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A Newsletter for Unisys EAE and Agile Business Suite Clients | December 2017

Notes from the AB Suite 7.0 Beta Test

As we ready Agile Business Suite (AB Suite®) Release 7.0* for its planned 2Q 2019 availability, we had the opportunity to engage several AB Suite users in the first of many planned beta tests. Below are summaries of some of the key capabilities and features covered in the AB Suite 7.0 Beta 1 test.

Visual Studio 2017

The development environment for AB Suite 7.0 is integrated with Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2017. Visual Studio 2017 starts faster, is more responsive, and uses less memory. In addition, it includes numerous productivity improvements. For instance, the new Go To feature showed beta testers a quick, new way to find AB Suite version files, types, methods, and other symbols in their code.

Basic Mode

A new Product Features mode, Basic Mode is meant to be a simpler mode of operation when defining an AB Suite model. We intend for it to remain feature-neutral – with no new features in new releases – into the future. If you want to take advantage of advanced functionality and new features, you can easily convert a Basic Mode model into one of the other Product Feature modes – Classic, XML Framework, and Client Framework.

In the Beta 1 test, the differences between Basic Mode and the other Product Feature modes were fairly subtle, as most of the work so far addressed the internal product infrastructure.

To that end, the Basic Mode included in this beta release offered:

  • A new “Primitive” type that is used for all re-usable primitive type definitions – such as dictionary items – and helps to make a clear distinction between class definitions of primitives and non-primitives. Primitive classes are no longer used for re-usable primitive definitions.
  • Instantiation that’s no longer defined by the “Inherits” property. Instead, all attributes are created as “Template-based” – they use the “Template” property to derive from a class or type.
  • Value-checking logic that’s been simplified and made available on Ispec attributes only.
  • A version of the “IsInnerClass” property that’s hidden and internal. Additionally, behavior of the “inner” class is now determined automatically by the model.
  • Models that can be built to, and run on, the following platforms:
    • MCP
    • CLR
    • Debugger

Beta 1 testers had two ways to create a Basic Mode model. They could use the New Project wizard to create a new model then choose the “Basic Mode” option. Or, they could import an Enterprise Application Environment (EAE) model file and select the “Migrate to Basic Mode” checkbox on the Import dialog. Note that this second option is temporary in the Beta 1 version. The ultimate plan with AB Suite 7.0 is for all EAE model file migrations to automatically create a Basic Mode model.

The ability to import most simple EAE model files – such as “SAMPLE.mdl” – was available in the Beta 1 test, though the ability to import larger, more complicated customer models has not yet been tested.
More changes to Basic Mode are planned, so it more closely aligns its functionality with the equivalent capabilities of EAE that make the upgrade to AB Suite more straightforward.

AB Suite on ClearPath MCP

The primary focus of AB Suite Release 7.0 on ClearPath® MCP is improved data security and integrity. To that end, the Beta 1 test included the following DMSII features:

  • Sensitive Data: When set to “TRUE,” the Segment Dasdl Sensitive Data property enables the SENSITIVEDATA file attribute for such database files as the control file, audit files, and dump files.
  • Log Access DMVerbs: Qualification of LOG ACCESS is enabled by allowing the entry of one or more DMVERBS as part of the LOG ACCESS DMVERBS Class Dasdl property.
  • Audit Encrypt: The ability to select User Defined CopyAudit text provides complete control of the Audit Trail specification via free-format user entry.
  • ETA Support: Support for both full Epsilon and full ETA architecture runtimes is now available.
  • MCP RATL SSL: AB Suite 7.0 on ClearPath MCP supports SSL message packet encryption between Component Enabler and MCP Ratl, allowing the following Component Enabler clients to make use of the RATLSSL Protocol with an MCP Host:
    • Presentation Client, either standalone or browser-based
    • ASP.NET
    • VB.NET
    • WS.NET
    • JSP
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