Home/From a Client/Server to the Web: Now You Can

Web architectures are reference architecture. Yet, most software applications today still run on a client/server architecture. The reasons for this technological delay are several and of great impact. As a matter of fact:

• many successful software products were created before Internet became so dominant and these have been steadily integrated and modified over time. To make them portable such products should be written from scratch, resulting in costs that are often unaffordable;
• up until now there has never been a stable web application model: every 10 to 12 months a new one comes out and replaces the previous ones. This does not foster the development of applications since they may take years to be completed and yet risk being outdated as soon as they are released;
• web infrastructures present a different set of problems compared to those of client-server structures. For instance interface safety, scalability and interactivity are brand-new issues and to be handled successfully these require specific skills;
• the development tools with which the previous solutions were created are often not appropriate for creating true web applications. This results in high application conversion and staff training costs.
• Client/server applications used to be applied via Windows systems, but in the area of web applications the existence of various different architectures (types of database servers, application servers and browsers) makes it difficult to find a reliable solution which is free of constraints and offers a return on investment.

Yet, the marketplace demands the proper use of the web, i.e. not merely using the same old browser applications but ones which achieve a new level of usability and integration. The limitations posed by interface remote systems such as Terminal Server are increasingly apparent. This makes the conversion of applications into a real web architecture a necessity.

Instant Developer is the best solution for this task, as the numerous software houses which are currently using it can testify.

Follow this learning pathway to find out how it works.

Learning Pathway

1. Rescripting or Automatic Conversion?
2. Importing and Wrapping
3. Porting Completion
4. Refactoring and Reengineering
5. Porting Example