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The PicLan-IP Concept

PicLan-IP has a simple goal:
Bring the power of internet standards to the MultiValue environment.
As simple as this sounds, there is actually a lot here.  Before PicLan-IP, using internet standards like web servers and electronic mail required that MultiValue applications interface with non-MultiValue servers.  This is because there was no way to directly deal with these open internet standard within the MultiValue environment.  PicLan-IP changes all of this.

PicLan-IP directly implements internet standard services completely within the MultiValue programming environment.  Web, email, and other protocols are implemented inside of the MultiValue system.  Contrast this with "traditional" solutions where web and mail functions require seperate external servers and often several layers of middle-ware before MultiValue data and applications can be reached.

Why bring these standards into the MultiValue environment.  There are actually several reasons:

  • Simplicity
      • By not requiring external servers, the overall installation is much simpler to setup and manage.
  • Reliability
      • Because the overall environment is less complicated, it is more reliable.  There are simply fewer points of failure.
  • Performance
      • By eliminating the layer upon layer of middle-ware, PicLan-IP is blindlingly fast.
  • Flexibility
      • If your data and applications are implemented on a MultiValue system, what could be more flexible than running your internet servers in the same environment.
  • Ease of Application Development
      • And most importantly, by running the server components within the MultiValue environment, application development is much easier.  Gone are the layers of transition.  You application code is just a BASIC subroutine call away from the server.
Some other advantages of the PicLan-IP environment are:
  • Application portability
      • You can easily port internet applications from platform to platform, even if the underlying MultiValue environment is from different vendors
  • Low deployment cost
      • PicLan-IP is affordable.  In addition, our frugal use of MultiValue phantom processes allow you to host large internet applications such as busy public web sites without requring any MultiValue user seat licenses.
A couple more points.  The standards that PicLan-IP implements are the actual interoperablility standards that define the internet.  This means that your MultiValue host is absolutely indistinguishable from any other internet host.  Your users see your application.  The fact that it is running on a MultiValue host is invisible.

And finally, we have been talking about internet standards.  PicLan-IP is in use not only on public internet servers, but also within office intranets.  So using PicLan-IP can result in one final application coupe-de-gra:

You can write a single application that runs across the hall or across the ocean.
Not a bad trick for BASIC.