Sunday 2:00 - 3:00
Sirius has pioneered a data-centric approach to year 2000 compliance
that is uniquely suited to situations where manpower is limited and
work may need to be performed by programmers without a complete
understanding of the applications and their data. Our approach
provides a natural framework for project management and is particularly
useful in efforts to rediscover and correct stabilized legacy
applications.
Database analysis tools rapidly identify and catalog all
of the database fields that contain date values, along with their
formats and common exception values. A unique field migration facility
decouples corrections to the database structures from required changes
to the application logic, significantly reducing the risks of introducing
logic errors. An integrated set of testing and change management tools
provides dramatic productivity increases for programmers working
on year 2000 projects.
This presentation begins with a high-level overview of the Sir2000
methodology and supporting product set. Each product is then presented
with sufficient detail to convey a firm understanding to someone
familiar with Model 204 application concepts. This presentation is
a prerequisite for the following three presentations.
Sunday 3:00 - 4:00
The Sir2000 Field Migration Facility lets a DBA identify fields that
contain dates, along with their formats and any allowed exception
values. Model 204 will then reject attempts to store invalid
values into these fields. A field containing dates with two-digit year
values may be linked to a field containing dates with four-digit year
values, using sophisticated "windowing" techniques. Once a field relation
has been established, Model 204 will intercept any updates
made to one field in the relation and automatically make the corresponding
update to the other field. Transaction integrity is preserved - either both
updates succeed or neither is applied.
This session consists of a presentation that explains the
Sir2000 FMF in some detail, building upon the foundation prepared in
Sir2000 Overview, and a live demo showing activation
and use of the Sir2000 FMF. The target audience is DBA's and application
programmers responsible for millennium projects, although many of the
higher-level concepts and illustrations will be of interest to managers.
Sunday 4:00 - 5:00
Sir2000 User Language Tools is a package of utilities designed to
aid programmers and analysts with the process of converting and testing
Model 204 applications to correctly function after 1999.
One variant of the APPDATE command allows individual programmers to
independently change the date and/or time returned by all
Model 204 date dollar functions. Each programmer can move
the date for his or her testing forwards and backwards, or the system manager
can set the date for an entire online. A library of powerful date processing
functions provides improved programmer productivity and readability of
application code. Another variant of the APPDATE command lets the
programmer set traps to intercept error conditions detected within the
various Model 204 date functions, greatly simplifying
date dollar functions without requiring any changes to the User
ad-hoc testing and debugging.
This session consists of a presentation that explains the Sir2000
User Language Tools in some detail, building upon the foundation prepared in
Sir2000 Overview, and a live demo showing how the various
tools may be used to debug date-sensitive applications. The target audience is
DBA's and application programmers responsible for millennium projects, although
many of the higher-level concepts and illustrations will be of interest to managers.
Monday 9:00 - 10:00
A high-level presentation that will bring everyone up to date with our
accomplishments since SUG 97.
This will include a review of our product releases and the enhancements
they contained, a presentation of the new products and enhancements to
existing products already under development, and a discussion of
new product areas that are under consideration.
Monday 10:15 - 11:45
IBM use the term Business Integration, The Gartner Group talk about
Zero Latency'. CCA's strategy embraces these concepts under the
soubriquet, Enterprise Integration. Chris Ramsdale will
outline CCA's vision for Model 204 in the Enterprise and
Leonard Gradus will talk in detail about the internal workings of a new
enterprise integration product to be released by CCA in the next few months,
MQ/204.
Monday 1:30 - 2:30
This high-level presentation will demonstrate how you can easily
use the web to distribute your Model 204 data,
directly into users' local databases, spreadsheets and word processors.
Examples will be presented showing the presentation of tabular data
in html tables, Java graphics and a variety of spreadsheet formats.
Data Interchange Format is highlighted as a spreadsheet technique,
because it can preserve formulas and text formatting in the
output spreadsheets.
Monday 2:30 - 3:30
Sirius has developed many functions to assist in the creation of
complex and powerful User Language applications. Over the years
we have added functions originally developed by customers, but
of general interest. In the past the exact status of customers'
access to these functions has been clouded, but this confusion has
been eliminated with Release 5.2 of the Sirius Mods.
This technical presentation will present various of our functions,
especially those dealing with $lists. Included will be a
discussion of some recently added capabilities, a demonstration of
how these functions can be used, and an explanation of their internal
workings. The internals presentation will lead naturally into a
discussion of the functions' strengths and weaknesses.
Tuesday 8:45 - 9:45
The explosive growth in web technology has produced some great
tools for building and maintaining pages. Unfortunately, these tools
are more concerned with site consistency than they are with the
sophisticated data access made possible by Janus. This high-level
presentation demonstrates how you can use these tools to produce a
great looking site, publish the site to a Janus Web Server, and integrate
it with the data serving capabilities of Model 204.
Tuesday 9:45 - 10:45
This moderately technical presentation will provide an explanation
of commonly heard terms and concepts that comprise a modern computer
network. Focusing on TCP/IP networks, this will be a look behind the
acronyms which will provide a logical structure for understanding TCP
based computer networks.
Tuesday 11:00 - 12:00
Software Europe distributes Sirius' products in the United Kingdom.
They have always been amazed that Sirius talks only about its newest
products during IMPACT. Software Europe will present the older, yet
still exciting Sirius products that have been benefiting Model 204
shops worldwide. For more than a decade these products have enabled
customers to make their systems more efficient, by helping to tune
their applications and by reducing the burden of system administration.
The presentation will touch on our "go faster" range of products
(Fast/Unload, Fast/Reload and Fast/Backup), our tuning tools (SirTune
and SirAud), and our administration tools (SirScan, SirMon and SirPro).
Tuesday 1:00 - 2:00
This technical presentation will explore how a web browser manages its
cache. The tradeoffs between performance and synchronization of the
browser local cache with web servers will be discussed in detail.
Special emphasis will be placed upon interactions between Model 204
applications and the browser and the facilities available in Janus Web to
simplify and control this interaction.
Tuesday 3:15 - 4:15
Fast/Unload and Fast/Reload, both singly and in combination as Fast/Reorg,
are among our most popular products. This product update presentation will
show you the features that have been added to these products since we last
discussed them in 1996 at the inaugural SUG, and show you the features that
are under consideration for the next release. Along with receiving valuable
tips about using the new features, you will get a chance to offer your two
pence about what you'd like to see in future releases.
Wednesday 8:45 - 10:00
This high-level presentation will focus on the requirements for tomorrow's
application systems and the architectures that will support them. The
unique characteristics of Model 204 will be examined with an
eye towards explaining its uncanny ability to adapt and survive.
Wednesday 10:15 - 11:30
This technical presentation will impart an in depth understanding
of the Model 204 algorithms and User Language
techniques associated with record locking.
An understanding of these concepts will assist a programmer in
improving the updating performance of Model 204
applications.
Wednesday 13:15 - 14:30
Using Janus Web Server, Sirius has developed an extensive suite
of web commerce applications for delivering products and maintenance.
This presentation will combine a high-level presentation of the application
functionality and a demonstration of its use with a technical presentation
of the underlying User Language code. Special attention will be drawn
to the power of the web for service delivery and the ease with which
Janus Web Server can be used to add web commerce functionality to
existing Model 204 applications.
