ASTRAC Announces General Availability of ASTRAC ASv6.1 and ASICE v6.1

Warwick, UK —August 31, 2005—ASTRAC announced the latest version of their AS and ICE software. This is the 5th major release of AS and ASICE since ASTRAC took over the development and maintenance from IBM in 1997. This release is the largest yet and contains, among many other features, support for IBM DB2 v8.

Application System (AS) from ASTRAC is the recommended cost-effective solution for Decision Support, Business Intelligence and Management Information Systems in an IBM zSeries and S/390 environment. ASTRAC AS is especially suited for working with DB2 data and its powerful set of integrated tools and choice of clients has allowed many of the world’s leading organizations to make sense of their data.

ASICE from ASTRAC is a follow-on from IBM Info Center/Enhanced (IC/E) with considerable enhancements compared with IBM ICE.

ASTRAC ASv6.1 and ASICE v6.1 contain 213 new enhancements since ASTRAC ASv5.3, in the following areas:

Improved Performance

  • Compiler for the AS Procedure language – allowing some procedures to run 10 times faster.
  • Compiler for the AS Report language – providing additional performance benefits for many applications.
  • New SQLPREP and SQLEXEC functions for DB2 data – potentially doubling throughput of INSERT.
  • DB2 Predictive Governor – enabling high cost queries to be trapped so that CPU and I/O resources are not unnecessarily wasted.
  • Enhanced integration with ICE - making it easier for AS users to exploit the high performance data analysis provided by ICE.

New programming interfaces


The business logic in your AS applications can be integrated with your other IT systems through multi-platform clients:

  • New native Java class library – so that you can integrate your Java applications and products such as WebSphere with AS.
  • New Microsoft .NET class library – so that you can integrate your .NET based applications and products with AS.
  • Support for Web Services, XML etc.
  • Integration with PC development environments IBM WebSphere and Microsoft Visual Studio.NET plus Intellisense support.

Scalability and increased limits


    
 
  • 64-bit DB2 V8 on z/OS support - enabling AS to work with the next generation of DB2 and benefit from many of the DB2 V8 enhancements.
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  • High Precision Arithmetic - 23 new functions allow calculations to be performed with precision increased from 15 to 240 digits.
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  • Improved security of your AS applications against unaudited usage - by restricting access to the AS command line from your AS applications. (helps compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley etc).
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Usability improvements


    
 
  • New AS Query Assistant (AQUA) - a DB2 Query and Reporting tool for people who know SQL but not AS. AQUA can significantly reduce the time it takes users to create, change and maintain DB2 queries and reports.
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  • AS Editor significantly enhanced - including Undo, Redo and Editor styles (ISPF, XEDIT etc). A wide range of settings can be customised to create the most productive environment for application developers.
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  • Enhanced Windows interface in ICE - providing an intuitive point-and-select user interface and an 'SQL Assist' facility for building queries.
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  • Improved and expanded Online Reference - making it easier and quicker to find the information you need.
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Language Enhancements


    
 
  • User-defined functions - improving further the speed of development, making maintenance even easier.
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  • "Change of" conditions limit removed - allowing command tables with more control break levels for complex requirements.
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  • Sorting functions SORT(), KEYS(), ORDER() and DISTINCT() - reducing the need for complex programming when sorting arrays.
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  • Conditional NEXT in DO loop - the ITERATE command helps to simplify programming.
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AS Query Assistant (AQUA)

The new AQUA component in AS provides an easy-to-use SQL Query and Reporting tool which requires no knowledge of the AS language, offering: 

    
 
  • Simple Query entry and execution
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  • Easy one-screen Report definition
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  • An efficient, convenient user interface
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  • Integrated Printing and Export:
  
      
   
    • Direct printing to your PC and network printers
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    • Export to spreadsheet, text file, web page
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  • Procedures for regular tasks
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  • Properties for saving preferred settings
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  • Browsing of all DB2 or AS tables in columnar format
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  • Conversion of QMF objects to AQUA
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  • Packaged within a single, consistent application
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Plus

    
 
  • New AS Functions
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  • New AS Commands
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  • New AS System Synonyms
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  • New AS System Values
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  • New AS Names File tags
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About Rocket Software™

Founded in 1990, Rocket Software is a global development firm that builds Enterprise Infrastructure products for the world’s leading OEMs, networks and software companies. The company’s current lines of business complement and extend strategic OEM offerings in the areas of enterprise and mobile security, relational databases, mobile and wireless computing, and operational support systems (OSS). Rocket’s current OEM relationships and technology partners include IBM, RSA Security, Microsoft, NEC, and Toshiba. Rocket Software is based in Newton, Mass., and employs more than 200 people worldwide. For more information, visit www.rocketsoftware.com.

About ASTRAC
ASTRAC develops, markets, licenses and services software for use by management and professionals in support of their business operations. Today, ASTRAC AS is installed, in active use and fully supported, in 19 countries around the world. Many of the world’s largest corporations and government organizations are ASTRAC customers.