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:
This particular module is destined for development staff during unit testing. With the Test Coverage Analyzer the developer can view the source lines that have not yet been tested, and thereby check that all modified lines have been run at least once. The system continually measures the test coverage rate, to evaluate the overall testing effort. The generated reports can be used as contractual documents between customers and their suppliers.
Thanks to their open architecture, the ARCAD products can be either customized or used in standard format. This makes them a safe choice for the evolving requirements of a wide range of customers.
For efficient control over your application changes, you will need precise dashboard information.
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 "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.
ARCAD Software was created in 1992. The early years were dedicated to developing its ambitious product line. In 1996 the first releases were marketed to very large international customers, who put a premium on software development productivity and maintenance.
Developers devote a large amount of their time to gaining an overall view of the technical content of their existing applications - and this is traditionally an artful and repetitive task. How can we reduce the time spent understanding the internal application architecture? By using specialized tools to synthesize information and ease navigation through millions of lines of code. ARCAD-Miner enables each user to quickly analyze programs and the interdependencies between fields and files.
With version 8, ARCAD-Skipper made a major leap forward with support for version control of parameter data. With this feature, parameter changes to a software package or in-house application are identified and automatically deployed to production. This tool is a complete "memory" of application change, with an embedded user request management feature that is shared with the [ARCAD-Customer ] Help-Desk suite. Traceability is ensured right from the request down to the modified line of code. This is particularly important for companies subject to regulatory constraints such as [SOX or Basel II ].
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.
Result : productivity gains exceeding 50% in mass transformation projects. This tool not only automates impact analyses for projects underway, it also allows you to automatically obtain between 50% and 100% of your source code modifications. Your ROI is immediate, starting with the first project. It guarantees automation of your processes by implementing proven and efficient technology that covers every phase of your projects.
ARCAD is thus the fruit of two skill sets, a methodology expertise inherited from its origins, and a technical proficiency on the iSeries platform.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The ARCAD-Customer Help-Desk is a latest generation technical support management suite, offering more services with the same simplicity of use. ARCAD-Customer takes end-user relations to a new level and extends management and control over the technical support activity.
Whatever the number of iSeries in production, automating the deployment process of new releases of software is an important factor for productivity and security.
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 solutions apply the same quality skills that defined the success of the space industry to the world of software management on the iSeries. Today, ARCAD is a market leader with 13 years of expertise in the same core business since its inception.
The multi-platform approach to components and data is vital, as it means that the same procedures and the same levels of security can be used to automatically synchronize the deployment of components and data to heterogeneous servers. And of particular interest to software vendors, complementary functions such as the delivery portal allow on-demand dispatching of patches, CDs and documentation.
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.
Due to its integrated and open global architecture, ARCAD-Skipper can adapt to all types of configurations, working speeds, and levels of need. Its developer-oriented approach and interchangeable native and graphical / Websphere interfaces make the tool highly adaptable to your team's working methods. It provides a complete solution for multi-platform application management.
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.
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.
The ARCAD-Skipper suite fits in the Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) market covering Software Configuration Management methodologies, version control, deployment and test. Right from user request handling up to the transfer of new versions to production, ARCAD-Skipper secures a general framework for all change processes.
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 principle is simple: Using the supplied analyses, you select a list of fields to transform. This list is fed into "propagation engines" that track the information flow across inter-field connections and then generate modification proposals. Once the proposals have been validated, they are then applied into the sources and the components are recompiled.
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.
As companies are increasingly subject to external pressures such as IT governance and regulatory requirements, they have a growing need for dashboard tools to assist in evaluating application maintainability, and support the secure and efficient enhancement of legacy applications.
Four complementary suites built on a common core.
When testing is underway, it can be extremely difficult to verify that all possible cases in a program have been covered. This involves determining which source lines have, and have not, been executed yet.
$200 billion are spent per year on application maintenance, IT organizations spend 70% of their time maintaining their applications, instead of developing new ones, 84% of software development projects are not completed on schedule, Over 50% of all business-critical software projects are late, over budget, or deployed with reduced functionality, 60% of companies in the iSeries market are migrating their strategic applications to a Web architecture.
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.
The most important aspect in the comprehension of an Information System is invariably an understanding of the data architecture. In the case of a DB2/400 database, the presentation of this information is often obscure.
In these downstream phases, the ARCAD-Skipper suite aims for 100% automation, thanks to its own internal macro-language. With this level of automation, procedures can be triggered at night, checked remotely and most importantly secured with powerful integrated rollback functions. ARCAD-Deliver automates the deployment and installation of objects on local or remote machines. It can be configured for any distribution media or mode (entire applications, "cumulative", "PTF", open distribution). With its entirely customizable "macro-commands," it can adapt to any situation, and all information is logged at several levels (version, component, action, messages) with automatic rollback functions in case of incident.