Client/server and intranet development

Internet Research

ISSN: 1066-2243

Article publication date: 1 December 1998

157

Keywords

Citation

Fellows, G. (1998), "Client/server and intranet development", Internet Research, Vol. 8 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/intr.1998.17208eaf.004

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 1998, MCB UP Limited


Client/server and intranet development

Client/server and intranet development

David Linthicum1997John Wiley & SonsNew York, NYISBN 0-471-17467-X, (paperback) pp. xvii + 526 incl. index$US27.50www.wiley.com/compbooks

Keywords Client-server, Computing

David Linthicum is a practitioner, rather than a researcher, and in this book he describes his experiences in the information technology industry. Linthicum is a senior manager at AT&T Solutions and has written more than 250 articles on client/server topics for magazines like PC Magazine, Info Week, BYTE and DatabaseProgramming & Design over the past seven years. He has written six books, and is in demand as a speaker at industry conferences. He remarks in the introduction that he has also had time to build an array of client/server applications as a developer, architect, project manager, and now as a consultant. He also admits that, sometimes, things go wrong, and this book is his effort to share those experiences with his readers.

The book is divided into five sections. The first section is "Client/server Building Blocks", which introduces client-server concepts. The next, "Designing Client/Server Solutions", has four sub-sections:

  1. 1.

    the elements of good client-server system design ­ from architecture to applications;

  2. 2.

    an introduction to database and middleware technologies and tools;

  3. 3.

    the client-server models ­ two-tier, three-tier and multi-tier architectures, and related development models; and

  4. 4.

    the key technologies and tools for designing and building object-oriented client-server systems.

The next section, "Finding the Right Tools", provides detailed information on different client-server development tools, and shows how to select the right tool for your project. The chapters in this section describe characteristics of eight classes of tools and give examples of available products.

The section "Creating the Right Client/ Server Architecture", describes how to scale-up applications for the enterprise using three- and multi-tier architectures. Distributed objects, TP monitors, application-partitioning and supporting tools are discussed.

Finally, "Implementing the Solution" shows how the client-server applications developer can put together all these pieces together to create a system, and how to test the system to ensure its reliability and performance. Intranets (systems using Internet methods and tools for internal business use) are then discussed. Finally, Linthicum makes a number of predictions about the future of various technologies.

Linthicum has used a large number of tools. He provides an authoritative, practitioner-based evaluation in this book. He also provides useful tips case, studies and recommendations throughout the text.

Geoff Fellows Charles Sturt University

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