www.bluage.com

Benefits

Shorter lead time, reduced budgets

You improve the developments productivity and cost of ownership of your business applications by automating the coding phases of your applications.

An integrated tool in Eclipse for all your developments

You have a unique development platform based on MDA supporting:

• Java JEE and .Net,
• Cloud for Java JEE,
• Rich clients (Flex type),
• Mobile Platforms (Smartphone and Ipad),
• Html 5.

The equivalence between the model and the application

You automate your developments with the equivalence between design and application:

• Automatically turn specifications (models as UML2 diagrams) into an application ready to deploy
• Simplify the expression of UML2 models through the use of Blu Age Forward Engineering stereotypes,
• Stop technological debates in the design phases involving the project management

100% of the code generated automatically

All the programs are generated by compiling design models. The entire application is automatically generated: screens, reports, batches, services, data access, web services, call inference engine, external API calls, authentication, secure access to pages and services.

Your technological independence sustainably preserved

Your applications no longer depend on the technology and the generated code:

• can be maintained with any Eclipse IDE and does not depend on Blu Age (no run time)
• meets your standards of architecture and programming
• achieves a high and constant level of quality regardless of the users (internal or external)
• meets the standards issued by the organizations of standardization (OMG, SOA Consortium, Eclipse Foundation...)

The entire lifecycle of your applications automated

Blu Age Forward Engineering offers a chain of continuous integration in Eclipse: Generations, compilations, packaging, deployments, test and quality analyses are automated.

A consistent and high quality code

The generated code via Blu Age Forward Engineering is a very high quality one, continuously audited by Sonar and compared to benchmarks (default rate per line of code 10 times lower than those found on the “opensource” project of reference).

An integrated solution in Eclipse

All Blu Age tools and related products are available within a unified Eclipse environment.

Functionalities

Application = Model

Blu Age Forward Engineering implements the MDA principle of UML2 compilation models independent of the technology in order to produce a full application from its functional specifications. Chosen during the generation, the architectures can vary without changing models. So there is a strict equivalence between functional specification and technical implementation. Full automation of the functional model transformation in an application code significantly reduces costs and lead times.

Debugging models

Blu Age Forward Engineering allows debugging models by using two functions:

• the designer can place points of analysis and stop execution from the model. These are directly transformed into "breakpoints" in the generated code and are available in Eclipse.
• validators analyze the models to check the integrity and norms quality of the modeling.

Impact analysis based on the models

The use of UML2 modelers allows to make an impact assessment before any enhancement. Blu Age Forward Engineering uses the UML2 metamodel in a transparent way for the user, allowing the application designer to change models without having to edit the elements after a refactoring.

Help wizards for modeling

Wizards guide and automate the creation and manipulation of UML2 models. They are used to initialize all UML2 diagrams and their constituents. These wizards optimize designer productivity and strengthen the compliance and the qualitative consistency of the model structure.

Continuous Integration

Blu Age Forward Engineering implements a continuous integration solution that automates on-demand or by batch:

• the generation of your applications
• the packaging and compilation
• the quality analysis of the generated code
• the deployment
• the tests

Agile architecture through BSP technology (Blu Age Shared Plugin)

Blu Age Forward Engineering allows an agile architecture unique on the market through its BSP technology (Blu Age Shared Plugin) which describes the target architectures by layer and according to the SOA. UML2 models are compiled into code according to the association of BSP achieved graphically through a workflow. The user can have the targets architectures to vary without changing the UML2 models compiled by the BSP. The flexibility and ease of use of the BSP technology allows you to

• preset your stacks of architecture and assign them by project
• change the architecture without rewriting cost
• define specific design patterns and fully regenerate your applications
• generate your applications in one or more different architectures
• make your version upgrades of framework risk-free and with a minimum budget
• be independent of the implementation architecture and free from technology failures

Multi-Architecture Generation

Modern applications do not run any longer onto a single architecture. Instead, you must be able to put the same application available for different architectures: Web 2.0, Cloud, nomadic or connectionless or connected to a network nomads such as smartphones or tablets. In a traditional mode of development, this involves developing many times the same components and makes difficult configuration management.

In contrast, BSP technology (Blu Age Shared Plugin) of Blu Age Forward Engineering automatically compiles your UML2 models to several platforms simultaneously, and without additional cost or configuration management. Generation workflows allow you to configure all target architectures and generate each version without additional coding or modeling.

SOA Architecture

The UML models used by Blu Age Forward Engineering natively implement a separation by layer and a loose coupling: they separate the declaration in terms of SOA services and the location of their implementation by UML2 stereotyping. During generation, the choice of architecture implements the web services according to your choice.

Technological Independence

Unlike other productivity solutions (development workshops or solutions type BPM), the applications produced with Blu Age Forward Engineering are not dependent on proprietary technologies (API, BPM engines, libraries etc ...). Blu Age Forward Engineering uses UML2 models independently of the target technology and allows the generation to the Object Oriented architecture of your choice.
Thanks to the BSP (Blu Age Shared Plugin), you can easily change the target of generation easily freeing yourself from the negative consequences of the constant technological changes. This unique capability of Blu Age Forward Engineering allows you to:

• reduce costs and risks associated with the technological change of your frameworks
• significantly reduce the curve of your engineers’ training, because the skills required to develop an application are decoupled from the target architecture
• have the BSP adjusted by your architects according to your standards ensuring their compliance
• generate your applications to one or several platforms (eg nomade and internet)
• choose between open source or owner architecture with  the possibility to change at any time

Graphics editor for HMI (Human Machine Interface)

A major weakness of Java JEE environments is the lack of graphics editor to realize the screens of your business applications. Blu Age Foward GMarker integrates GMarker, a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) to design your screens with increased productivity.

Collaborative Work

Setting up a business application is the result of teamwork, sometimes located on several sites. It is important to share UML2 models and the generated code between the stakeholders, especially for applications composed of thousands of services. The complexity and size of these applications require adapted tools and organization. Blu Age Forward Engineering integrates within Eclipse a solution of collaborative configuration management for UML2 models, screens mock-ups, reports and the generated code. In addition, a methodology for allocating in sub-domain of modeling allows working with partial generation to increase your team’s productivity.

Code of quality

Because the production of code is fully automated by compiling your models, the code is generated in a homogeneous, controlled and repeatable way. The systematic audit of applications generated by Blu Age Forward Engineering has optimized the generation templates to achieve a very high quality code (notes above 90% with Sonar). The  technology of Blu Age BSP being parametrizable this allows you to modify the templates to generate code according to your standards and conventions. Applications with up to several million lines of code have been used to calibrate our generation templates.

Exposure and consumption of services

Blu Age can generate and expose your services as you wish. For example, simply mark a process modeled with the stereotype 'ServerWebService' so that the webservice of exposure is generated. Similarly, the invocation of a service is made through stereotyping 'ClientWebService' of an interface used in a process.

Integration of code and external components

Integrating an external API is done simply by marking an interface with the “specific” stereotype that will locate the API and associate it with the UML interface so declared.

Role management and security

The layer of authentication and security of the application can be generated with UML2 diagrams such as Use Case. Thus, a user group only has access to screens and services affiliated to the use case.

High availability application

Because your applications are critical, they must be able to run without error. The BSP (Blu Age Shared Plugin) technology allows you to generate your applications so that they can be deployed on application clusters (session affinity and/or session synchronization) in a completely transparent way. The applications will thereby be protected from server failures and it will become possible to add instances (physical or virtual) in order to increase the processing power.

High performance application

BSP technology (Blu Age Shared Plugin) generates your applications to be deployed on application clusters in a completely transparent way. Coupled with virtualization technologies or Cloud architectures, this ability gives you a transparent elasticity of power while giving you the freedom to choose your architecture.

Integration of inference engine

Difficult to solve with traditional methods, some problems (management rules in competition, important impact of the data in the processes, solving constraint) require the use of inference or constraint engines. Blu Age Forward Engineering integrates naturally inference engines to implement and execute this type of management rules by hiding the complexity of setting up these powerful technologies.

Documentation generation

Since models and applications are identical by definition, you generate your functional specifications with Blu Age Forward Engineering. You can share them in the format and level of detail expected by the various actors in each project (MOA, User, Project, designers...).

Support of the standards of exchange

Blu Age Forward Engineering respects the norms and standards issued by organizations like the OMG (Object Management Group) and the SOA Consortium. This allows Blu Age Forward Engineering to interface as neutral exchange formats and standards with UML2 modelers on the  market. The BSP technology (Blu Age Shared Plugin) integrates standards of modeling, organization, architecture, service and code writing so that the generated applications are in accordance with the standards of the object world.

Integrated environment of modeling / generation in Eclipse

Designed as Eclipse plugins, Blu Age Forward technologies are integrated natively in this ecosystem of reference. Blu Age products are qualified Eclipse Ready.

Architecture and Supported Architectures