Syslink Case Study

About Syslink

Syslink is an independent SAP® Service Provider as well as a software developing firm. We are a certified SAP Hosting Partner since the year 2000, and a certified SAP Software Solution Partner since 2004. Syslink emerged from PricewaterhouseCoopers' outsourcing business in Switzerland, so we have 18 years worth of experience in SAP System Operation with a high level of staff continuity.

ZK x Syslink Xandria

ZK is used to provide user interface for Syslink Xandria, a smart and reliable System Management application focused on Enterprise-grade SAP Solutions and large-scale Database Environments. Syslink Xandria is effortless to install, there is no need to setup any implementation project. No consulting needed, no additional training required, no hidden costs. No more repetitive manual work. No additional overhead. Instead it acts as a thorough and reliable team member.

Architecture

Data Layer

Data is stored either in a Microsoft SQL Server or a PostgreSQL database. MyBatis was decided as the Java persistence framework. The strengths of MyBatis are very good support for existing databases (which were originally not designed for a Java persistence layer), the support of multiple database vendors with no or very minor adaptations, and the excellent code generated from the MyBatis Generator.

Application Server

We decided to run our web application with an embedded Jetty server. This approach makes installation very easy. But it is also possible to deploy it in any other Java application server (Apache Tomcat, Jetty, …).

Communication Layer

We use netty as communication framework to backend services.

Other components

• iText: PDF generation library, used for very large reports, including images, tables
• JFreeChart: chart library to generate charts
• Lucene: used to generate indexes search

Build Environment

We use Maven/Hudson as our build environment. Module testing is performed with JUnit Tests (including ZATS). In addition we have automated Selenium based tests, which test browsers under real-life conditions.

Why ZK

Our evaluation process came up with a short list containing Java Server Faces (ICEFaces, RichFaces), GWT, and ZK. The most important decision criteria were:

• development speed
• learning curve
• small footprint
• support of various operating systems, application servers & browsers.

In addition it was also important to build a web application that behaves like a desktop application providing all the bells and whistles users are familiar with nowadays. It turned out the client centric approach of GWT was a no-go. Our application is very data centric and implementing data loading from servers would require too much effort. The JSF based solutions tend to be very complex. We were not able to build a simple test application in a reasonable time.

So, it turned out that ZK is best suited for our needs. We were especially impressed of the development speed using ZK. The server centric approach makes it very easy to access all our server resources like the database and other web services. With ZK it is possible to build a web application that behaves like a desktop application. The resulting code is clean, well-structured and easy to understand.

Best of ZK

• The easy and very powerful way of writing web applications.
• The development speed; we can focus on our core business instead of web technologies
• The excellent support of different browsers, including many old browser versions
• The good performance and low footprint
• ZK code is clean, very easy to understand and easy to maintain. New developers are ready to implement new features within a very short timeframe.
• And, it simply works, we had never had and severe ZK related problems. ZK proved to be a very mature framework.

The Result

The result is an application, which can be used with almost no training. The little training that is required focuses on the business logic of syslink Xandria, not on the user interface. The core features are:

• Powerful lists showing domain objects. Lists are powered with a Lucene based search, column moving and resizing (persistent), multi selection, context menu, context sensitive actions, and paging.
• Multiple tabs with different content. Tabs can be moved, can be added to favorites
• Object detail dialogs.

As the legacy user interface is replaced now, we can reduce resources put in user interface development. Nonetheless we are still developing new functions and continuously improve existing ones.