Netscape Grabs a Live Wire

Rather than building data-access mechanisms into each one of its products, Netscape Communications is currently offering LiveWire, a separate product that integrates with the company's higher-end servers, such as FastTrack Server and Enterprise Server. The standard version of LiveWire, like Allaire's Cold Fusion, provides database-access functions but has no actual database. LiveWire Professional ($695) bundles a single-user version of an Informix database server to facilitate the development of database applications.

NSTL looked at a prerelease version of LiveWire Professional that lacked several features due for inclusion in the released product. While it couldn't complete NSTL's performa nce test suite, it provided a preview of the product's capabilities. LiveWire supports Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), as w ell as native connectivity for Informix, Sybase, and Oracle databases. NSTL tested LiveWire using an Oracle database and Netscape's Enterprise Server.

LiveWire uses Java to access databases. As with Cold Fusion, developers embed database-access commands in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) files. However, while Cold Fusion and Microsoft's Internet Database Connector (IDC) use a small set of embedded database commands, Java offers all the power of a complete programming language. To execute complex programming logic, the application can call external Java scripts rather than embedding all the code in an HTML file. Thus, LiveWire offers the power and flexibility of Oracle's PL/SQL without being limited to one database type or having to create stored database procedures.

One of the most powerful features of LiveWire's Java implementation is the redirect command, which abandons the current HTML file and begins processing another one. A developer might use this where the user wants to query a database and, depending on the outcome, either display the results or move on to another activity altogether. The redirect command provides great flexibility in setting up the flow of control in an application.

Unfortunately, there's more to setting up LiveWire than just installing the software. First, the administrator must configure the server to enable LiveWire functions and then register each application with the LiveWire Application Manager. A developer must compile all the HTML files and Java scripts that make up an application into a single object, and the administrator must start the application using Application Manager. When a user submits a uniform resource locator (URL), LiveWire specifies not the path to an HTML file or script but the name of a LiveWire application.

The LiveWire compiler provides clear error messages th at are a great help in correcting syntax errors. In addition, the Application Manager provides a run-time debugger. Although the prerelease version couldn't complete the performance test suite with eight test clients, NSTL tested it with one, two, and four clients; LiveWire's performance was almost identical to that of Oracle WebServer at all three user loads.