Re: New Package Questions

Hi. On Thu, 2005-08-11 at 08:24 +0800, Alan Knowles wrote: > Care to explain what exactly it is, the website is full of marketing > bumf... U2 is made up of 2 primary database UniData and UniVerse which are "clones" of the old PICK systems. They are a very different beast to the SQL databases of today and have a very large following. They are also are used by a lot of very large organisation. You would also be right in calling then legacy systems but they are still very much in demand. 99% of the development of PICK software is done using the built in BASIC compiler. These products were actually purchased by accident, when IBM made the acquisition of Informex the U2 products came along to. the U2 databases now make up about 40% of IBM SMB's software sales. > Any idea why someone would use u2/redback? > (I'm guessing it's to interface with an existing legacy system) RedBack is a layered product that allows mainly web servers to gain access to the U2 databases and functions within the U2 system. RedBack exposes the U2 system as objects with method and properties so you are able to make use of. Maybe the biggest thing that RedBack does is put PICK data into something that normal web developers can understand. > >From the looks of things u2 is some kind of database? - redback being > some kind of object layer ontop of it. > > It may end up being DB_U2.. - but then again, somebody might think that > was a database of U2 songs ;) It is not really a DB access as you would think of it in terms of a mysql or an oracle. I did get the suggestion from Arnaud Limbourg of using RedPear which brings into line with the ASP and JSP gateway names. If there are any other questions I will be happy to answer them Gordon.