Problems the platform helps solve.
Incoherence of information systems.
Using several information systems one has to switch among them having no a single GUI to all the systems.
Every system used can obey its own GUI principles requiring special education.
This platform provides a single entry point to all exploited information systems with general
intuitively obvious GUI principles. Information systems of different enterprises can be
integrated within the platform, thereby giving ideal B2B collaboration facilities.
New information systems can be added transparently for end users.
No semantic view of data.
Users of information systems are interested in information semantics, while information systems store data;
semantics of data is external knowledge being applied by programmers when developing GUI.
Present information systems do not allow semantic analysis of data until programmers create the appropriate GUI.
OLAP and Semantic Web provides some functionality struggling with the problem, but they have limitations
(see the problems "Web limitations" and "OLAP limitations").
This platform has the semantic layer enabling semantic analysis of data either by people or computer agents.
This layer consists of application domain concepts clear for application domain experts and users;
it is defined once for each integrable information system by mapping its data to application domain concepts.
No application-domain-oriented GUI development.
Creating present GUI, developers have to do with data organization and decide how to map data to application
domain semantics and GUI. They can not develop GUI basing on application domain concepts.
The platform enables this opportunity for developers with the semantic layer. They become only responsible
for GUI creation, and information semantics is taken from the layer automatically. It eliminates semantics
mapping mistakes and provides the same data semantics interpretation over all GUI forms.
No end-user-friendly GUI development.
Today only skilled programmers can develop GUI. No platform or technology enables development
of rich GUI for end users having no special knowledge in IT.
While this platform does. Using the semantic layer and some intuitively clear tools of GUI development,
end users can develop and publish forms with rich functionality for common use.
Insufficient GUI scalability.
Today only Web and Oracle Forms-based information systems provide dynamic GUI extension; information
systems based on other GUI platforms do not, one can not add new functionality and forms without
redistribution of new GUI version. And using Web and Oracle Forms, one can not create loosely-coupled
GUI parts with context navigation mechanisms not requiring programmers describe them explicitly.
Not to mention that Oracle Forms is oriented to Oracle DBMS only.
This platform has a single space of GUI forms loosely-coupled since navigation ways are determined
by the platform automatically according to information showed on forms (see the solution for the
problem "manual navigation way definition"). In addition, any GUI form can be based on data of several heterogeneous data sources without restrictions.
Manual drill-down way definition.
When using a non-OLAP GUI, one can not
drill down any data shown. Adding such
behavior to transactional systems requires programmers describe every drill-down way and condition. It is
a complex task, which results in coding only part of possible actions in usual GUI.
While this platform provides an automatic drill-down mechanism requiring no programmers involving in.
The mechanism is based on the semantic layer defined once for each information system. All possible drill-down
actions are supported within the platform since form publication without any additional arrangements.
Manual navigation way definition.
Present GUI platforms do not guarantee navigation to all places where some information is detailed.
Adding navigation ways to existing systems require programmers define each of them explicitly.
Being interested in detailed information on some concept, one could not navigate to appropriate places
if it is not programmed.
Our platform is absolutely different. It does not require programmers define navigation ways, they
are taken automatically from the semantic layer defined once for each information system. All navigation
ways are accessible since form publication without any additional arrangements.
Insufficient platform scalability.
Some platforms of GUI deployment (for instance, Oracle Forms) are not extensible with additional components.
Such platforms have a fixed component set which can only be extended by developers of the platforms.
Other platforms have no means of dynamic component publication for common use.
Our platform provides extensible loosely-coupled component set dynamically published for common use.
The loose-coupling is realized with the general data flow conception enabling almost any component
combinations, which facilitates fast development of functionally rich GUI.
OLAP limitations.
When using OLAP systems, one is restricted to some cube and cannot use other data accessible in information
systems until they are converted to the cubic form. OLAP GUI is analysis-oriented enabling no possibility of
rich GUI form and data modification.
Within this platform OLAP-like GUI can be developed as well as more sophisticated one operating on any data
with rich GUI forms and modifiable data.
Web limitations.
Web-based GUI has restricted functionality and performance in comparison with standard windowed GUI. AJAX
initiative addresses this problem but it does not yet provide a complete solution to all its aspects.
Another problem is that web is oriented to document representation structure rather than information semantics.
This problem is addressed in Semantic Web providing some means for describing semantics of documents.
Existing implementations of Semantic Web does not cover all aspects of information semantics and information
system integration.
Our platform provides a complete integration solution with high functionality and performance of GUI,
with the simplest way of mapping data sources to the semantic layer covering all aspects of semantics.
Further the platform can be adapted to Web, thereby becoming a part of Semantic Web initiative.
Insufficient development productivity.
Development of present GUI requires skilled programmers solving many difficult tasks: understanding data
semantics, programming form structure, programming or adapting navigation and drill-down mechanisms.
At that in large projects it is very difficult to organize programmers' work to create an absolutely
seamless solution. If we consider several different projects developing independently but still being subject
to integration, such seamless solution is rather impossible, there should be opened a separate complex
integration project. The project becomes much more complicated if we consider several heterogeneous
information systems to be integrated.
Our platform reduces requirements to GUI developers making it possible for end users to create rich
GUI fast and qualitative with no need to describe drill-down and navigation ways, which are supported
automatically. Programmers are only responsible for developing a sufficient set of loosely-coupled components
and mapping data of information systems to the semantic layer. The solutions based on the platform supports
heterogeneous data and are seamless even if they are developed independently in parts.
