The Base One Foundation Component Library (BFC) is a

rapid application development Rapid application development (RAD), also called rapid application building (RAB), is both a general term for adaptive software development approaches, and the name for James Martin's method of rapid development. In general, RAD approaches to ...

toolkit for building secure,

fault-tolerant Fault tolerance is the property that enables a system to continue operating properly in the event of the failure of one or more faults within some of its components. If its operating quality decreases at all, the decrease is proportional to the ...

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...

applications on

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

and

ASP.NET ASP.NET is an open-source, server-side web-application framework designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. It was developed by Microsoft to allow programmers to build dynamic web sites, applications and services. The name s ...

. In conjunction with Microsoft's

Visual Studio Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft. It is used to develop computer programs including web site, websites, web apps, web services and mobile apps. Visual Studio uses Microsoft software development platfor ...

integrated development environment An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source code editor, build automation tools a ...

, BFC provides a general-purpose

web application framework A web framework (WF) or web application framework (WAF) is a software framework that is designed to support the development of web applications including web services, web resources, and web APIs. Web frameworks provide a standard way to build and ...

for working with databases from

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

Oracle An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The word '' ...

, IBM,

Sybase Sybase, Inc. was an enterprise software and services company. The company produced software to manage and analyze information in relational databases, with facilities located in California and Massachusetts. Sybase was acquired by SAP in 2010; ...

, and

MySQL MySQL () is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A relational database o ...

, running under Windows, Linux/Unix, or IBM iSeries or z/OS. BFC includes facilities for

distributed computing A distributed system is a system whose components are located on different computer network, networked computers, which communicate and coordinate their actions by message passing, passing messages to one another from any system. Distributed com ...

batch processing Computerized batch processing is a method of running software programs called jobs in batches automatically. While users are required to submit the jobs, no other interaction by the user is required to process the batch. Batches may automatically ...

queuing Queue areas are places in which people queue (first-come, first-served) for goods or services. Such a group of people is known as a ''queue'' (British usage) or ''line'' (American usage), and the people are said to be waiting or standing ''in ...

, and database command scripting, and these run under Windows or Linux with

Wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

Design

BFC is based on a

database-centric architecture Database-centric Architecture or data-centric architecture has several distinct meanings, generally relating to software architectures in which databases play a crucial role. Often this description is meant to contrast the design to an alternative ...

whose cross-

DBMS In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...

data dictionary A data dictionary, or metadata repository, as defined in the ''IBM Dictionary of Computing'', is a "centralized repository of information about data such as meaning, relationships to other data, origin, usage, and format". ''Oracle'' defines it ...

plays a central role in supporting

data security Data security means protecting digital data, such as those in a database, from destructive forces and from the unwanted actions of unauthorized users, such as a cyberattack or a data breach. Technologies Disk encryption Disk encryption refe ...

validation Validation may refer to: * Data validation, in computer science, ensuring that data inserted into an application satisfies defined formats and other input criteria * Forecast verification, validating and verifying prognostic output from a numerica ...

optimization Mathematical optimization (alternatively spelled ''optimisation'') or mathematical programming is the selection of a best element, with regard to some criterion, from some set of available alternatives. It is generally divided into two subfi ...

, and

maintainability In engineering, maintainability is the ease with which a product can be maintained to: * correct defects or their cause, * Repair or replace faulty or worn-out components without having to replace still working parts, * prevent unexpected working ...

features. Some of BFC’s core technologies are based on underlying U.S. patents in database communication and high precision arithmetic. BFC supports a unique model of large scale,

. This is intended to reduce the vulnerability and performance impact of either depending on a centralized process to distribute tasks or communicating directly between nodes through messages. Deutsche Bank made use of the initial version of BFC to build its securities' custody system and is one of the earliest successful examples of commercial grid computing. BFC implements a

grid computing Grid computing is the use of widely distributed computer resources to reach a common goal. A computing grid can be thought of as a distributed system with non-interactive workloads that involve many files. Grid computing is distinguished from co ...

architecture that revolves around the model of a "virtual supercomputer" composed of loosely coupled "batch job servers". These perform tasks that are specified and coordinated through database-resident control structures and queues. The model is virtual, as it uses the available processing power and resources of ordinary servers and database systems, which can also continue to work in their previous roles. The result is termed a virtual supercomputer because it presents itself as a single, unified computational resource that can be scaled both in capacity and processing power.

History

BFC was originally developed by Base One International Corp., funded by projects done for

Marsh & McLennan Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc., doing business as Marsh McLennan, is a global professional services firm, headquartered in New York City with businesses in insurance brokerage, risk management, reinsurance services, talent management, investme ...

and

Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Sto ...

that started in the mid-1990s. Beginning in 1994, Johnson & Higgins (later acquired by Marsh & McLennan), built Stars, an insurance risk management system, using components known as ADF (Application Development Framework). ADF was the predecessor of BFC and was jointly developed by Johnson & Higgins and Base One programmers, with Base One retaining ownership of ADF, and Johnson & Higgins retaining all rights to Stars risk management software. In 2014, BFC was acquired by Content Galaxy Inc., whose video publishing service was built with BFC. The name "BFC" was a play on MFC

Microsoft Foundation Classes Microsoft Foundation Class Library (MFC) is a C++ object-oriented library for developing desktop applications for Windows. MFC was introduced by Microsoft in 1992 and quickly gained widespread use. While Microsoft has introduced alternative app ...

, which BFC extended through Visual C++ class libraries to facilitate the development of large-scale, client/server database applications. Developers can incorporate BFC components into web and Windows applications written in any of the major Microsoft programming languages ( C#,

Visual C++ Microsoft Visual C++ (MSVC) is a compiler for the C, C++ and C++/CX programming languages by Microsoft. MSVC is proprietary software; it was originally a standalone product but later became a part of Visual Studio and made available in both tria ...

VB.NET Visual Basic, originally called Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET), is a multi-paradigm, object-oriented programming language, implemented on .NET, Mono, and the .NET Framework. Microsoft launched VB.NET in 2002 as the successor to its original Visua ...

). They can also use a variety of older technologies, including

COM Com or COM may refer to: Computing * COM (hardware interface), a serial port interface on IBM PC-compatible computers * COM file, or .com file, short for "command", a file extension for an executable file in MS-DOS * .com, an Internet top-level d ...

ActiveX ActiveX is a deprecated software framework created by Microsoft that adapts its earlier Component Object Model (COM) and Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technologies for content downloaded from a network, particularly from the World Wide Web. ...

, MFC, and

Crystal Reports Crystal Reports is a business intelligence application marketed to small- and medium-sized businesses by SAP. History Terry Cunningham and the Cunningham Group originated the software in 1984. Crystal Services Inc. marketed the product (origin ...

. BFC works with both managed and unmanaged code, and it can be used to construct either

thin client In computer networking, a thin client is a simple (low-performance) computer that has been optimized for establishing a remote connection with a server-based computing environment. They are sometimes known as ''network computers'', or in th ...

rich client In computer networking, a rich client (also called heavy, fat or thick client) is a computer (a "client" in client–server network architecture) that typically provides rich functionality independent of the central server. This kind of computer w ...

applications, with or without browser-based interfaces.

References

External links

* Base One
Introduction to BFC
* Base One

* ITJungle

June 14, 2005. Accessed April 9, 2008. {{Application frameworks .NET object-relational mapping tools .NET programming tools Grid computing products Middleware Scripting languages Web frameworks Web development software