ACADEMIA

New plug-in reduces risk and cost of business disruption by providing previously unavailable impact analysis and dependency mapping across applications, source languages and databases -- Metallect Corporation today announced the availability of a Metallect IQ Server plug-in for the Eclipse Platform. Developers working within Eclipse can now conduct impact analysis and dependency mapping of application logic across all applications and supporting databases with integrated access to IQ Server. The announcement came on the floor of Sys-Con's 10th Annual SOA Web Services Edge Conference, where Metallect CEO Guy Hoffman will be presenting his thoughts on "What's MIA in SOA: How to properly move from current applications to SOA". Mr. Hoffman will outline the 5 step process to adopt SOA and to ensure governance today at 1:30pm ET. Automatic visualization of impacts and potential impacts of an application change from within Eclipse, across applications, technologies and databases, can replace time-intensive and unreliable manual processes. This automation and visualization dramatically lowers the risk of business disruption and associated costs due to modifications to an existing business process. Eclipse developers can view a demonstration of the new Eclipse plug-in using IQ Server on a variety of open-source projects on the company's Web site. The new plug-in is also available for download from the website. "Since its inception, Eclipse has strived to encourage the creation of a collaborative open-source community where developers have the flexibility that comes with working in an open eco-system," said Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation. "Metallect's announcement of its IQ Server plug-in is another great example of the innovative solutions available to developers using Eclipse" Eclipse users can also utilize the new plug-in to conduct semantic searches across applications written in various languages, including COBOL, RPG, C#, C/C++, and more. The search can also reach into databases including DB/2, Oracle, Sybase, SQLServer, and more. Semantic searching enables rapid code location, finding similar functionally supporting reuse initiatives, locating logic in support of governance initiatives, and gaining fact-based knowledge of the inter-relations between applications at the logic level. "A growing number of developers within enterprises are utilizing Eclipse as their standard IDE, but their view is limited to the source languages supported by the Eclipse Platform and is static to the application source code they are currently working on," said Guy Hoffman, CEO, Metallect. "The IQ Server plug-in provides visibility and knowledge into the entire application infrastructure for analyzing application logic across technologies in order to conduct accurate impact analysis, map interdependencies, discover inconsistencies, and eliminate redundancy. The result is accelerated cycle- times and reduced cost related to application change management, while mitigating the risk of a potential business disruption." Application Logic Visibility A Reality Continuous business change has driven the need to continuously modify, enhance, and extend business-critical applications. Alongside continuous change, complexity has multiplied as core technologies, applications, and databases have proliferated, both due to organic growth and as a result of mergers and acquisitions. Against this backdrop, the technologies and techniques that companies apply to minimize the risk of unexpected business disruption due to software changes have lagged, exposing the organization to the risk of business disruption caused when applications that depend on each other are changed without fully understanding those dependencies. Metallect's IQ Server reduces uncertainty for stakeholders throughout the software development lifecycle by applying advanced semantic inference and meta-modeling to automatically map dependencies, enable impact analysis, and manage change within and across applications, databases, technologies and languages. IQ Server arms IT executives, enterprise architects, configuration management professionals, quality assurance teams, and development groups with the actionable insights they need to drive up agility and drive down cost, while safely guiding the organization through the ongoing process of aligning critical applications with business needs.