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?
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, your customers or users run your application on their local machine as usual, and you give them access to data, COBOL objects, or both on a remote server using AcuServer. You 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. Chapter 3 describes providing remote file access via AcuServer.
Option 2: Set Up the ACUCOBOL-GT Runtime as an Internet Helper Application or Viewer
If you want customers or users 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 set up a Web page (which is simply an HTML document) with a link to the ACUCOBOL-GT object file to be run. You 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 can 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.
As with providing remote file access, 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. (This is described in Appendix A.) Once you set up your Web site and object file link, though, you're done! Chapter 4 discusses the runtime as a helper application.
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 ACUCOBOL-GT Web Plug-in.
Using this approach, you set up a Web site and embed or link to your ACUCOBOL-GT application. You then instruct your customers or users to download the ACUCOBOL-GT Web Plug-in from Acucorp's Web site and install it on their machine. (The plug-in can be downloaded free of charge.) With the plug-in in place, your customers or users can visit your Web site at any time and launch your application on their machine. The application can run inside the user's browser window or in its own separate application window (depending on how you set it up). The plug-in can give users all the features and functions of your application, along with the features and functions of their browser.
Option 4: Provide Remote Application Access via AcuConnect
If you want local users 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 embed simple COBOL CALLs into a client application, and you 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 automatically CALLs the remote application and runs it on the server. You can combine this option with AcuServer to provide remote file access as well. Chapter 6 describes remote application access via AcuConnect.
Option 5: Provide Remote Application Access via Thin Client
If you want Windows users to launch remote applications over the Internet and have the applications run exclusively on the remote server, you can use Acucorp's thin client solution. In this scenario, end users download and install a thin runtime, called the ACUCOBOL-GT Thin Client, on their local Windows machine. The Thin Client runtime is available on Acucorp's web site (www.acucorp.com). Then, users either execute the acuthin command naming the Internet server or IP address in the command parameters, or they visit your Web site and click an application link. If you have set up your Web site accordingly, the application starts and runs on the server and automatically invokes the thin runtime on the client to interpret and display the screen I/O. No other components are required on the client, and, depending on whether or not your application is already graphical, you may not have to reengineer your server software to make this work.
This option is similar to using AcuConnect because it allows users to launch remote applications from local clients, but it is different because all application processing is performed on the server. With remote application access through AcuConnect, processing is distributed between the client and the server. In addition, the thin client supports only Windows clients. Note that data access is considered local in thin client configurations. This is because the data usually resides on the same server machine as the application. This option can be combined with AcuServer if you want to keep data on a different server in a multi-tiered configuration.
Chapter 7 describes remote application access via the ACUCOBOL-GT Thin Client.
Option 6: Create an HTML Interface to Your Application and Launch it Using CGI
Maybe you want customers or users 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 can 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 create your HTML interface using one of many popular HTML authoring tools. Then you 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, you do not have to UNSTRING the CGI variables in the program, because ACUCOBOL-GT takes 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, which requires the most new coding, is described in Chapter 8.