ARCAD Software:
A set of solutions to simply manage, organize and secure the evolution of your Information System.
The ARCAD offer covers a variety of markets:
All this with specialized knowledge of the technological environment around the IBM iSeries platform. The iSeries itself being an integration point for multiple technologies, our expertise extends beyond the native iSeries to Windows, UNIX and Linux environments.
All ARCAD solutions are modular, progressive, open, and fully integrated.
The vocation of ARCAD Software is to offer integrated software suites for all phases of the change cycle of an information system. The suites form the cornerstones of a high level methodology, guaranteeing productivity and quality throughout.
The ARCAD suites apply to anyone affected by application change:
To provide multi-platform application mining software for iSeries combined with integrated change management tools to ensure high productivity in Web migration, maintenance and enhancement activities. ARCAD Software, role : vendor/integrator. Our role does not stop at software development. Our team of expert consultants can with work you through the implementation stages. They contribute their experience in successful integration projects and facilitate the transfer of skills. Whatever your mix of development and/or production processes, don't hesitate to contact us. We can work together to select the right solutions and methods for you and your business.
In line with Software Configuration Management methodologies, the "Changer" module firstly simplifies daily development tasks by maximizing automation and the integrity checking of changes. Thanks to its multi-platform capability, ARCAD-Skipper adapts equally well to native or any kind of Windows, UNIX or Linux development processes. Fully integrated into the Eclipse platform, teams share the same environment that is synchronized by a parallel maintenance control system.
If, like many IT professionals, you have discovered that your documentation is obsolete - or non-existent - Observer offers an immediate solution that also fulfills documentation requirements for [regulatory constraints (SOX, Basel II etc.)].
With the ARCAD-Qualifier suite you rapidly improve the productivity of your testing phases and attain the application reliability you have been looking for. Given the critical nature of today's applications, and the impact of a malfunction on the organization, the question "how can I improve and maintain the reliability of my applications?" becomes top priority. ARCAD-Qualifier answers this need with three complementary modules.
iSeries customers tend to be software-package oriented. Many of our customers do not even have development teams. Do they have anything to gain from using ARCAD? Yes, absolutely, because they still need to integrate application changes. Furthermore, many iSeries clients have architectures that combine standard third-party software packages with their own developments. Given the impact these changes can have on your environment, it can be very difficult to integrate new versions of these third-party applications.
The ARCAD-Skipper suite guarantees you full control over your application changes. It applies a structured organizational framework based on robust and proven methodologies. By this alone, IT departments often see productivity gains exceeding 30%. ARCAD Skipper is a suite, for defining a set of working environments and automating the lifecycle of software components, such as transfer to test, transfer to production, distribution and multi-machine installation.
When projects impact your database, you should still be targeting maximum automation, as the only sure way to team productivity and exhaustive code transformation. Impact analysis constitutes a sizeable proportion of any information system modification. It is an essential preliminary step in the success of any IS evolution project. Many maintenance projects also require database modifications (field addition and size modification, for example). Eliminating the risks involved in modifications and their corresponding adaptations is a lengthy and tedious task that entails two major concerns: Impact analysis and code conversion.
The lion's share of IT service resources is dedicated to maintaining existing applications rather than to developing new ones. Further, security and high availability of applications are critical to the success of companies today, compounded by new regulatory requirements and application modernization needs. So clearly there is a strong argument for installing the right tools to handle these issues proactively. ARCAD-Skipper applies to companies of any scale, for safeguarding legacy applications and ensuring security and productivity during application enhancement.
The ARCAD-Observer suite is a concrete solution for maintaining and transferring the knowledge of existing systems. Whether the context is application maintenance or modernization, the basic needs are the same: to find information within complex application architectures and have ready access to technical documentation that is guaranteed relevant and up-to-date.
Our products and services are intended both for user businesses with their own inhouse development teams and those that either outsource this process or use only software packages. ARCAD solutions are also aimed at information technology professionals in general. Our customers range from IT companies proposing facilities management or tool based turnkey projects (information system auditing and restructuring, retro-documentation, etc.) through to iSeries software vendors.
Four complementary suites built on a common core.
The "Verifier" module guarantees far more extensive repeated testing than could ever be achieved manually. Typically, development staff tend to concentrate on testing the modifications themselves. ARCAD-Verifier adds real value by also automatically testing all the peripheral functions that have not been modified directly, but that may be impacted by side-effects. This kind of insidious bug is dreaded by development departments as it damages their credibility with users who may be completely unaware of the original modification. The principle is simple: you record a scenario by executing one or more application functions.
All of the ARCAD suites (with the exception of [ARCAD-Customer ]) are integrated through through this common core, drawing on the information and enriching the range of features available.
The Extract module solves this problem by building extraction queries that respect referential integrity. The system relies on the use of database links, stored in the [ARCAD repository ], that are also used to produce the database diagrams in the [ARCAD-Observer ] suite. This is an example of the added value of the integrated architecture of the ARCAD suites. Disk space requirements are estimated and the queries are run as often as necessary. The data itself can be downloaded onto a given system or onto a remote partition.
What makes the ARCAD solutions unique is their integrated design, based on a central repository core. Indeed the same R&D team has designed the products since the company's inception. This is a true guarantee of product consistency and ergonomy. In addition, the modular design of the product range means that implemented solutions are both flexible and scalable.
ARCAD-Integrater is a unique solution specifically designed to handle the tedious, never-ending task of integrating third-party modifications into your environment. This module has two objectives : firstly to guarantee the technical quality of vendor deliveries, and secondly to manage the impact of a new version on related systems, such as interface programs, EAI or other specifically developed software. It provides component error reports that can be relayed back to the supplier, automatically reserving any specific components that need to be adapted. By automating these processes, continual application reliability is assured, whatever the rate of change.
Then the scenario can be replayed at any time, and the tool will automatically restore the original data context prior to scenario execution. Once a "replay" has completed, comparison reports can be generated to highlight differences detected in the user interface, in data, and in spool files.
ARCAD-Observer is the only product in the iSeries field to summarize application architecture and rules with a set of graphical tools, in order to sift through a vast quantity of diverse information and understand an application in seconds prior to making changes.
The defining characteristic of our solution package is its integrated approach. The product line is built around a common core: the ARCAD-Open Repository, the heart of our technology. It is the result of over 13 years of experience in applications analysis.
The adoption of our products and services across this wide range is itself recognition of our expertise by experts in the field. Market demand for ARCAD Software is highest among software developers migrating their legacy applications to a Web architecture. Whether you are involved in software development or a 3rd party software user, the ARCAD suites apply to anyone affected by application change.
Whatever the number of iSeries in production, automating the deployment process of new releases of software is an important factor for productivity and security.
Optimize and secure your application infrastructure. Computing is right in the middle of an industrial era. As the primary enterprise competitiveness tool, it needs to rationalize its costs to become a value creator. ARCAD Software is at the heart of this "industrial revolution".
This unique solution is the result of our partnership with several application software vendors. This tool brings you peace of mind as you handle the reception of each new application version. ARCAD-Integrater guarantees the integrity of items transferred to production, ensuring the non-regression of your information system. In addition to peace of mind, the solution provides time savings through automation of checkouts and impact analysis tasks. The time-consuming process of integrating software packages can be reduced to just one hour. ARCAD-Integrater is a reliable and secure tool which allows you to simultaneously improve productivity and eliminate any risk of errors in the transfer-to-production phase.
The initial ARCAD project was financed by the European Space Agency (www.esa.int). Leaders in the space industry have always been a driving force in innovations in software quality. The scale of the stakes and investment involved has naturally led these organizations to equip themselves with methods and tools for guaranteeing the most reliable conditions for change in their software base.
ARCAD Software is first and foremost a software vendor delivering high-quality software solutions to IT professionals. In order to stay in touch with the daily requirements and concerns of IT departments, ARCAD Software also offers training, consulting and technical expertise for ARCAD products.