E-deployment

This book is both a how-to manual and a comprehensive analysis of e-deployment, the innovative new strategy for putting your existing AS/400 legacy applications on the Web. The book itself is a fresh new style of writing, in keeping with the interactive nature of the Web itself: You can take a fast path through selected chapters and sections to quickly get an application on the Web, or you can take a leisurely, thorough look at the design of the software that enables this breakthrough technology, to more fully understand the process and give you a head start on developing your own e-deployment technologies.
The CD-ROM that accompanies the book contains more than 10,000 lines of source code for all of the workstation, host, and middleware software required to use the e-deployment technology. All of the Java packages, including source and Java.doc (in browser-friendly HTML format) are included, along with thick- and thin-client example programs. The CD-ROM also includes an AS/400 support library, with full source, as well as the example programs used in the book.
As an additional value, there is a Web site specifically for the buyers of this book. This dynamic Web site has tips and techniques, updates and enhancements to the software, and a forum for ongoing discussion of the redeployment process.
So if you are an AS/400 application developer who wants to quickly and economically transform existing legacy programs from green-screens to either thick-client or browser-based distributed applications, with minimal disruption to users, this package of book plus software plus ongoing, interactive Web support will help you achieve a successful redeployment of your legacy systems.
Upon completion of this book, you will be able to:

• Identify the benefits of application modernization to your business
• Assess the impact of and conflicts between the available application modernization technologies
• Understand the various network architectures, including client/server, SQL, ODBC, Java Database Connectivity (JDBC), and browser-based solutions
• Understand the various browser-based solutions, including applets, Common Gateway Interface (CGI), servlets, and JavaServer Pages (JSPs)
• Plan a flexible, staged conversion of your systems from green-screens to the combination of user interfaces your business needs
• Transform an existing monolithic RPG program into a flexible application client
• Quickly build a display file proxy object
• Quickly design and deploy a green-screen user interface server; a thick-client user interface server, using the Java Swing classes; or a browser-based user interface server, using servlets and JavaServer Pages (JSPs)
• Use FTP and Windows Explorer as part of a distributed application development environment
• Install, test, and configure the Java Development Kit (JDK) and associated extensions
• Create and test a Swing application on the workstation
• Configure and run IBM's HTTP Server and IBM's WebSphere Application Server
• Create and test a servlet and JavaServer Page (JSP) application on the AS/400

Contents

Introduction
Part 1 Redeployment and Revitalization
Chapter 1 What We Want to Achieve
Chapter 2 Existing Technologies
Chapter 3 Redeployment, the New Strategy
Chapter 4 Revitalization
Part 2 Implementing Revitalization
Chapter 5 The Starting Point
Chapter 6 Breaking Apart the Monolith
Chapter 7 Converting the Data
Chapter 8 Building the Display File Object
Chapter 9 Implementing the Server/Client Architecture
Chapter 10 Designing a Swing Interface
Chapter 11 Designing the Browser Interface
Part 3 Running the Application
Chapter 12 The Green-Screen
Chapter 13 The Java Blockmode User Interface (JBUI) or Thick Client UI Server
Chapter 14 The Servlet
JavaDocs (prepared in Acrobat from HTML files)
Glossary
Index