meetings are held at HAL-PC, 4543 Post Oak Place, Suite 200, Houston, TX 77027 (map), from 4:00pm to 6:30pm.  Members frequently continue discussions at Champps Sports Bar after the meeting while waiting for traffic to subside.

 

October’s topic will be “The Power of PowerDesigner 10” by Matt Creason.  During the last two years, Sybase PowerDesigner has become the market-leading tool for graphical database development, eclipsing CA's ERWin product in new license sales.  PowerDesigner/QDesigner (as co-branded by Quest Software) now leads Gartner Group's Magic Quadrant for Database Design Tools for 2004 as the industry leader in both strategic vision and ability to execute this vision.  With Quest Software's support, PowerDesigner/QDesigner now provides unrivaled support for all the various physical database options in Oracle databases at design time.

Matt's talk will be of interest to DBAs, Application Developers, and System Architects alike.  With business process modeling, conceptual entity-relationship modeling, full round-trip modeling support for over 50 different DBMS, as well as UML-based object-oriented modeling for languages like Java, C++, C#, VB.Net, XML, and PowerBuilder, PowerDesigner is now perhaps the broadest and most powerful product in its class.

General Topics in Matt's talk will include: What is "Model-Driven Architecture?”, how PowerDesigner addresses different PowerDesigner audiences with different features, the Gartner magic quadrant, PowerDesigner's unmatched data modeling capabilities, Business Process Models, Free Models, the new XML model in 10, and PowerDesigner 11's release defining features.

For the DBAs, Matt will demonstrate the many databases that are now supported, discuss the Quest Software alliance and the benefits accruing to Oracle shops, VBA/Java automation, forward and reverse-engineering of schemas, and the automatic generation of alter statements.  Matt will also show the nearly flawless conversion of ERWin models.

For Application Developers and System Architects, Matt will demonstrate PowerDesigner's UML support for various object oriented languages, PowerDesigner 10 seamless integration with PowerBuilder 10, the round-trip engineering of .Net solutions written in languages such as C# or VB.Net, XML/Web services modeling, and Java/Eclipse integration.

Available now, view the August 19, 2004 webcast from DM Review magazine titled, "The Power of Design: Data Modeling and Much More", featuring Stephen Hendrick, Senior Vice President for IDC, David Dichmann, Sybase PowerDesigner Product Manager, and our own Don Clayton.

About the Speaker
Matt Creason is a Senior Systems Consultant with Sybase, a PowerDesigner product specialist.  He has been in the application development and enterprise architecture disciplines for 11 years.  During this time, Matt has consulted and worked for Fortune 500 companies, Federal, State, and Local governments on modeling, SDLC management, and application development.

* This will be a high-powered presentation similar to John Strano's July presentation, so mark you calendar and be sure not to miss it!

 

 

3) SUG-TX November 23rd Meeting

 

The Sybase Users' Group of Texas will hold November’s meeting on Tuesday, November 23rd, when Bill Wing of Sybase, Inc. will present two important topics.  The first part of his presentation will discuss the mobile solutions from iANywhere, the worldwide market leader in mobile and embedded databases, mobile middleware and mobile and remote device management.  More than 15,000 customers and 1,000 partners rely on the company's award-winning products, including SQL Anywhere® Studio and XcelleNet® frontline solutions. In addition, its AvantGo® mobile Internet service has more than ten million registered subscribers.

 

The second topic will be on the Sybase Enterprise Portal (EP).  Sybase EP is an open and scalable portal framework that provides an intuitive, secure and personalized environment for end-users; rapid development and deployment tools for developers; and an easy-to-use console for administrators.  Don’t miss these two exciting presentations! 

 

 

4) Membership Portal Announcement

 

The Sybase Users' Group of Texas (SUG-TX) has opened the SUGTX Membership Portal for general access. You can now create or maintain your SUG-TX contact information online, update your membership information, change your email address, subscribe or opt out of the monthly newsletter mailings, let us know which products you use, and make suggestions to the group.

Soon you will be able to access premium content, downloads, tool and tricks and relevant technology information not available on the public site.  We will also be providing an online application mechanism to simplify the SUGTX Membership Application process.

To access the portal, use these simple instructions (see our
Privacy Policy here):

In your favorite web browser, navigate to the
SUGTX Membership Portal (http://www.sugtx.org/portal/) and click the "Register" button in the login dialog.

* If you receive or used to receive the monthly newsletter...
We already have a partial profile for you consisting of at least your email address. Use the
Profile Search page to find your existing profile using your email address or your name and company name.  If found, the web site will create new login credentials for you (your default login will be your email address, which you can change later) and will prompt you for a new password.

 

If the web site informs you that multiple entries match the criteria you supplied, try entering more detailed search information.  For example, if two profiles claim your email address, add your name or company name to the search criteria.  Once your new account is created, please go the "My Profile" page and sign up for the monthly newsletter and populate the remainder of your profile information.

* If you do not receive the monthly newsletter or you are new to the Users' Group...
If you wish to create a new account, go directly to the
New Account setup page where you can enter your User ID, Name, and Password.  A good choice for your User ID is your regular email address, but it can be anything you want.  Once your new account is created, please go the "My Profile" page and sign up for the monthly newsletter and populate the remainder of your profile information.

 

 

5) Houston User Group for Sun (HUGS) Meeting

 

The Houston User Group for Sun meets on the second Tuesday of every month at the Houston Sun office.  The next meeting is November 9th.  To be added to their mailing list, contact Art Blummer.

 

 

6) Sybase Events

 

a) Webcast Series - ISUG Techcast Series

 

   Topic: Solving Your Data Growth and Access Problems

   Date:  Tuesday, November 9th and Thursday, November 11th, 2004

   Time: 12:00pm – 1:00pm CDT

 

The monthly ISUG techcast series, featuring popular topics from TechWave, continues in November.  Registration information is available at  http://www.sybase.com/isugtechcasts 

 

If you missed previous techcasts, you can view the recording of past sessions or download the presentations at www.sybase.com/isugpresentations.

 

 

7) Sybase Training (Oct - Jan)

 

     Sybase Dallas Learning Center

     14800 Quorum Drive, Suite 505

     Dallas, Texas 75240

     Contact:  972-687-6400

     Register: 1 800-8-SYBASE

            

18 Oct 2004  5 days  Performance and Tuning: Configuring ASE

25 Oct 2004  5 days  Fast Track to Replication Server Administration

01 Nov 2004  5 days  Fast Track to Adaptive Server Enterprise

08 Nov 2004  5 days  Fast Track: Developing Robust Apps Using PowerBuilder 9.0

15 Nov 2004  5 days  Performance and Tuning: ASE Query Optimizer

15 Nov 2004  1 day   Introduction to SQL 12.5

16 Nov 2004  4 days  Advanced T-SQL: Tips and Techniques

29 Nov 2004  5 days  System and Database Administration: ASE

06 Dec 2004  5 days  Fast Track to PowerBuilder 10

13 Dec 2004  5 days  Fast Track to Adaptive Server Enterprise

03 Jan 2005  5 days  Performance and Tuning: Configuring ASE

10 Jan 2005  1 day    Introduction to SQL 12.5

11 Jan 2005  4 days  Advanced T-SQL: Tips and Techniques

 

Please verify class availability with Sybase registration or http://sed.sybase.com/Osiris/osiris_location_NAA1.htm#DL

 

 

     Hilton Computer Strategies

     6001 Savoy, Suite 207

     Houston, Texas  77036

     Contact:  713-782-6665

     Register:  www.hiltoncomputer.com

            

Pre-register  5 days  PB101: Basic Programming Using PowerBuilder

Pre-register  5 days  PB301: Advanced Programming Using PowerBuilder

 

 

Send news & events to: secretary@sugtx.org

 

Do you have suggestions for our group?  Let us hear them.  We have new web site features that include member self-service functions and member feedback capabilities.

 

Would you like to present your Sybase solutions to the Sybase Users’ Group of Texas?  The group is always looking for compelling presentations for our monthly meetings.  Let us hear them!

 

Please forward this newsletter to anyone interested in learning more about Sybase products.  To be added to or removed from the SUG-TX mailing list, send an email to secretary@sugtx.org.