SOFTWARE REVIEW by DOCULABS INC.

XLiRAD is a web application server that builds interactive web applications quickly and easily.

Product Review
XLiRAD consists of two development tools; SQLEditor and TemplateMaker. SQLEditor is designed to help developers quickly construct SQL statements, and TemplateMaker is designed for quickly building the HTML code that uses these statements.
SQLEditor streamlines the SQL coding process through the inclusion of a basic SQL generation wizard. TemplateMaker incorporates a mere five proprietary tags (compared to ColdFusion's 170 plus). Five tags may seem limiting in view of competitor offerings, but these tags are full of options and are sufficient for most purposes. Developers are also able to extend the product's functionality via the development of external functions, in either Java or C++. XLiRAD also includes a basic application server; DBServer. This server interprets and processes the tags and returns them to the browser in the form of HTML. DBServer also incorporates database replication. Servlet technology is used to link DBServer to the user's web server of choice. Calls made to the servlet engine are directed back through DBServer where database queries originate and are formatted for output back to the user.

By conforming to JDK standards, XLiRAD has achieved platform independence for the development platform as well as for browser and web server support. The product suite also offers the ability for remote development. This could be especially important when deploying the product in a hosted application model, where an Application Service Provider (ASP) may be hosting applications written using XLiRAD. Organizations could develop or modify their hosted applications remotely using the XLiRAD tools.
The XLiRAD product's application server and infrastructure are somewhat limited. HHPN has chosen to partner with other products to provide the critical application server features required when deploying enterprise-class applications -such as scalability, load balancing, security, fault tolerance and fail-over support. As an application server, XLiRAD is most suited to the small- to mid-sized enterprise application server market. As more businesses build mission-critical e-business applications, even the "low-end" application servers that were good enough in the past will start to show signs of breaking. HHPN's competitors are moving towards more robust architectures and supporting more enterprise level services. HHPN would do well by carving out a niche for themselves in the small to mid-sized enterprise arena, as opposed to competing head-to-head with those products better suited to larger, more complex applications requiring industrial strength infrastructure components.

Management notes to above comments: Mr. Milbery of Kuromaku Partners concurs with Doculabs with regards to putting priority focus on small to mid-sized applications. "When you consider the feature set that it offers, XLiRAD is entering the market at the perfect time. Most Web sites are still relying on static data, but momentum is building to create increasingly dynamic Web sites. Meanwhile, most of the high-end application server products have been adding features for the upper-end of the market (mainframe interfaces, EJBs, etc.), to the detriment of the mainstream. By virtue of its reliance on Java Servlets, XLiRAD can easily integrate into these applications to provide a scalable, easy-to-use layer for dynamic database access". (all further management comments are in blue).

Key Strengths and Challenges
The following table identifies some of the key strengths and limitations of HHPN XLiRAD.

Strengths Challenges
  • Tag-based approach is easy to learn for those familiar with HTML· Platform independence achieved through use of Java
  • Strong browser and web server support; XLiRAD generates HTML, so it supports all browsers
  • Ability to build custom external functions to access currently unsupported data sources, software, or hardware
  • Designed for rapid application development, making it good for quickly building ad hoc applications or prototyping more complex applications
  • Cross platform data replication
  • Remote development capabilities
  • Two-way template wizard facilitates design and modification process
  • Access control present at the group level facilitating the product's use in an ASP environment

 
  • Fail over services are achieved through the integration with third party products such as Resonate (Allaire's Cold Fusion recently announced a similar partnership with CISCO, thus verifying that partnering is a valid method of providing an overall product solution).
  • No internal ability to graphically build pages in a WYSIWYG fashion; HTML coding is required (There are plenty of good HTML editors in the market that would be likely partners. Rather than reinventing the wheel, the Company will seek integrated partnerships for co-marketing/branding opportunities).
  • Lack of two-way SQL wizards (little or no value for most developers at this time)
  • Database replication does not incorporate encryption (Planned for rev.2 (or once a more stable version of JDK is released across all supported platforms))
  • No support for transaction processing monitors and messaging services
  • No replication of SQL code and templates (Planned for rev.2)

Table 1 - HHPN XLiRAD Strengths and Limitations

Opportunities

Among the opportunities for improvement that Doculabs identified for HHPN XLiRAD are:

  • HHPN should consider developing a more robust suite of development tools that could be integrated with more mature application servers (XLiRAD is an extremely fast development environment. The Company's development vision is to continually add functionality, WITHOUT adding further complexity, maintaining the software's low learning curve and ease of use). 
  • HHPN should consider partnering with a more robust HTML editor (Already in the plans)
  • DBServer should be implemented as a Windows NT service (Planned for Rev.2).
  • HHPN should consider offering an inexpensive developer's version in an effort to have developers push the product up through their organizations (Already in the plans)
  • XLiRAD should be given free to students to increase tomorrow's developer base (Already in the plans)
  • HHPN should develop pre-packaged applications - e.g. membership and catalog applications (Already done and more on the way)

Read Kuromaku's in-depth product review.