Within six weeks of their start, Neoglyphics' staff had produced a prototype of the user interface for TWSNet. The application works with any Java-based browser. To enable CSX to support more-sophisticated queries from the Internet and more speedily access the Oracle database, Neoglyphics developers created what they call lightweight middleware, says Nathan Schrenk, director of software development at Ne oglyphics. To draw data from the mainframe, the TWSNet application uses remote procedural calls. Among TWSNet's most innovative features is the use of a graphical tracking map.
Customers can click on any geographical area and bring up information on shipments in that locale.
Encryption and firewalls provide system security. For GLM, Neoglyphics supplied the user interface, the database connectivity, and the logic to read the database. The GLM team eventually grew to five developers, all doing Java programming. CSX sped the application's query-response time by installing a layer of middleware that moved batches of data from the mainframe to the Oracle database. Data stored on the mainframe is copied to the Oracle database at regular intervals.