InterSystems Updates Caché

The latest version of InterSystems Caché database product features new technology for rapid, rich Internet application development.

The Cambridge, Mass., company released Caché 2007 Nov. 6 and announced new components, including Zen, a framework for quicker building of rich, platform-independent Web applications. Another new component, known as Jalapeño, reduces development time by at least 40 percent, company officials said.

Zen features a library of prebuilt components, including grids, tables and selection trees that enable the quick creation and easy management of complex processes, InterSystems officials said. Zen also builds on the concept of AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and takes advantage of the Caché security model to avoid security issues.

Caché 2007 offers Java developers the flexibility to create database-independent software with Jalapeño. Developers can take advantage of optimized direct database access to Caché 2007 for maximum performance without the overhead typically associated with SQL, officials said.

Jalapeño provides the capability to persist POJOs (Plain Old Java Objects) while eliminating the need for object-relational mapping, InterSystems officials said. Jalapeño allows Java developers to work in a Java-centric development environment and automatically persist objects in the high-performance Caché database.

"Now it is possible for Java programmers to avoid the tedious and time-consuming task of object-relational mapping, and Caché 2007 enables any programmer to build rich Internet applications faster," said Paul Grabscheid, InterSystems vice president of strategic planning.

"Were evaluating Zen and plan to use it as the Web development framework for adding major new capabilities to our clinical system products," said Jim Klein, executive vice president of product management and chief technology officer at QuadraMed, in Reston, Va., in a statement. "Not only does Zen support the migration of our applications to the Web, but it also supports our transition to object-oriented design while providing support for our disciplined approach to application development based on design patterns."

Caché 2007 is available on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Unix and OpenVMS platforms. Pricing ranges from $220 to $1,380 per user, depending on configuration.