Dos actualizaciones sobre Plex

Esta semana, dos noticias sobre Plex (finalmente, CA renombró Plex como siempre se debió llamar (al menos desde que dejó de ser Obsydian): una, de interés general, que es el lanzamiento de la versión 6.0. De la noticia oficial:

CA Plex r6 is Now GA
The highly anticipated CA Plex r6 is now available.

Building on the evolution of the Windows Server environment, CA Plex r6 enables the development of .NET applications in addition to the existing supported platforms: J2EE and the IBM System i. Some of the new features available include:

C# Server Generator: CA Plex generates 100% of the required code for the .NET platform utilizing technologies such as OLE DB for data access. Rich interoperability with other
CA Plex-supported platforms is provided via remote calls to Java and System i enabling applications to be deployed in a variety of n-tier configurations.
.NET Management Console: This provides a quick and simple way to configure the .NET server to interact with all other CA Plex-supported server platforms. The XML-based configuration files synonymous with .NET can be managed from a single, easy-to-use interface.
Visual Studio 2005 Support: The CA Plex .NET Runtime exploits .NET Datasets to enable easy integration with systems coded in Visual Studio 2005.
ANT and MSBUILD Support: Furthering support for mainstream technology in CA Plex, this release features the ability to use the open source Apache ANT tool for Java builds, or Microsoft MSBuild for .NET. This results in a single build environment that is extensible and provides higher levels of performance.
Code Libraries: This provides a model-based approach to the creation and deployment of Java JAR or .NET Assembly DLL files. A default code library is created by CA Plex automatically which is especially useful for unit testing. For deployment, specific code libraries can be designed and a new Code Library Wizard automates their creation.
System i Updates: CA Plex continues to provide support for the IBM System i (formerly iSeries, AS/400) server, adding support for long and mixed-case passwords. Connections to the System i from other CA Plex-supported platforms (Java or Windows/.NET) fully support this new feature.

La noticia fue publicada, entre otros, por The Server Side, y por IT Jungle. Esta última se extiende algo más sobre Plex y 2E, en particular sobre la utilización en la construcción de servicios web:

[Bill Hunt, Gerente de Producto] sees Plex (and 2E to a lesser extent) playing more important roles as organizations begin developing and using Web services and the service oriented architecture (SOA) concept. "Plex and 2E are model-driven tools. As the concept, the methodology of SOA becomes more important, the importance of being able to reuse data is more prevalent, and an excellent and effective way to do that is through model-driven development," he says.
One CA customer that has already made use of Plex's Web service capabilities is CCH, a division of the Wolters Kluwer company that develops tax, accounting, and audit software that runs on i5/OS and Windows. CCH obtained outstanding productivity gains and cost savings by using CA Plex r6 as the primary tool to build its CertiTAX and ZipSales Returns solutions, says CCH development manager Victor Herr.
"With CA Plex, we were able to leverage existing client/server and System i-based skill sets to deliver award-winning solutions with next-generation Web services," Herr says. "We have such confidence in CA Plex that we used the beta version of r6 to build our next-generation sales tax application, which we plan to launch later this fall."
Hunt says the flexibility Plex afforded to CCH is typical. "This is not about, 'Hey get off the AS/400,'" he says. "They continue to sell the AS/400 product, because they have customers that need it."

La segunda noticia de la semana: CA fija fecha para el retiro de soporte de la versión 5.1 de Plex. Será el 27 de mayo de 2008. Un año por delante para programar una actualización, a 5.50 si se tiene un criterio conservador, o a 6.0 si se desea sacar provecho de las nuevas características de esta versión. Esta es una noticia importante porque existe un numero apreciable de empresas que aún mantienen sus aplicaciones en 5.1.