Ilog SA has announced Ilog Server, a tool for building dynamic servers of C++ objects that is far more than it seems. By September, the French-based company intends to take the technology, which derives from an Esprit project that represents 150 man-years of effort, and attach it to the Sybase relational database making it object-oriented. The product, likely to be extended to other relational databases as well, will be sold as an add-on to Ilog Server. Ilog fell heir to the Esprit work on interoperability and the sharing of objects across networks when it hired the Matra SA developers that were working on it. Right now, however, Ilog Server, an extension of the Smalltalk Model View Controller, is targeted at C++ programmers that want to implement reactive object models in C++ that can be accessed simultaneously by multiple users. It promises to make object-oriented groupware a reality. An integration tool, it provides a client-oriented interface between an object server and multiple clients even in a Distributed Object Computing environment. Problems arise in C++ systems development when several clients share the same information. With Ilog Server each client has its own applications programming interfaces and only has to be concerned with the objects it manipulates. Based on the concept of view coherence, Ilog Server offers a C++ pre-processor and a set of libraries with two types of services, Object Model classes and Object Server classes. The stuff is currently available on Unix workstations for $5,000. Simultaneous with the Server, the company also announced Ilog Broker, a tool for extending C++ to support Distributed Object Computing environments transparently, which C++ does not traditionally support. It takes an approach similar to ExperSoft Corp’s XShell product. Ilog says C++ programmers can make any existing linked C++ applications distributed by minimally changing their header files. Its core technology uses the Remote Procedure Call protocol and can be used, Ilog says, to implement both C++ Object Request Brokers and transparent C++ support for Common Object Request Broker Architecture Interface Definition Language applications. It can revamp existing C++ programs and develop peer-to-peer applications. It is available for Unix workstations for $5,000.
