Centura Software Ships ForeSite 2.0 Integration Server; First Integration Server to Migrate, Integrate and Scale Business Applications for the Web.

MENLO PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 4, 1997--Centura Software Corporation (NASDAQ:CNTR) today announced availability of the ForeSite 2.0 product suite, the most extensible Integration Server that leverages past investments in software and people, combines them with new Web technology and scales to meet the unpredictable nature of doing business on the Web.

The ForeSite product suite includes four components:

-- ForeSite Integrator: Dynamic content Web assembly environment

-- ForeSite PageServer: High-performance dynamic deployment server

-- ForeSite Dispatcher: Distributed resource manager

-- ForeSite SIM: System Integration Module that connects to legacy applications

"Now is the time to extend your business to the Web. Now is not the time to get handcuffed by technology," said Sam Inman, president and CEO of Centura Software. "ForeSite is open to more tools, languages and standards than any other framework. You can migrate anything fast, integrate easily with everything that matters, and scale to meet peak loads."

"In today's competitive environment, companies are looking to the Intranet for ways to leverage their IT investments in client/server and mainframe applications, while adding new functionality, decreasing the costs of information delivery and increasing employee productivity. Intranet development and deployment enables our clients to do just that.

Centura's ForeSite is the product that enables this to happen in a timely and cost-effective manner. NDC Group is very excited about ForeSite and the opportunities it opens up for us to help our wide range of clients (F500 to small business) Web enable their business and improve their ability to utilize and share legacy applications across the enterprise," said Peter Noce, CEO, NDC Group Inc.

How to Use ForeSite

The ForeSite Integration Server enables developers and Webmasters to migrate, integrate and scale applications for the Web. Building Web applications with ForeSite involves three easy steps: -0- -- Migrate legacy client/server and mainframe applications

-- Create a user interface using any popular HTML tool

-- Wrapper applications built in PowerBuilder, Visual Basic,

Delphi, Visual Object COBOL, C++ or Centura so they are

presented as ActiveX servers

-- Connect CICS, 3270 or Java applications through a SIM module

-- Connect applications with other protocols through a custom SIM -- Integrate legacy applications with new Web business logic and

content

-- Combine new Web business logic and content via ActiveX

controls and servers

-- Combine Java applets, Java Scripts, Active X controls and

Visual Basic Scripts with the Web page -- Scale the new application for optimal performance and reliability

-- Add additional servers as needed to increase performance and

throughput

-- Utilize resource manager to increase reliability and

availability

ForeSite Integrator

Integrator is the application component assembly module of the ForeSite product suite. Its easy Windows 95 Explorer-type user interface provides Web site developers and content providers alike a quick way to access corporate data regardless of its location or format. Integrator is fully compatible with popular Web authoring and HTML editing tools such as Front Page, PageMill, Spider and others. Further, Integrator offers a single GUI interface for integrating with existing applications developed in Java, Visual Basic, PowerBuilder, Delphi and C/C++. In addition, Integrator provides the same GUI interface to other legacy applications supported by ForeSite System Integration Modules (SIMs).

In addition to being easy to use, ForeSite supports the most extensive list of data source types available, including ActiveX, 3270, CICS, Entire Broker, native databases and ODBC as well as popular transaction servers such as Microsoft Transaction Server (Viper). With ActiveX as one of ForeSite's extensibility mechanisms, users can take advantage of the rapidly growing selection of third-party AcitveX components to add new functionality. In addition, with near-term support for IIOP and Java Beans, ForeSite will offer unprecedented extensibility. Integrator also fully supports JavaScript and VBScript as well as other scripting languages that you may be using currently.

ForeSite PageServer

PageServer is the deployment engine module of the ForeSite Integration Server product suite. Once you have assembled the application components using Integrator and are ready to deploy the Web application, PageServer offers the maximum flexibility over how and where to deploy your site. Its patent-pending distributed and multi-threaded architecture provides unparalleled scalability and performance for Web-hosted applications through dynamic load-balancing. PageServer's performance is further increased by connection and page caching. Reliability is also enhanced by built-in redundancy and fail-over features.

PageServer communicates with most conventional Web servers through NSAPI or ISAPI interfaces as well as through CGI. It is also compatible with most firewall products. For small departmental sites to high-volume, business-critical, transaction-based applications -- no other product can provide the level of scalability, performance, reliability and security offered by PageServer.

ForeSite Dispatcher

Dispatcher is a unique part of the ForeSite product architecture which provides complete resource management over all deployed PageServers. It dynamically load-balances between PageServer to provide maximum throughput, independent of the user load. Dispatcher can also be configured to ensure non-stop availability -- a first in the deployment of business applications on the Web.

ForeSite System Integration Modules (SIM)

One of the most powerful dimensions of the ForeSite architecture is its openness and extensibility. As an integration server environment, ForeSite was designed to provide a single point of integration for deploying business applications to the Web. A key to ForeSite's success is therefore the breadth of its connectivity support to a wide range of applications and databases deployed in a heterogeneous type of integration server.

The ForeSite mechanism for providing this support is SIMs. A number of preconfigured SIMs are available for ForeSite in the standard product. In addition, other expansion SIMs are available to support a broad range of computing environments. For customers requiring custom-application support and for ISVs, an SDK is also available.

Pricing

The ForeSite Starter (which includes Integrator, one Dispatcher, one PageServer, ODBC and Active X SIMs) is available at an introductory price for a single-CPU version of Windows NT for $5,000 and a single-CPU version of Unix for $7,000.

The ForeSite Professional (which includes Integrator, two Dispatchers, two PageServers, ODBC and Active X SIMs) is priced at $18,000 for a single-CPU version of Windows NT and $27,000 for single-CPU version of Unix. The pricing for 3270 SIMs and CICS SIMs for single-CPU versions of Windows NT begins at $12,500. Contact Centura for more information about pricing.

Platform Availability and Support

The ForeSite product suite (including Integrator, Dispatcher, PageServer, ODBC and Active X SIMs) is available immediately from Centura and its Synergy Partners worldwide. The 3270 SIMs and CICS SIMs will be available within 30 days. ForeSite may be installed on separate systems to enhance performance and application availability.

The ForeSite Integrator, Dispatcher and PageServer support Microsoft Windows 95 and Microsoft NT Server or Workstation 3.51 and 4.0. ForeSite Adaptor supports Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft NT Server or Workstation 3.51 and 4.0, IBM AIX 4.1, Hewlett-Packard HP-UX 9.x, 10.01 and 10.10, and Sunsoft Solaris 2.x.

ForeSite integrates with any Web server that supports common Gateway Interface (CGI), Microsoft's Internet Server Application Programming Interface (ISAPI) or Netscape's Netscape Server Application Programming Interface (NSAPI). However, the Web server must run on a platform supported by ForeSite's Adaptor.

Centura Software Corporation

Since its inception in 1984, Centura Software (formerly Gupta) has enjoyed a rich history of innovation and bringing award-winning client/server products to the marketplace, including SQL Windows and SQLBase. Based on this success, it has grown into a global enterprise, with 26 offices, 120,000 developers and 1.5 million end users around the world.

Today Centura is pioneering robust technologies oriented toward the new world of the Intranet and Internet with products such as ForeSite Integration Server and Centura Web Developer. The company's customers include Automatic Data Processing (ADP), United Parcel Service, United Airlines, Citibank, Singapore Airlines, Siemens-Nixdorf, Daimler-Benz and Ford Motor Co. For more information about Centura visit www.centurasoft.com .

Analyst Quote Sheet

David Kelly, research analyst, Hurwitz Group Inc.

"The server is where the action is. In today's Hyper-Tier environment successful companies must be able to integrate existing business logic with new Web applications and capabilities. The ForeSite Integration Server provides companies with an open way to integrate applications at the server, while addressing the scalability and load-balancing problems that customers experience when deploying legacy applications on the Web."

Evan Quinn, research manager of International Data Corporation

"Everyone is talking about Web development, but only Centura delivers fast, scaleable Web deployment. With ForeSite, Web developers can move legacy business applications to the hottest platform around, within days. And ForeSite's scaling, load balancing and caching capabilities harness the untamed nature of the Web."

Steve Zoppi, program director, META Group

"Many companies trying to extend their businesses to the Web are having a terrible time creating complex bridges to link legacy applications. Many current tools assume you start with nothing. ForeSite lets you leverage existing applications and cleanly extend them with new, exciting Web technology. The ForeSite solution also appears to provide a very scaleable architecture incorporating fully-integrated, fail-over and load-balancing capabilities."

Mitchell Kramer, senior consultant at Patricia Seybold Group

"Today, Centura is A COMPREHENSIVE option for open, extensible Web integration. ForeSite integrates all popular languages and databases, be they legacy, client/server or hot new Web technologies. The open choice for the Web is Centura."

CONTACT: Centura Software Corp.

Tom Webb, 972/479-0135 ext. 227

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Maureen Welch, 510/283-9777

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