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SEQUEL, the GEnie Database RoundTable Newsletter.

Volume 1, Issue 1, Nov-Dec, 1992

Table of Contents:

   Introducing SEQUEL
   The Changing of the Guard
   DBMS RoundTable Conferences Resume on Nov 25th
   DBMS News from COMDEX
   An Introduction to CASE
   The Best of Usenet:  Is Client-Server Dead?
   Editorial:  The future of the xBase Format


/////// Introducing SEQUEL

Welcome to the first edition of SEQUEL, the DBMS RoundTable newsletter.

We will be coming to you every other month, with information on the
DBMS RoundTable, on database systems, and on other issues that relate to
database systems.

These are interesting times for the computer industry in general, and
for DBMS vendors in specific, where the 'Big 3' PC database products, dBASE,
FoxPro, and Clipper, have all been gobbled up by computer mega-companies.
The new owners all have other DBMS lines as well, leading to speculation on
the future of the xBase format.  (See editorial in this issue.)

As 'little' computers become more powerful, and big companies downsize
their mainframe applications, the world of database management systems
will get more confusing.  The development and maintenance of application
systems will be tied less to hardware, and more to the DBMS structure.

One approach to application development that is gaining favor is CASE.  Since
CASE systems are generally very closely tied to DBMS systems, this RoundTable
is the ideal place to discuss CASE issues and products, and in SEQUEL we
will try to bring people up-to-date and give some justification for using
CASE methods.

In addition, there will be a 'Best of Usenet' section, summarizing a recent
thread on Usenet that has relevance to us all.  The first installation
is based on a series of posts called 'Is Client-Server dead?'

Contributions and suggestions from DBMS RoundTable members will be gratefully
accepted.  Send e-mail to MIKE.NOLAN with suggestions for articles you would
like to write, or even articles you would like to see others write.


/////// The Changing of the Guard

My name is Mike Nolan, and as of November 1st I am the new SysOp for the
DBMS RoundTable.  I've been a GEnie subscriber since 1989, and an assistant
in the Unix RoundTable since last February.

I've been a computer programmer since 1967, a computer consultant since 1983,
and have been writing for computer trade magazines since 1988.  However,
taking over the DBMS RT may be the biggest challenge I've accepted in many
years.  In facing it, I will be bringing some new people and subjects to the
RoundTable.  I hope they meet with your approval.

You can reach me via e-mail at MIKE.NOLAN (or DBMS), or by selecting the
'Feedback to the Database Sysop' option on page 485.

Assisting me in the RoundTable is Andy Finkenstadt (ANDY), well-known (if
not infamous) on GEnie as a CHAT assistant and the Unix RT SysOp.

Don Reese, my predecessor as SysOp, is still around, and his GEnie
mail address is now MICRO.SUPPT.


/////// DBMS RoundTable Conferences Resume on November 25th!

Mark your calendars, set your timers, and come to page 485 at 9PM (ET)
on Wednesdays for the weekly DBMS RoundTable Conference.

We will be there every Wednesday to answer questions or just to talk about
databases.  Some surprises are planned for December, and there should be
an announcement soon on some special guest speakers.


/////// DBMS News from COMDEX

The parties are over for another year in Las Vegas, where 120,000 or
more computer buyers monopolized the available hotel rooms and, at least
according to the casinos, stayed away from the tables.

According to NewsBytes, Microsoft stole the show.  In addition to
announcing the availability of Access, their long-awaited Windows-based
database product, Microsoft was demonstrating FoxPro 2.5 and FoxPro 2.5 for
Windows, using a database with 2.5 million street names in it.
[This sounds suspiciously like the same database that Fox Software used
back at Spring '91 COMDEX to introduce FoxPro 2.0.]  Access has an
introductory price of $99, but will go up to $695 in February.

Claris announced FileMaker Pro 2.0 for Windows, and Wordtech announced Arago
for Windows, a dBASE IV-compatible system.

Conspicuously absent was any official word on Borland's plans for dBASE IV,
or Computer Associates' plans for Clipper.  Borland announced the dBASE
Developer's Registry, but was demonstrating Paradox 4.0 in their booth.

For the full text of the announcements referred to above, you can do a
full text search on 'COMDEX AND DATABASE AND 1992 NOV' in NewsBytes.


/////// An Introduction to CASE, by Andy Finkenstadt

CASE: Computer Aided Software Engineering
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What is CASE?

CASE, which stands for Computer Aided Software Engineering, is an exciting
technology which up until this time has primarily been within the domain
of the Database Designers among us.  But CASE is far more useful to the
average user than one may at first suspect, when used to its fullest
extent.

CASE is both a methodology of studies in systems analysis, and the common
name for tools which enable these studies to be organized in a consistent
fashion.  CASE tools are further divided into upper- and lower-CASE variants.
An upper-CASE tool provides an interface between the user of the tool and
the underlying lower-CASE organizing mechanism.  The lower-CASE tools is
responsible for providing access to the data stored within it to whomever
needs access to it.

Upper-CASE tools typically provide a graphic or character user interface
to the data being organized, and allows for the easy querying, creating,
and updating of the information.  They can be used in a dedicated
environment or within the client-server environment becoming more and more
prevalent among modern systems.   The cost for CASE tools is descending
quickly through the economies of scale, recovery of research & development
costs, and fierce competition.  Two years ago the Cadillac of CASE tools
required substantial access to the power of a DEC mainframe running VMS
plus yearly maintenance and license fees bordering on the absurd.  Now a
decent CASE station suitable for two-user use can be had for under $20K,
and single-user CASE stations can cost as little as $5K running on the
standard PC architecture.

Great!  So it's finally at least affordable for those who are serious.
How can I, the non-technically savvy person, use it to best advantage?
Why would I want to even know about CASE?

Upper CASE tools provide the ability to examine the effort, work and
inside glimmerings of the minds of the designer who has spent the last
months entering information into the CASE tool.  By querying this
dictionary of information you can learn about things in new and
exciting ways.

For example, a designer or analyst may have created an item called
"Rehire date."  Obviously this means that he or she has discovered
that a company rehires a person often enough that it is important to
track when a person has been rehired.  This might have an effect on
pensions, profit-sharing when there are profits, and seniority issues,
and presumably is accounted for in the eventual programming of such
mundane things. Other examples will come to mind easily, for the well-
written CASE tool allows the collection of ALL knowledge about
projects, including assumptions, critical success factors,
performance needs, and other important but sometimes overlooked items.

In many ways CASE has become yet another industry buzz-word, which
marketeers apply to any product which organizes information.  Let the
buyer beware, for an expensive product may be nothing more than a
fancy rolodex card organizing machine.

In future issues of SEQUEL we will cover CASE technologies of both
upper- and lower-CASE tools.


/////// The Best of Usenet:  Is Client-Server Dead?

[Editor's Note:  Usenet, with over 20,000 messages/day, is a fascinating
medium.  Until we can get closer ties between GEnie and Usenet, this
section will summarize a recent discussion on Usenet.  I have edited
the following posts slightly, mostly to remove headers or quotes from
others participating in the discussion.]

This thread appeared recently in the newsgroup comp.client-server.

Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 16:16:56 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Mark Pietrasanta)
Subject: Is Client-Server dead?

Okay.  I'll ask it.  Is Client-Server going down the tubes in
favor of peer-to-peer?

Are networks like Novell, Banyan, etc. that rely on the logical
star of client-server a thing of the past now that Unix and
Microsoft's Windows for Workgroups and Windows NT are on the
horizon?

It would seem that business is more suited to a peer-to-peer
environment, although IS typically isn't.  How do we IS'ers
maintain our role (or any role) as the business units start to
welcome the new peer philosophy?  Especially if they embrace
Microsoft's solutions, which will mean they can support and
develop with minimal man-hours and without IS?

---
From: [e-mail] (Dan Hildebrand)

Client-server applications are what you run on a network. Whether or not
that network has "servers" and "workstations" or runs "peer-to-peer" does
not change this.

You will still likely have your database server process running on the node
with the big disk, fast processor and tape backup. As a result, that node
becomes a "server", even though the OS may be capable of making any node on
the LAN a server.

Someone will still need to do the administration ( backups, installation
of new software, upgrades, etc ).

---
From: [e-mail] (John Nagle)

       The main purpose of client-server systems is isolation of the
manipulation of important data from the (probably graphical) user
interface.  Whether both reside on the same machine is not the central issue.
GUI-based applications tend to be mostly user interface in terms
of code volume, and breaking up the program into a user-friendly
client and a server whose users are programs seems to be a good
division of labor.

---
From: [e-mail] (Gary Wright)

I always laugh when I see someone claim that client/server, PC's/
peer-peer etc. systems can be supported and developed without IS.

Now I would tend to agree that traditional IS groups may have
trouble with this but certainly the skills required to design,
install, support, etc a complex heterogeneous LAN environment
are the same skills required to run a large central computer center.
The details change, but the concepts are much the same.

In fact in some ways is harder to administer to the needs of a
distributed PC based environment.  Just think about making reliable
backups for all those PCs.

What needs to happen is that the IS group must change its structure
and the services it offers so that the smaller groups within your
organization can rely on you to continue to manage their systems.
Why should each of these smaller groups being hiring (or drafting)
PC and network experts?  Usually they take what they can get from
there existing staff instead of hiring a skilled/trained person.

(John Nagle) writes:

>       The main purpose of client-server systems is isolation of the
>manipulation of important data from the (probably graphical) user
>interface.

Why do we have to perpetuate the abuse of the "client-server" term?
Client-server is an abstract concept with many concrete implementations.

To claim that the computation/display relationship between two pieces
of software is a special or primary meaning of "client-server" is to
make that term less descriptive.  What do I call two computational
systems that communicate in a request/reply manner if the term
client-server has been redefined to mean Microsoft Windows and SQL Server?

Certainly NFS is based on a client-server concept but there is no
display software at all in that system.

---
From: [e-mail] (Jeff Silverman)

I think that client-server is the wave of the future.  The future that I
see is that the computer will be a network of machines.  Some of the machines
will be clients, some machines will be servers and some machines will be both.
The future I envision has a disk machine, which has a lot of online storage
connected to a fast but otherwise pretty minimal CPU (NFS).  There is a compute
server, a computer which has been optimized to have a fast, powerful computer
and lots and lots of RAM.  There are terminals connected to terminal servers,
terminals which are servers (X-terminals).  Security is maintained by a
security server (Kerberos).  Time is provided by a time server.  Now, the
machines can take on different roles at different microseconds.  For example,
the compute server is a client of the file server, but it is a server to
a general purpose computer.  The file server is obviously a server to lots of
clients, but less obvious is that it is a client of the security server and
the time server (Kerberos requires time synchronization).

I think if you look carefully at the new offerings, you will see that deep
down inside they are still client server based!

---
From: [e-mail] (Mark Pietrasanta)

But what happens when the LAN goes away, something like
Windows for Workgroups becomes easily accessible, all college grads
learn it, and the users start saying, 'hey, why is it that IS can never
give us EXACTLY what we want, when we want it, and charge us so much?
Screw them, let's higher some kid (one of them) at entry and get
everything we want.'

They will only have to rely on IS for the cabling, and the maintenance
of the actual backend data (SyBase, mainframe, whatever).  This means
that IS loses their ability to stay in contact with the business, and
therefore become VERY expendible (more so than today).  In addition, they
lose a lot of the unique expertise gained from working in different large
businesses (since they will be the first ones to fall?).

The LANs forced IS to restructure and say 'Okay, the PC's are yours,
but the server, well, that's a big, complicated thing that only we
can deal with.' -- a variation on the mainframe.  Once this type of
client-server goes away (which I contend it will), then the users
basically control everything except the storing of the data -- they
control the retrieval, manipulation, and distribution, typically IS
assisted functions.

What can we do to avoid or work with this?  Restructure again?  Or
do you think this is something that is extreme and will never happen?

Every week I see an easier and easier way to do LAN backups, whether PC,
Unix, or Novell.  If Windows for Workgroups kicks off, I'm sure there will
be some painless way to do the distributed backups.  And the one 'kid'
will still be able to maintain it.

Okay, we did it once with LANs, what do we do now?  The reason they would
use/hire their own person is that is would sure be alot cheaper to have
one real headcount than to pay for endless manhours within IS.  It's
often very difficult to explain to the users where all these man-hours
come from.

---
From: [e-mail] (Michael Chance)

I think that folks are looking at client-server from different viewpoints
here.  The first from a small workgroup viewpoint (office/workgroup
server, local info-bases, small to medium size data & apps), which can
be adapted to "ad-hoc" programming styles and minimal configuration
support.

But that doesn't solve the corporate level viewpoint for a large
Fortune 500 company.  The execs in the corporate strategic planning
office need the data from the entire company, not just one department.
The raw compute power may be there in a 486 server, but it'll never
handle the I/O volume on the input side with any kind of response.
What about processing Citibanks credit card info each month?   Or any
Fortune 500 company-wide payroll or personnel systems?

The big iron will stay around as mega-data servers, the SPARCservers
will be the departmental servers, and the GUIs will be run off the
desktop.  Move the different parts to the right type of machines, with
multi-client-server configurations (as described in another posting).

And you'll still need IS to keep everything in sync (do you trust
every department to install the correct versions of the client
software on every machine ON SCHEDULE?) and talking to each other and
the world.

---
From: [e-mail] (R Mark Chilenskas)

Expecting end users to produce answers-oriented analysis applications
to benefit themselves or their immediate work group is a reasonable
thing.  The IS department writing monthly sales role-up reports is
probably a thing of the past, and any IS department that tries to
fight over this type of application is likely being foolish.

Expecting end users, or even department specialists, to write
applications that respect cross department information requirements
and obscure legislated auditing requirements is probably foolish.
These considerations don't help with getting the "job at hand" done,
they only may reduce problems in the future.  And the future could
very well be outside of the current budgetary cycle.  I suspect that
the role of IS will be concentrated here;  coordinating the corporate
information schema, dealing with what the government insists you be
able to produce, and coordinating information exchanges with outside
agencies (either governmental or companies you do business with).  For
example, an insurance company would probably want an IS department
designing and building the applications for remote independent
insurance agents so a single application handled the full spectrum of
claims and new account business handled by the independent agents.
Having the claims department, the auto insurance department, the
medical insurance department etc. all come up with their own
applications is probably expensive for the big company, and more so
for the poor independent agent who then has to deal with 16 different
incompatible applications, probably some running on different
hardware.  (If you have 6 departments involved, at least one will
probably "standardize" on the Mac...)


/////// Editorial:  The Future of the xBase Format

A recent e-mail to the DBMS SysOp asked the interesting question:  Is
there a future to the xBase format?  What with the acquisition of
the three major players in the PC xBase marketplace this year, there are
valid reasons to worry about the future of the xBase format.

Regardless of what else one thinks about them, Borland, Microsoft, and
Computer Associates are all managed by intelligent and astute people, and
none of them can afford to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in xBase
technology just to bury it.

True, these companies all have other products that either compete with xBase
products or represent a much larger portion of their revenue base.  Microsoft,
for one, has spent a lot of money developing its own database product,
but according to reports in NewsBytes, Microsoft's presentation at COMDEX this
week focused more on the forthcoming FoxPro 2.5 products.

Further, there is the question of inertia.  There are a great many
products that use the xBase format, and many programmers and users who
know no other database format.  The PC itself is subject to inertia, many
of the limitations in the PC architecture are based on assumptions made by
IBM and Microsoft back in 1979-80.  A great deal of effort has gone
into ways to get around those limits, Windows being a notable example, but
they persist and will probably never be eliminated.

Surely the xBase format could survive even the premature death of its three
biggest proponents, dBASE, Clipper, and FoxBase/FoxPro.  A more cynical
question is whether it will survive the impending adaption by ANSI of
xBase as an ANSI standard format.


/////// Legal Notices

SEQUEL is the newsletter of the GEnie Database RoundTable.  Items not
otherwise credited are written by Michael E. Nolan.

Except as noted, the contents are copyright (c) 1992, General Electric
Information Services Company.  Permission to reprint in full or in part is
hereby granted providing that proper credit is given to the GEnie DBMS
RoundTable and GEnie.

If you would prefer not to receive SEQUEL or other mailings from the DBMS
RoundTable, drop a note via e-mail to MIKE.NOLAN, or use the 'Feedback to
the Database Sysop' option on page 485.