Rocket Application System's powerful set of integrated tools and choice of clients has allowed many of the world's leading companies to make sense of their data. Whether you leverage some or all of its features, AS helps you create valuable information and deliver it where and when you need it.

Powerful Tools

AS offers a powerful set of integrated tools that includes:

• Comprehensive data access to industry-common databases.
• Sophisticated data management facilities to create, modify and update data.
• Powerful data analysis and manipulation capabilities.
• Full function report, chart and data presentation.
• A comprehensive set of application development tools for creating solutions, from simple workplaces to sophisticated business applications.
• A complete Project Management system.
• A wide range of Statistical Analysis techniques.
• A Business Planning system including multi-dimensional modeling.
• An easy-to-use Linear Programming tool for solving optimization problems.

Choice of Clients

AS offers access to these powerful tools from clients such as:

• The Rocket.Ascent Client, built on Eclipse, provides direct access to AS with a modern PC graphical user interface and avoids the need for a terminal emulator program.
• Mainframe Clients - Access AS via mainframe clients, terminal emulators, or the AS native interface (the AS native interface is available on MVS with TSO/E and on VM with CMS).
• PC Clients - Use your favorite PC products to act as AS clients (AS supports exchange of information via ODBC, HTML, CSV, DDE, FTP, Clipboard, and ActiveX).
• JDBC Clients - Access AS using applications such as IBM Websphere, Lunux, Solaris, HP-UX and many more.

Multiple Supported Languages

AS and ICE provide translations of the user interface (for example, help text, messages and dialogs) so that users in many countries can work with their own language.

AS and ICE are supported in the following languages:

Rocket AS is partially supported in the following languages:

Transforming Data into Information

Rocket AS gives you comprehensive data access to industry-common databases from IBM and non-IBM sources. These include relational data sources such as DB2, whether on local or remote mainframe systems, and non-relational data sources such as external files and VSAM.

The powerful tools in AS allow you to turn data into information that can be used in mainframe and PC clients. AS is capable of handling a range of tasks, from simple queries to multi-dimensional data analysis. It also provides you with specialized project management capabilities and powerful statistical tools. You can use AS to build custom procedures to automate data analysis and repetitive tasks. Such procedures enable you to streamline data and tasks -- for yourself, your department, and your organization.

Presenting Information

You can easily produce formal reports, one-off or regular, to satisfy simple enquiries or complex analyses. Or you can use Rocket AS text processing with data to create readable, professional documents. Often a chart can convey information far more effectively than rows of figures. With AS, you can:

• Produce many different types of charts, from pie charts and histograms to Venn diagrams, tower charts and maps.
• Exploit pictographs to create stunning presentations of data.
• Use the chart-editing facility to enhance charts and create your own illustrations and icons.
• Save your presentations and results for further use in mainframe and PC products.
• Use workplaces you to build personal, department and corporate information systems without programming.

Delivering Information to PC's

Rocket AS can be combined with PC software to leverage the strengths of both environments. AS can select and analyze data so that PC users get just the data they really need and it will deliver that information from the mainframe directly into your favorite PC package. From there, you can use many industry-standard Windows products as clients for information provided by the AS Client Connections. For example AS can:

• Supply information automatically via a spreadsheet.
• Provide business charts for inclusion in graphics packages.
• Incorporate data into PC word processors.
• Format results into HTML to be published with web browsers.

Creating Customized Solutions

With the Rocket AS Command Client you can move into the world of client/server solutions with virtually no development effort. AS gives you simple ways to prompt for parameters on the PC, produce information at the mainframe, and populate your PC application immediately with the results.

When you want a customized solution tailored to the needs of the user, AS allows you to build complete solutions quickly and easily.

AS provides a powerful development language and a comprehensive set of development tools for building applications, designing screens, debugging, and integrating other systems into AS. While many of these facilities are accessible to those without programming skills, programmers have found AS to show substantial productivity gains over conventional languages.

All AS features can be built into your customized solutions - even transferring data between the mainframe and the PC, and you can edit AS command tables on your PC.

The AS ActiveX control, AS Client Application Programming Interface and AS JDBC Client let application developers build custom-made client/server solutions.

With all these facilities included in AS, the types of mainframe and client/server solutions you can create are almost unlimited!