What Is WebFOCUS Maintain?

In this section:

WebFOCUS Maintain is an application development tool that creates web-based data maintenance applications to be deployed across an enterprise (which can be loosely defined as the computer system of a company). Using WebFOCUS Maintain and its multi-platform 4GL language, you can easily create, test, and deploy complex business applications that span the Internet, IBM mainframes, midrange servers, and workstations.


Top of page

x
Challenge of Accessing Information

If your company is like most companies, you probably have several different computing systems in operation. For example, your accounting and payroll systems are running on a midrange UNIX computer, while your inventory system is running on an IBM mainframe. Most of the employees have personal computers on their desks and are accustomed to point-and-click interfaces.

With WebFOCUS Maintain, you can develop applications with graphical front-ends that run on personal computers and access data on any computer system in your company.


Top of page

x
How WebFOCUS Maintain Works

Using the Form Editor in the Maintain Development Environment (MDE), you develop the application front-end (or user interface). Then, continuing to use the MDE, you develop the code that extracts data from your data sources and updates the data sources with new data. WebFOCUS Maintain applications can also link to existing COBOL, C, or other 3GL programs, CICS transactions, IMS transactions, RDBMS stored procedures, and FOCUS procedures.

At run time, end users start the application and access a WebFOCUS Server where the data or procedures reside. The application extracts data from the data source, displays it for the end users to see, updates the data source with new information, and runs any procedures.


Top of page

x
N-Tier Applications

WebFOCUS Maintain applications are called n-tier applications because they are capable of distributing processing over many platforms. N-tier applications offer the following advantages:


Top of page

x
Leveraging the Power of the WebFOCUS Server

The WebFOCUS Server is available for every major operating system, MVS, UNIX, Windows, Open VMS, CICS, and VM/CMS. Using its data adapters, WebFOCUS can access every major database management system, including Informix, Sybase, DB2, and Ingres. The WebFOCUS Server can also run procedures written in another language. For example, COBOL, C, or other 3GL programs, CICS transactions, IMS transactions, RDBMS stored procedures, and FOCUS procedures.

Because Information Builders has already worked out the complications of different operating systems, communications protocols, and data access languages, the developer or end user does not need to worry about or even know where their data is coming from.


Top of page

x
What WebFOCUS Maintain Can Do for You

Using WebFOCUS Maintain, you can:


Top of page

x
What Is Next?

For more information on how to use WebFOCUS Maintain, work through WebFOCUS Maintain Basic Tutorial.

If you want to develop your own WebFOCUS Maintain applications immediately, read Overview of Developing WebFOCUS Maintain Applications.


WebFOCUS