Improving the Deployability of Existing Windows-Based Client/Server Business Information Systems Using ActiveX Components

• Main Authors: Cheng,Bill Yu-Fan, 程裕繁
• Other Authors: Chyou,Jonathan Jiin-Tian
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/49088113718205435702

博士 === 國立政治大學 === 資訊管理研究所 === 95 === The downsizing revolution has created a deep paradigmatic shift in business information systems (BISs). Not very long ago, large-scale mission-critical BISs were the exclusive province of massive mainframe computers. That is changing rapidly. Today, increasingly large and complex BISs are being built as client/server (C/S) applications. Unfortunately, for the most common C/S BISs, that is, the Windows-based C/S BISs (WinBISs), client programs must be manually deployed to each end-user machine bringing about a heavy BIS maintenance load. ActiveX component technology, if used properly, is more cost-effective than other alternatives in improving the deployment of existing WinBISs. Nevertheless, ActiveX component technology is no magic solution, and thus still has three shortcomings, namely insecurity, complexity, and bulkiness. The purpose of the study presented in this paper is to overcome the shortcomings of ActiveX component technology, and then develop an ActiveX component-based solution to automate the deployment of existing WinBISs. This paper has four main parts: (a) the answers to the shortcomings of ActiveX component technology; (b) the downloadable architecture, which supports the development of automatically-deployed BISs; (c) the architecture transformation process, which transforms existing WinBISs into the downloadable architecture; and (d) two examples of how to use the downloadable architecture and the architecture transformation process. The examples also provide evidence to support the feasibility of such architecture and process.