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KnowledgeFrame

KnowledgeFrame is a proven, mature Java framework for agile design, development and deployment of sophisticated business database applications based on Live Meta-Data and Live Business Rules technology and declarative approach to design and development. A RETS-integration solution is available.

KnowledgeFrame ("KF") is built for the needs of sophisticated database application development, enabling analysts and designers to productively collaborate on functionally rich prototypes, which can be further extended by developers. The KF approach emphasizes:

• Business objects have very rich declarative behavioral properties (meta-data);
• Live meta-data, defined declaratively or dynamically, which can be changed by rules at runtime;
• Live business rules, defined declaratively or dynamically;
• Using inheritance for customizing and extending the framework functionality;
• Declarative approach to application design and construction.

This enables very dynamic systems with very little new code, and makes the system specification much more accessible to Business Analysts and System Designers. That way, KF bridges the significant design-gap between analytical and development tools, and aligns the conceptual, logical and physical system artifacts to enable truly agile iterative development methodologies.

The immediate benefits include shorter development cycles, and ability to provide early feedback and “hands-on” validation of project requirements to business users. Systems built this way are also easy to adapt and evolve with the business needs over time. Unlike many alternatives, KF has been field-proven and is in production in extremely demanding and ambitious business applications (see Client Showcase).

KF avoids vendor or platform lock-in. Specifically, KF version 5.2:

• runs in any J2EE compliant application server supporting the servlet interface (the reference platform is Tomcat 5.0 running on Java 1.4.2);
• processes data stored in any ANSI SQL-92 compatible database with a JDBC 2.0 driver (the reference platform is Oracle 10g);
• can be developed in any popular Java IDE (the reference platform is Eclipse 3.0).

T4Bi Value-Added Tools and Services

In addition to the Open Source KnowledgeFrame frameworks, T4Bi provides services and develops initiatives to further enhance KF value. These services and tools are practically always tailored to the customer's needs - organization size, complexity of the project, existing tools and repositories etc. (An organization which has 20 years of design meta-data stored in an Oracle Designer repository needs a different approach than an Internet-based initiative which builds a common business "language" for hundreds of organizations but has no meta-data "legacy").

The KnowledgeFrame Design Repository (internally called "KFR") provides an environment for analysts, designers and developers to collaborate and enables truly iterative prototyping methods. KFR provides a logical bridge between the analytical artifacts (ERD and UML models), design patterns (for Rules, Processes and Data) and runtime components, through transformers and code generators. Utilities integrate the Repository contents to Version Management systems to support more complex configuration management needs.

To learn more about value-added tools and services, please contact us at knowledgeframe@t4bi.com.

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