You want to give your customers or end users access to your ACUCOBOL-GT applications and/or data over the Internet. How can you accomplish this? There are five basic ways, although you might choose a hybrid as described in "Blending the Acucorp Family ".
Option 1: Provide Remote File Access via AcuServer
If you simply want to provide access to remote Vision, relative, or sequential data and object files over the Internet, you can use Acucorp's remote file server, AcuServer, to accomplish your goal. In this scenario, you would have your customers or users run your application on their local machine as usual, and you would give them access to data, COBOL objects, or both on a remote server using AcuServer. You would use a configuration variable, FILE-PREFIX or CODE-PREFIX , to specify the Internet address of your remote data or object files just as you would if you were specifying any remote pathname for AcuServer. This option requires no special knowledge of the Internet and can be implemented immediately. For more information, see "Using AcuServer to Access Remote Data".
Option 2: Set Up the ACUCOBOL-GT Runtime as an Internet Helper Application or Viewer
If you want customers or users to be able to run your applications by clicking a link on your Web site, one way to accomplish this is to set up the ACUCOBOL-GT runtime as an Internet helper application or viewer.
To do this, you would set up a Web page (which is simply an HTML document) with a link to the ACUCOBOL-GT object file to be run. You would then instruct your users to purchase a copy of the ACUCOBOL-GT runtime and install it as a helper application in their browser. Your users could then launch your application directly from your Web page. The application will run on their local machine as usual, or in combination with programs running remotely on a server machine using AcuConnect for remote application services. You also have choice of where the data resides. Remote data requires the use of AcuServer remote file services.
Like Option 1, this option takes advantage of existing applications and is easy to implement. However, you must have some knowledge of HTML or use an HTML authoring tool to create a Web site . Once you set up your Web site and object file link, though, you're done! For more on this option, see "How to Use the Helper Application Method".
Option 3: Provide Runtime Services through the ACUCOBOL-GT Web Plug-in
Another way to give customers or users access to your applications on the Web is to provide runtime services through the ACUCUBOL-GT Web Plug-in.
Using this approach, you would set up a Web site and embed or link in your ACUCOBOL-GT application. You would then instruct your customers/users to license the ACUCOBOL-GT Web Plug-in and install it on their machine. With the plug-in in place, your customers/users can visit your Web site at any time and launch your application inside their browser window. This gives them all the features and functions of your application, along with the features and functions of their browser.
This option is similar to Option 2 in that it allows users to launch applications from your Web site, and you (the COBOL programmer) can choose whether the application runs locally on the client machine, remotely on a server machine (utilizing AcuConnect), or some combination of the two. The main difference is that using this method, the plug-in embeds the main application window in the browser and gives it access to library routines that can be used to communicate with the browser.
For more information on this option, see "How to Use the Plug-in".
Option 4: Provide Remote Application Access via AcuConnect
If you want local users to be able to launch remote applications over the Internet -- exclusive of the World Wide Web and browsers -- you can use Acucorp's remote application server, AcuConnect, to accomplish your goal. In this scenario, you would embed simple COBOL CALLs into a client application, and you would use a configuration file on the client to specify the Internet address of the remote application. Then, when your customers or users run the application on their local machine, AcuConnect would automatically CALL the remote application and run it on the server. You can combine this option with Option 1 to provide remote file access as well.
For more information, see "Using AcuConnect to Launch Remote Applications".
Option 5: Create an HTML Interface to Your Application and Launch it Using CGI
Maybe you want customers or users to be able to run your applications by clicking a link on your Web site, but you don't want to require anything special of the user's machine (for instance, the presence of an ACUCOBOL-GT runtime). In this case, you have the option to create a new interface to your application using HyperText Markup Language. With an HTML interface, your application can be interpreted directly by the user's browser, and the processing logic can remain in COBOL on the Web server.
In this scenario, you would create your HTML interface using one of many popular HTML authoring tools. Then you would write a Common Gateway Interface (CGI) program that can read CGI variables submitted by the client to the server. This program can launch your COBOL application or it can be a COBOL program itself. You can write it using ACUCOBOL-GT or any other language you choose. If you write the program in ACUCOBOL-GT Version 4.0 or later, you do not have to UNSTRING the CGI variables in the program, because newer versions take care of this for you through "is external-form" syntax.
Once you build an HTML front end and write your CGI program, you set up a Web site with a link to the CGI program. Your customers or users can then visit your Web site and use their browser as the front end for your COBOL application running on the server.
This option requires the most new coding. For details, see "How to Use CGI to Execute Applications on the Web".
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