Expanding beyond its visual IDE development and back end deployment tooling for Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), Nexaweb is now extending its reach to automating Web 2.0 enabling of legacy applications. In so doing, it is traveling over familiar ground with tooling that reverse engineers code to UML, supports refactoring, and then hooks into its existing Web 2.0 IDE and back end connection frameworks.
The new offering, called Nexaweb Advance, spans several pieces. First, it uses a collection of off-the-shelf third party tooling, open source technologies, and Nexaweb-created technologies to read in old apps, generate out UML 2.0 diagrams, then annotate them with additional higher level information that includes artifacts like workflow diagrams. The goal is providing meaningful info, not only to software architects, but business analysts as well.
The tooling also analyzes overlaps and duplications of code and provides refactoring capabilities so you can streamline it, then auto-generate XML from which you can use Nexaweb’s Eclipse IDE to visually change or recompose workflows, and then using Nexaweb’s existing deployment tools, implement on any Java EE, .NET, or PHP server, and/or via the web to a Web 2.0-styled desktop.
To some extent, this is old wine in new bottles, as Nexaweb is adapting tooling and technologies that you can obtain easily off the shelf via open source and/or through the usual application lifecycle management (ALM) suspects. What's different is that Nexaweb is repurposing the classic legacy application renewal process into a Web 2.0 context. So while its tooling may not be that unique, the packaging probably is.
