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A Newsletter for Unisys EAE and Agile Business Suite Clients | July 2019

New Major Release: AB Suite 7.0 is Here!

By Thangathen Ponnusamy, Global Product Manager – Agile Business Suite and Enterprise Application Environment, Unisys

Big news: Agile Business Suite (AB Suite®) release 7.0 has arrived!

We’re extremely excited about this release. As with every major release, we set out to build a balanced set of capabilities that considers emerging market trends, incorporates New Feature Suggestions from clients, and furthers our strategy to outfit AB Suite in ways that help you win and differentiate yourself in the marketplace.

With noteworthy advances across the following key areas, AB Suite 7.0 reflects this ongoing commitment by bringing significant value to Enterprise Application Environment (EAE) and AB Suite clients alike.

Tighter Security

At a time when hacking and data breaches have become so commonplace as to be almost expected, cybersecurity continues to dominate both the headlines and the regulatory agenda. At Unisys,
we think about security constantly. It’s a part of – and driving force behind – everything we do.

So when it comes to AB Suite 7.0, we continue to enhance security at every possible turn. For instance, using the new Data Encryption feature, you can secure the data within your Enterprise Database Server for ClearPath MCP (DMSII) database through two distinct approaches: data masking and data encryption. For a deeper dive into this important new feature, please read the Engineering Corner article later in this issue.

Secure communication is important in a wide variety of transactions, particularly when it comes to communications that include personally identifiable information (PII), financial data, and other
sensitive details.

RATL over TLS 1.2 is now supported between AB Suite Component Enabler – via all of its Client styles – and the ClearPath® MCP Runtime host, enabling you to enhance security by sending data between client and server over a protected channel.

Other new security features in AB Suite 7.0 include support for Sensitive Data file attributes with enhanced security for deleted persistent data, an Audit Encrypt option that encrypts and compresses the audit trail as files are copied to tape, and Log Access Verbs Extension for granular logging of one or more VERBS for auditing purposes.

Ease of Use

No matter if you’re an EAE client moving to AB Suite, or an AB Suite shop that’s upgrading to latest version, ease of use is a crucial concern. The new Product Feature Modes in AB Suite 7.0 prioritize simplicity by letting you use the software in a way that fits your needs.

With Standard Mode, you’ll have a streamlined, productive means of developing applications in Microsoft® Visual Studio® using terminology, capabilities, and functionality that will be immediately familiar to developers used to working in EAE. Many of the advanced Object-Oriented features of AB Suite are either hidden or simplified in this mode, making for an easier transition from EAE to AB Suite.

As the name implies, Advanced Mode includes several advanced Object-Oriented features – such as inheritance and advanced polymorphic features – as well as the XML Framework. If you’re using AB Suite 6.1 Classic or the XML Framework, you’ll be upgraded to AB Suite 7.0 Advanced mode. If you start out with AB Suite 7.0 in Standard Mode, you’re free to convert to Advanced Mode as needed.

Greater Flexibility

Previous AB Suite releases supported the ability to export application changes from a higher Interim Correction to a lower one so long as they were within the same major release.

But with the new ExportAs feature in AB Suite 7.0, you’re now able to export changes from a higher release and import them into lower release – from AB Suite 7.0 to AB Suite 6.1, for instance. This way, you can upgrade your development environment to AB Suite 7.0 while keeping your production environment on release 6.1. That will enable critical changes to flow from the current release into your production environment, while still allowing sufficient time to test the application before upgrading production to AB Suite 7.0.

Productivity Enhancements

AB Suite 7.0 introduces a number of Debugger enhancements designed to help boost your team’s productivity.

For instance, when you initiate a debug session, the Auto Configure feature will populate relevant configuration properties with their default values, which you can then modify later as your needs dictate. This improves productivity while making it easier to quickly get started with Debugger.

Additionally, Debugger cycles – such as the Online and Report cycles – are now automatically initiated depending on the element selected in the Class View. Several enhancements that improve Debugger performance have been made as well.

Contemporary Software Support

When you upgrade to AB Suite 7.0, you’ll be able to take advantage of native support for the market’s newest and most contemporary development technologies.

To that end, AB Suite 7.0 Developer includes support for Microsoft Visual Studio 2017, Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2018, and Microsoft Windows® 10. And the AB Suite 7.0 Runtime for ClearPath MCP is available on ClearPath MCP release 17.0 and 18.0, while the AB Suite 7.0 Runtime for Windows is supported on Microsoft Windows Server® 2019.

For details about all supported software, specific editions, and more, please read the AB Suite 7.0 Qualification and Support Matrix.

We Couldn’t Have Done it Without You

A sincere thank you to all who participated in the AB Suite 7.0 beta test. The release is better and richer because of your time and input.

Be sure to visit the AB Suite homepage for details about AB Suite 7.0.

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