Who among you have seen Oracle's NCA apps. I have. The technology is awesome. It's a 100% java front end that, while it currently requires an applet viewer on the client, Sun's upcoming jvm will solve that problem, allowing these apps run without a hitch over a 28.8K line on netscape's newer (and free) browsers. Soon after the browser, expect support for NC's. In a corporate lan environment, the NCA apps look and behave just like the old 10sc front end, and they perform on par with similar fat client configurations, and significantly better than file server installations requiring massive executable transfers to the client each time a form is accessed. Needless to say NCA apps' performance eats Citrix-based architectures for breakfast.
The NCA apps are very bandwidth efficient, and with the new load-balancing, scalable apps server software Oracle's delivering, you can expect 20-40 users per Solaris cpu (I've heard about 20 per NT cpu). Max out on users? Just add (not replace) box.
The front end is the best implementation of Java I've seen. If you want to see the full power of Java, take a current Dev2k 1.2 or 1.3 form, recompile it using the new Developer 2k v1.6 for use with the Developer 2k apps server cartridge and voila, instant thin client NCA app. This stuff is shipping now. |
