Nexus Search400 Award

Gold Award: Business Computer Design's Nexus Web Portal

Search400.com Product of the Year in the Category of Web-enabling Tools

Gold Award - Web-enabling Tools

In a world where more and more companies are running Web applications, it's great to have a way to manage them all. Enter Business Computer Design (BCD) International's Nexus Web Portal Version 1.2.

Our Gold Award winner for Web-enabling tools is an iSeries-centric Web Portal, running on original HTTP or Apache HTTP Web server. It provides a secure, scalable "Web desktop" environment for Web applications, groupware functionality and document management.

It uses unique HTTP server extensions (implemented by adding statements to the HTTP server configuration files) for either the HTTP original server or Apache Web server to enforce precise, database driven security rules to control site access and to prevent unauthorized page, application or document access.

It's Nexus' performance that catches the eyes of our judges. It uses native ILE objects on the back end, and it is deployed over the HTTP original or Apache servers. Integral components of the OS/400 operating system support native ILE objects; in contrast, Java objects require another layer of middleware to run. In addition, both the original HTTP and Apache Web servers are highly efficient, requiring minimum system resources to run. The result: maximum performance for the minimum hardware and software infrastructure investment.

In contrast, Java server-based solutions, such as IBM's WebSphere portal, rely on WebSphere Application Server (WAS) for their runtime infrastructure. WAS is known for requiring lots of CPU power and memory to run efficiently. Nexus, however, can run on the smallest of iSeries computers without needing a hardware upgrade. BCD estimates that sites using Nexus can save from $20,000 to $200,000 by avoiding the kinds of hardware upgrades required to deploy a WebSphere portal.

As for value, you can't get much better than cost-free. BCD announced Sept. 8, 2003, that the first 1,000 iSeries shops that sign up for the "Good News/Great News Promotion" will get a free Nexus license. In addition to the first 1,000 iSeries shops, the offer is also available to all business partners, consultants and ISVs. They will be able to link to all iSeries Web programs whether they were created with WebSmart, WebSphere, LANSA or any other iSeries Web tools or iSeries Web applications written in-house by the partners or their clients. The partners will be able to give the Nexus portal license to any or all of their clients. The license fee will be waived, and partners and their customers will be responsible for only the maintenance fees.

"The idea of the ability to combine in a "portal" several Web development environments and doing this for no licensed software charge -- at least for the first 1,000 customers -- seems like a truly innovative way of accomplishing the desire to dominate a market," one expert remarks. "It would seem that you want a product such as this to maximize your investment in all your other Web technology. It looks like Nexus does that."