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Java in the real world
Java is changing the way companies market products on the Internet
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Java is important to the Krakatoa search engine, says Eden-Harris. "Java allows the system to essentially become a true client-server database. When you build a search engine for the Web in HTML, the client has to assemble several pages before invoking the query. It's like playing twenty questions, and having to ask all twenty before you get the answer. Then if the answer is 'no,' you don't know which questions were the wrong ones.
"Java allows you to navigate down the schema in an iterative feedback mechanism that maintains current status with the server," says Eden-Harris. "In other words, the client doesn't have to be instructed to reconnect with the Web server each time the knowledge base is queried. It makes the search much faster."
With Krakatoa, product designers can go to NSC's Web site, enter product specifications according to what they need for their project, navigate the database, and then download data sheets, application notes, behavioral models, and design and simulation tools. Krakatoa gives designers and engineers direct access to current data about parts offered by their supplier any time of the day or night. Since the system is continuously updated, information about a batch or even an individual part is far more accurate and up-to-date than in a printed catalog.
NSC says its market research has shown a great deal of customer interest in this new means of delivering product information. "Our traditional [means] of delivering information has been through hard-copy data books, or through CD- ROMs...which, in our fast-paced industry, are out of date the minute they're produced," said Rick Brennan, manager of Web services for NSC. "By providing product data this way, our customers can get access to our data in real time, and know it's accurate, complete, and current." Krakatoa is designed for companies such as General Electric, Ingersoll-Rand, 3M, IBM, and National Semiconductor -- CADIS customers that are in the first stages of publishing their product catalogs on the Web. The product is designed for companies that have more than 200 products, and whose product lines are expanding.
The Krakatoa product line
The Krakatoa product line consists of three software elements and various optional services:
- Krakatoa client software, written in Java, that can be downloaded and used directly from the WWW with Java-enabled browsers.
- Krakatoa server software that provides dynamic class management, query functions, logging and local storage of the knowledge base.
- A set of software development tools including a fully documented API used to build a classification schemata for the products being published. Schematas can be modified online with data fully populated using drag-and-drop commands.
Krakatoa is built using a three-tier client/server architecture. Krakatoa client software runs on local clients supported by Java; the Web server software runs on all major Unix platforms (HP, Sun, IBM, DEC). File management can be implemented on Oracle, Sybase, Informix, DB2, or the CADIS object model.
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