Look for Pathways technology, coming soon in open source edition. See our Release Schedule for details.

Pathways Enterprise Edition is an innovative architecture for the development of middleware, client/server and internet applications.

The Pathways Enterprise Edition architecture enables application upgrades and reconfigurations of system resources with zero downtime.

Pathways is based on the OPP application framework. Applications based on the Pathways architecture automatically have access to the full set of OPP features including Internet access, embedded database and interoperability with Java and CORBA applications.

A Pathways application is composed of one or more modules. Each module contains one or more components and performs a specific job for the application. Components can communicate with other components in the same or different modules by sending messages.

Pathways Enterprise Edition is fully compatible with modules developed on the open source Pathways framework. However, modules developed solely for the Pathways framework may not take full advantage of the features available from Pathways Enterprise Edition.

Pathways Enterprise Edition allows modules to be added to or removed from a running system allowing an application to be upgraded with zero downtime and without requiring additional hardware.

Modules for an application can all be located in the same process, spread across multiple processes, or spread across multiple processes on multiple systems. The initial choice of module distribution is made at start up of the Pathways Enterprise Edition control process. The distribution can be adjusted while Pathways is running with no application down time. This allows a Pathways application to be reconfigured dynamically to adjust for changing needs and hardware availability.

The Pathways architecture automatically handles routing messages to the proper component regardless of its physical or logical location.

Pathways supports running an application distributed across multiple systems even if those systems are from different vendors and run different operating systems.

Pathways Enterprise Edition interfaces with all popular databases.

Key Features

Dynamically loaded modules

All application logic is contained in modules that can be loaded at initial startup, or dynamically loaded and unloaded while the application is running. Using this feature, application upgrades and system reconfigurations for performance or uptime enhancements can be done with zero downtime.

Distributed Application Support

Pathways Enterprise Edition supports both asymmetric and symmetric distributed applications.

In an asymmetric distributed application, application logic is distributed across multiple systems. Each system performs a different task or tasks. In a symmetric distributed application, the entire application and data are replicated across multiple systems. An example of an asymmetric distributed application is an e-commerce web server that runs the web server on a different system than the customer database. A web server farm is an example of a symmetric distributed application.

The Pathways module architecture and location transparent message queues support asymmetric distributed applications that can be reconfigured dynamically to adjust for changing demands.

Pathways supports symmetric distributed applications by providing an advanced distributed processing framework. The distributed processing framework handles data synchronization, distributed load balancing, etc.

When a new instance of a distributed component comes on line, it announces its presence using a network broadcast message. Every existing instance of the distributed component on that network will respond to the broadcast and the new instance will negotiate a specific identity for itself. When the component has received its identity, it begins working and can communicate with other instances using broadcast and point-to-point messages.

Scalable Communication

Pathways Enterprise Edition provides a suite of scalable communication primitives for use by system components (modules). Communication primitives include location transparent message queues, point-to-point network communication, broadcast network communication and internet foundation classes.

A Pathways message queue will route a message to the destination component regardless of physical or virtual location of that component. This allows components to be placed in the same process (running as separate threads), in separate processes on the same system or in separate systems with no code changes.

The application can be reconfigured with no downtime using dynamically loaded modules. The Pathways message queues will ensure that messages are routed to the component no matter where it is, even if it is moved to a different process or even a different system while the application is running.

The Pathways message queues allow new functionality to be rolled out incrementally. The most efficient use of system resources is to have a single process with multiple threads. However, a bug in any of the components will cause the entire process to crash. The message queues allow new modules or upgraded modules to be initially isolated in their own process. Once the functionality is proven, the modules can be loaded into the main process to take advantage of the performance gain.

Pathways provides broadcast network communication with varying levels of guaranteed delivery. Ordinary broadcast protocols do not guarantee the delivery of information. Pathways extends the underlying protocol to offer guaranteed delivery at varying levels depending on the needs of the application – from a “soft” guarantee that ensures the data will arrive but places no upper limit on how long it will take to a hard guarantee that uses periodic point-to-point communication to ensure data synchronization.

Efficiency

A primary design goal of Pathways is to make efficient use of system resources. Pathways itself is extremely efficient and leverages the efficiency of the OPP class library. The combination of OPP with the scalable messaging architecture of Pathways Enterprise Edition allows application programmers to easily create efficient applications using Pathways.

Portability

Pathways components can be compiled on any system supported by OPP. A diverse collection of systems from different vendors can work together seamlessly as part of the same distributed application.

Innovation

The three level architecture encompassing OPP, Pathways and Web Pathways allows innovations in one product to feed innovations in others.

Components developed for one application can often be used for others. The components in Web Pathways can be used for other internet or intranet applications.

Foundation

OPP provides the foundation for Pathways application development. The OPP class library provides lots and lots of stuff. Pathways Enterprise Edition adds specific functionality to support middleware, client/server and distributed applications.