AB Suite supports object oriented (OO) Fourth Generation Language (4GL) environment. It provides model-based and model-driven development capabilities. It integrates development, testing, versioning, and application deployment functions within the Visual Studio.NET IDE framework. It develops and builds applications in the Windows Visual Studio environment, and deploys them to supported Runtime System Environment.
For example, by building standard elements as classes and encapsulating them in a clean interface, you can customize standard applications to suit specific requirements. Classes can be included in a number of different components to allow for separate distribution thus minimizing development time. Specializing standard framework classes facilitates adding data or overriding behavior and classes generated as components can be specialized.
Agile Business Suite comprises the following two major components:
AB Suite Developer (Development Environment), which lets you define and then generate components for the Microsoft.Net framework and ClearPath operating environments.
AB Suite Runtime for each of the supported platforms.
Development Environment
AB Suite Developer or Development Environment is implemented within the Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE) framework. It includes tools for designing, developing, testing, generating, and deploying applications.
The AB Suite Development Environment includes the following:
System Modeler – for modeling information systems
Debugger – for testing systems modeled in System Modeler
Builder – for generating and deploying these systems
Version Control tools, a third-party software – for version management of models and model elements
AB Suite Runtime
AB Suite Runtime supports:
Windows operating system
ClearPath MCP operating system
AB Suite Runtime is installed on the target runtime platform, and provides an infrastructure to run the deployed AB Suite components. The runtime environment is different for each of the target platforms supported by AB Suite – Windows .NET, and ClearPath MCP.
Features of Agile Business Suite
Agile Business Suite provides –
A higher level of definition
Platform independence
Ability to mask complexity
Capturing the what without worrying about the how
It offers the following capabilities:
Stability and ease of migration to follow-on releases of the product.
Builds and manages composite applications easily.
Is able to use the concepts of component-based development.
Provides the granularity for version control in the new architecture.
Ability to deploy individual components of a single application to multiple platforms.
Standards–based structures to provide both development and runtime interoperability.
Able to consistently and reliably generate very large and business-critical systems that can be used to run entire business operation.
Deploy and manage components built with other component-based development tools and as those built with the Developer.
Provides an automatic mechanism to migrate data from existing systems. Migration scenarios that would require database reorganization must be kept to a minimum.
Optionally provides a mechanism to take an existing system and transform it into a component-based application.
Provides unprecedented flexibility, modern, and innovative development capabilities.
Provides a thoroughly modern development environment with features that boost productivity and deliver high-quality applications faster.
Built-in diagramming tool to enable you to visualize your application, or parts of it using the UML class diagram.