Universal platform for industrial e-business solutions
THE new version 3.6 of Siemens DB4Web application server now offers drivers for the Portable Document Format (PDF) and the Extensible Markup Language (XML). Thus documents with complex layouts can be created in reproducible quality.
The application server from the Siemens Industrial Solutions and Services Group (I&S) is independent of the operating system. New drivers for the Microsoft SQL server and access extend the range of native drivers for simultaneous access to heterogeneous database and information systems.
The Internet language HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) does not always meet the demands of high-quality documents such as delivery notes, invoices and organisation charts: displacements in printouts are practically inevitable.
Complex documents can now be produced in PDF format with the new PDF driver. Dynamic data such as order positions, designations and names are read from a database and inserted in a prepared PDF document.
The finished document is displayed in the browser and can be saved locally as a PDF file or printed out authentically.
A central application of DB4Web is the display of closed business processes. With its operating-system-independent kernel, the Siemens tool offers web-based access to all relevant information via a uniform user interface.
The new driver for the data exchange format XML now allows DB4Web applications direct access to XML-based IT architectures. DB4Web offers a driver for the Microsoft SQL database server version 7.0.
The driver supports all data types in the SQL server and the processing of nested SQL statements and Binary Large Objects (BLOBs). Thus photographs and graphics can be integrated easily in DB4Web applications and displayed dynamically in the browser.
The DB4Web Access driver renders redundant the connection to Microsoft Access via ODBC (Open Database Connectivity).
DB4Web supports relational databases such as Oracle, Informix and DB2, the opensource database MySQL, the object-oriented database ObjectBase and numerous other applications such as Corba, SAP R/2 and R/3 and LDAP.
Thus non-relational data sources are also available to generate dynamic Web pages. The open interface EDAPI also provides access to other proprietary data formats.
IT system loading can be simulated and response-time behavior of DB4Web applications analysed and optimised with the Multi Client Connector Simulator (MCCS). Siemens AG +49 9131 744544.
2-Apr-2002