100% web application delivers a new generation of customer support

News
October 18, 2000

EMC Infra today released infraActive v1.1, a full web-centric application for the customer support market. Built from the ground up on an Internet architecture, infraActive combines in a single web product both the full help desk functionality of Infra's client-server application, and remote access of its corresponding web-enabled interface.

Because infraActive requires no installation and configuration on client PCs, it offers substantial cost and ease of deployment benefits over traditional client-server applications, without sacrificing any of the functionality, according to Martin Curtis, Business Development Manager for EMC Infra.

Curtis says that 'follow-the-sun' support environments in particular can benefit from being able to deploy multiple sites on one central database. Once configured on the server at a single site, all the resources of the support database become immediately available to any new site without additional configuration, simply by logging in to the application from a standard web browser.

In developing infraActive, says Curtis, EMC Infra has found a unique solution to overcome the interface-related problem faced by developers of full web applications. "The choice offered by the available technology was either to limit the view of data to a single browser window, or compromise the user's control over the application by displaying a series of unconnected browser windows, each with a duplicated set of toolbars and menus."

infraActive, in contrast, enables the display of an unlimited number of browser windows, but encapsulates them in a single larger 'wrapper' window dubbed the 'ActiveWrapper' by Infra, referring to its origins in Microsoft's ActiveX web technology.

Curtis explains that the ActiveWrapper launches infraActive as a separate web application, removing the reliance on the original browser. It pulls together the various browser windows into a coherent whole, providing a user-friendly 'Windows-style' look and feel to what is still a thin client application, with single-click management of all open browser windows associated with the application. infraActive has initially been deployed in a number of Infra's existing client sites.

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