What is LightWave Server

For decades, client-server middleware has been the bridge between an application's client components, which typically provide the application's user interface, and the server components, which provide the application's data and business rules. Although communications and message protocols have changed dramatically over the years, the basic concept remains the same; the application client components connect to the server components using some type of communications network, and exchange information using structured messages.

LightWave Server™ is client-server middleware that provides the bridge between client components which may be running on any platform, and server components running on HP NonStop Servers. Using a simple RESTful application programming interfaces, or APIs, clients can perform any of the following operations on a NonStop Server:

• Exchange a message with a standalone application process.

• Exchange a message with a Pathway application server

• Create, commit, and abort transactions and include other operations in transactions.

• Store, retrieve, or delete a file.

• Create, read, update, or delete Enscribe file records.

Client applications communicate with the LightWave Server process, which runs on HP NonStop Server under Guardian, using a TCP/IP socket connection and the HTTP protocol. Although this may sound complicated, it's the same mechanism used by web browsers to connect to web servers, and the same mechanism used by thousands of web and mobile based applications to connect to their associated back-end servers. This mechanism is simple, well understood by developers, and is used billions of times per day to connect web and mobile clients to services like Google, Facebook, and Twitter. The goal of LightWave Server is to make it as simple to connect a client to a NonStop Server application as it is to connect a client to any of these other well known services.

LightWave Server is not specific to any particular type of NonStop application. It's an enabling technology that allows any type of client to interact with nearly any type of NonStop Server application, using communications transports and message protocols that are modern, standard, and secure. LightWave Server can be used to develop any number of applications using a NonStop Server back end, for example:

• Modernize SCOBOL "green screen" applications by developing new browser based user interfaces that use LightWave Server to communicate with the existing Pathway servers.

• Develop a mobile application for sales reps that provides order entry and status information using LightWave Server to communicate with an existing NonStop Server order processing systems.

• Provide business partners with access to existing or new NonStop Server applications through a simple RESTful API.

• Replace file upload or download applications that currently use FTP protocol with equivalent functionality using the HTTP protocol.