Because Perry blogged about DataAbstract, I dug a little deeper into it, and to RemObjects other product “RemObjects SDK 3.0”.
RO SDK is basically a collection of components to create multi-tier solutions, and it can be clients or servers. There are other products that can help you with that. Think of Midas, or Borlands new DataSnap. But the RO SDK is more than that. With it you can not only create multi-tier applications, but you can also choose whether the application will use the SOAP protocol, or a binary version without the overhead of XML. And you can create ISAPI modules, but also standalone SOAP-servers. Or…a whatever server.
So, that got me thinking. I emailed Perry, and asked him if it was possible to create a normal Win32-server, like a mailserver. His answer was positive, so I read some more about RO SDK. RO SDK gives you the tools to create a server, that can communicate in standardized protocols or in a protocol that you like. On the standard firewall-save HTTP-port, or on any port you like. And on top of that: the SDK is expandable. So if TCP is not what you’re looking for, you can implement your own transport-drivers and use them in RO SDK.
Wow!
I already downloaded the trial version of the SDK and I will give it a try when I get back from my holiday in Morocco (4-26th of September). I was planning to create a mailserver with a RDBMS-backend. By choosing a RDBMS that is scalable the the mailserver itself will be scalable. By making it multi-tier the user has even more freedom in distributing the load.