Charles River Development is to embark on a technology redevelopment strategy designed to provide an open, platform-independent architecture for its Investment Management System.
The redeveloped platform will marry Java, J2EE, Microsoft .NET and Web Services in an effort to take advantage of the best tools available for application development says Arnold Wachs, product manager at Charles River.
"On the client side, that means Microsoft C# .NET for a rich user interface and J2EE Java Services on the server side for maximum scalability and performance," he says. "In addition, both .NET and J2EE provide development frameworks that allow us to respond rapidly to client functionality requests."
Charles River IMS's new technology is fully supported on Oracle, Sybase, or Microsoft SQL Server database platforms. The system will run on Microsoft Windows 2000/XP, Sun Solaris or Linux application servers and Microsoft Windows 2000/XP, Sun Solaris, HP-UX, Linux, or AIX database servers.
The idea is to provide a scalable system that shields users from technology changes at the enterprise-level.
The first new technology component, available in Charles River IMS Version 7.1, is an Open Integration Framework which provides real-time messaging for external systems communications and access to core Web Services for application customisation. Version 7.1 provides multiple options for systems integration through third party messaging products including IBM Websphere MQ, TIBCO Rendezvous, Java Messaging Service (JMS), and Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ).
Schroder Investment Management, a Charles River client since 2001 plans to upgrade to the new technology in early 2004. Marc Nield, executive director, Schroder Investment Management, comments: "What they are doing will enable far greater scalability and flexibility in our global asset management systems architecture and enable us to integrate strategic systems far more effectively."
The vendor says it will release its new architecture in stages over the next two major product releases along with scheduled functional enhancements.
Says Wachs: "Since the database, interfaces, and data setups (broker, commission, security type, compliance rules, privileges, etc.) are unchanged and backward compatible, current clients can automatically upgrade – no re-implementation is required."
The next technology release, scheduled for the first quarter of 2004, introduces additional Java components (including a Java compliance engine) for maximum system throughput, and multiple Web Services interfaces for further integration and customisation options.