Accessing legacy applications from internet

Abstract

A method and apparatus that has the ability to run interactive legacy applications from a network, such as the Internet, without requiring any code changes in the application. Thus, the application is unaware of the new network environment and continues to run, as- is, in its native environment. The legacy application may be accessed from any of several client devices using a network server that can be connected to or integral with the computer on which the application is executing. Typically, these legacy applications are critical to a business, are self-contained on the computer, have mixed business and user interface logic, and were written before software engineering principles of distributed computing emerged. Separating business logic from user interface logic as required by web application architectures is not practicable in the case of legacy applications. A client, such as a thin client, has a network user agent, such as a web browser, which can access a network server connected to the computer. The method of this invention provides an environment such that when an application is invoked from the network user agent, a runtime data redirector intercepts the application's raw data and sends the data to the network server which then serves the data across the network to the network user agent after dynamically updating the associated application's network pages, such as JavaServerPages, which were generated by converting the proprietary display screens of the legacy application. Input data form the user entered through the network user agent are sent back to the application via the same runtime intercept. In this fashion, the client and network environment are transparent to the application while the application is now able to take advantage of many Internet and other network capabilities.

Description

technical field [0001] This application relates generally to the field of computer software applications, and in particular to accessing conventional application programs over computer networks such as the Internet. Background technique [0002] Like everything else, the use of computers has changed over the years. In the early years, mainframe computers dominated the industry until the advent of standalone personal computers. Many businesses and homes now have at least one stand-alone personal computer, ie a PC. But a new computing paradigm has emerged: network-centric or distributed computing, in which at least two, but more likely many computers—called clients and servers—are interconnected by a network , where the software application used by the client resides on the server. Thus, a server may provide an application or client program or database over a network for use by an end user or by multiple other servers and clients. [0003] In many cases, and increasingly s...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

But converting traditional display data streams at runtime is slow, sacrifices application performance, and does not provide users with the ability to seamlessly integrate or bridge legacy applications with new World Wide Web or other network applications

and mere transformation of traditional data does not provide the ability to enhance the effectiveness of an application's user interface when the application is running over the Internet

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