Lead: more and more people find that although the B/S architecture has received the best support, it is still powerless to meet new demands, many things still need to return to the C/S architecture, so some people have come up with the argument of "returning to the fat client. Let's not explain how accurate it is, but it is certain that a new culture is gradually revolutionizing the B/S culture that has been developed for many years.
Since the launch of the Microsoft. NET strategy, a new concept has become widely known-Smart Clients. It is foreseeable that in the next few years, the Smart Client will become the mainstream architecture of application development.
In the face of various problems with the current B/S architecture, the software industry has proposed some new architectures as a solution. The future application in the technical architecture has gone through the mainframe-C/S-B/s development process, after profound reflection, discard the disadvantages of different software architecture at various stages, we look forward to clients that are more expressive and compatible with development, application, and maintenance needs. This is exactly what smart clients do.
Enable Smart Client So many people will ask, what is smart client? How can it represent the trend of next-generation applications and how can it win the future?
In short, a smart client is an Internet-connected device that allows local applications to interact with server applications through Web Services, it combines the rich features of fat client applications and the ease of deployment and management features of thin client applications. For example, a smart client that runs a text processing program (such as Office Word) can interact with a remote database through the network to obtain the required data for document processing from the database; smart Phones running Windows Mobile can obtain information about related books from the Internet and weather forecasts. To obtain these functions, you do not need other devices. Instead, you only need these terminals to have network connections and backend Web Services.
The Smart Client must have one or more of the following features:
Flexible and full use of client resources include client hardware resources and software resources, which may be the use of the client's CPU computing power or its storage power, the client resources may also be used to provide a more friendly user experience.
Intelligent Integrated Network Resource Services generally refer to smart clients as part of the entire application system, and most of the business logic is implemented on the server, then, the Smart Client must make full use of the resources and services that can be obtained through the network. It is not limited to providing separate applications, but an integral part of the distributed commercial application environment.
With powerful offline capabilities, not all applications can be online at any time (always online). It is necessary to ensure that low-bandwidth or high-latency networks are used in clear offline scenarios, or continue to work efficiently when the connection is interrupted.
It is easy to deploy and install through a centralized server, and smart clients can easily implement deployment and update through the network. This is the biggest difference from conventional fat client programs. Smart Client Applications can automatically update themselves at runtime or in the background to avoid version nightmares.
The diversified Smart Client Applications of terminal devices can run on many devices with network connection capabilities, including desktops, workstations, laptops, PDAs, and smartphones. They support multiple languages, and cross-platform applications can be implemented through web services distributed on different platforms.
These fully reflect the advantages of the Smart Client application. In addition to the advantages of the fat client and the client, the SMART network connection and data management functions are also introduced. Because smart client applications cover various fields, the design and implementation of these applications are quite different. This is related to both application requirements and running devices. The final running platform can be divided into the following three types:
Windows Smart Client Program: Through. net Framework 1.1, the Windows Smart Client application has greatly developed the original fat client application architecture, and on the basis of the original, provides a complete Smart Client features, microsoft Money and Microsoft Outlook are typical cases of such applications.
Office Smart Client application: Since Office 2003, it is not only a static file data, but also a built-in XML support and web services access capability. In the enterprise application field, office System has become the most effective platform for information workers and the operating platform for Smart Client Applications. You can access enterprise data without leaving the office, and expand your business operations based on the markup provided in the document.
Mobile Smart Client Applications: Since Microsoft integrated the Pocket PC and smartphone under the unified platform "Windows Mobile", more and more Windows Mobile-based applications are available. net also provides strong support for mobile development. NET Compact framework and more simulators, mobile-Based Smart Client application development is no longer a problem. What will smart clients bring?
Before Microsoft's new generation of operating systems, codenamed "Longhorn", it is believed that the smart client will be the mainstream software technology architecture based on client applications in the next few years, because most client applications are hosted on Windows operating systems. In the field of smart devices, after several years of hard work, Microsoft has achieved remarkable success and received support from more and more vendors. Windows Mobile-based applications are also becoming more and more popular. Before the advent of avron (Longhorn's graphics and Display engine), the smart client will be synonymous with client development. The competing technologies include Java's WebStart. With the release of Visual Studio 2005, its clickone technology will push smart clients to a more mature stage.
The Smart Client can provide a powerful client experience and dynamically adapt to changing business needs. This is similar to the "on demand" strategy proposed by IBM, but it may take a step further.
How to use smart client Technology
Pass.. NET Framework, through Visual Studio. net, Microsoft provides comprehensive support in the design, development, testing, and deployment stages of the Smart Client, mainly including the following related technologies:
Application Block)
To help more developers. NET technology quickly builds powerful application systems. Microsoft's Practice & pattern team has compiled a large number of application blocks to help developers free themselves from tedious and repetitive programming, so as to focus more on business implementation. These application blocks include authorization, caching, configuration management, data access, exception management, automatic updates, logs, offline support of smart clients, and user interfaces, it covers almost all the underlying functions that need to be considered in the commercial application field. The offline support management and automatic updates provide developers with effective help in developing intelligent client applications. These application blocks can be used to quickly develop intelligent client applications.
The Offline Application Block (OAB) can provide the application with the function of supporting offline work. The updated application block (UAB and Updater Application Block) provides a scalable infrastructure for Automatic Updates and installation of customer applications, developers can use it to build an application that requires intelligent updates. In applications in some large organizations, it is usually necessary to ensure that all desktop applications are in the latest version. The system administrator or engineer only needs to deploy and install them once, during the subsequent running process, the application can be updated automatically and timely. Without the help of this component, developers will return to the difficult deployment disaster in the fat client era, and UAB can solve this problem well.
All application blocks are provided in the form of source code, and a large number of documents and examples are provided. developers can easily integrate Code into their own applications, to build a powerful smart client application.
Smart Document and Information Retrieval Service
As an innovation in Office 2003, Smart Document and research services provide internal interaction possibilities for office, we can easily build a document-based application system.
Using Smart documents, we can embed some highly interactive applications in common documents and provide more powerful interaction functions based on the original documents; at the same time, the information retrieval service is another powerful function built in the office system.
Although smart documents and information retrieval services provide powerful client interaction functions, the tags generated by smart documents are XML tags that are not easy to understand, microsoft's msdn development site provides some tools and sdks to help developers accelerate application development and provides necessary guidance to make XML easier to understand.
Microsoft also provides Visual Studio. NET tools for office (vsto), and vsto provides an object model access portal for Word and Excel to host code extensions. With vsto, developers can build a powerful Office Smart Client application solution, because it not only provides all the functions to access Word and Excel, but also can use. NET framework, such as Windows Forms, provides a rich and highly responsive user interaction environment. Vsto also provides an excellent development experience, which allows developers to easily create and debug application solutions. Vsto essentially provides code-behind documents to form an application solution, so as to take advantage of the various functions provided by the "host" application. Security Support for Smart Clients
As a client performance technology, Smart Clients are distributed applications that typically span a variety of products and technologies. How can we ensure the security of these applications? On the server side, you need to adopt a set of methods to protect the network, the server itself and its applications. on the client side, you should focus on the platform (including the operating system and Microsoft.. NET Framework) security features, privileged operations that can be performed by client code (code access security), and interaction with server platforms (domains) and server applications.
Through a series of security measures, such as identity authentication, authorization, data verification, protection of sensitive data, audit and logging, exception management and change and configuration management to ensure the security of applications from the server to the client.
Based on the powerful Security and scalability of the. NET Framework, smart clients provide comprehensive and reliable security support. The Smart Client technology is built on the "Trusted Computing" of Microsoft. It provides security reference and exploitation from various processes of design, development, testing, and deployment. net Framework's new security model allows you to develop secure applications. With office's information rights management, You can strictly control document reading, forwarding, copying, and other process 1. Office information bridge framework (IBF)
Office suites are the most commonly used software in commercial enterprise offices. But the problem is that when we write a report to the lead in word or write a financial income and expenditure table in Excel, we often need to switch to the internal system of the enterprise, you can also use IE or specialized client software to find the information you need, such as the customer table, turnover, and inventory information.
The IBF (information bridge framework) is a solution to this problem. It is built on the Smart Document technology to connect office documents with Web services provided by enterprises, its core goal is to enable typical office users or information workers to discover and execute Enterprise Business Objects within office applications. These business objects are made public using web services dedicated to displaying data and operations in lob systems. In other words, as a Solution Developer, you can use the information bridge framework to implement certain solutions so that users can access important business data and processes without leaving the Microsoft Office application.
With IBF, you can:
Simplify solution development. Developers can develop office solutions independent of Web Services, which greatly simplifies the development of office-to-enterprise solutions. Because the solution is defined in metadata, developers can write a small amount of code or build a simple and powerful office solution without coding.
Flexible and efficient application scaling solutions. IBF can be easily expanded, updated, or modified. Custom metadata, UI controls, and Web services can be reused in Multiple Functional solutions within the Organization. Therefore, you can deploy or add a new solution to an existing application without re-encoding.
Easy deployment. The solution is centrally deployed on departments or enterprise servers. This reduces the manpower and material resources required to launch new solutions or support existing solutions. It ensures reliability and security by using well-managed, secure, and reliable code and running in a well-acclaimed and well-tested CLR environment. Case Study
Smart Clients cannot simply stay on the concept. Unlike Mozilla's XUL, it is just a wonderful technology dream to stay away from the business. Smart Clients are obviously closer to reality, A series of successful business cases are proving that smart clients have continuously created new achievements in commercial applications.
As a typical representative of China's higher education, the MBA Management and Education Service Information System of Fudan University's School of Management reflects the perfect combination of the higher education system, service management and information technology. As the core business system of the MBA program, it will support the daily operation of MBA Management and Service of the School of Management, and guarantee the long-term competitive advantage of Fudan MBA program from the system; MBA projects will be supported in the following aspects: News Release, Enrollment Publicity, student teaching and educational administration management, degree management, daily information services, employment information services, and graduation information services; supports the annual teaching plan, statistical analysis, and other basic services of the college. Through research, they chose the Smart Client technology because it can solve the problems existing in the MBA Management and education services of the School of Management, on the one hand, the Smart Client can have the powerful performance of C/S, and does not lose B/S in the concise deployment. Another advantage is that the entire system can be separated in the form of modules. Each module has an independent software module. By using web service communication, the entire system is loosely coupled, in the future, each module can be used independently, which also increases the chance of reuse. The Smart Client technology provides the advantages of the fat client technology and thin client technology, including the following:
No-touch deployment: During installation, you only need to download a master program file to your local computer and run it directly without changing the registry or shared system components. Other application components will be automatically downloaded when you first run the application.
Automatic update: you only need to publish the new version of the program to the server. The client automatically discovers the latest version of the program and application components, and automatically downloads and updates the program.
Offline use: when the server is detached, local client programs and application components are used for work.
Dynamic Loading of application components: application software developers can develop application components based on the public interfaces of enterprise application systems, and then publish application components on the enterprise servers, the client application automatically discovers and loads the application component.
Personalized user interface: You can set the client application based on your preferences. The configuration information is saved to the server.
The Smart Client technology mentioned above provides comprehensive support through the apploader, Smart Client pool, and loaded Smart Client assemblies shown in Figure 2. The current system has been officially put into use, at the same time, the high scalability of the architecture also brings great convenience to phase II development.
Leyser system is a series of school management system software with a long history. Specific products include school accounting, school giving, personnel management, tuition management, asset management system, and photoboard. Currently, leyser has the largest share of similar software in Japan, reaching 70%, and its versions are constantly updated. To meet new user needs and adapt to the development of new technologies, ver.8.0 (.. Net version) implements unprecedented functionality and high performance with a large re-production and brand-new design. In Windows and Internet environments, it becomes the most powerful accounting system for school legal persons with simpler operability.
The client of leyser system is a smart client. They provide rich and Responsive user interfaces, offline capabilities, and methods to utilize local hardware and software resources. Smart Clients provide users with the ability to access information and remote services in a powerful and intuitive client environment, it is also an effective solution for developing flexible and user-oriented applications and improving user productivity and satisfaction. Through the Smart Client technology, leyser provides more features than other similar systems, including automatic updates, offline usage, and data caching.
In addition, some high-end industries such as the financial securities industry have also adopted the Smart Client solution, and achieved great success in practical application. The financial service development and management platform of a large domestic commercial bank adopts Windows form technology to implement Smart Clients, improving the availability of business process design; it is more widely known that ICBC has built its self-help Terminal System on winform and embedded the IE control, which not only provides powerful browsing capabilities, but also provides a rich client experience; in the development of its risk monitoring system, Galaxy Securities also introduced the Smart Client technology to automatically upgrade the program, eliminating the hassle of maintenance, integrates the advantages of "thin" client easy maintenance and "fat" client features. Even in personal applications, Smart Clients are used. In this regard, the smart client has been widely used in various fields and has entered an age of flowers.
Conclusion: The lack of B/S architecture, the diversity of terminal devices, and the constant expansion of application requirements have combined these factors to announce the arrival of a new era. Just like the Tropical Grassland restoring its vitality after a wild fire, the software world is also constructing its new generation of "ecosystem", which inspires a more vibrant technical architecture, the Smart Client is the product of this era.
Some people may not change quickly. After all, the B/S architecture was the mainstream in the market. However, all technologies will be replaced by newer technologies. Although we will continue to see browser-based applications still be developed and used for many years in some cases, the next generation of applications is clearly oriented, smart Clients will surely become the mainstream with the development of networks and applications. |
