Case Study zu JFAST

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Course DEV-15A/B
VFP in Action Case Study/Demonstration Brian
Jones DPRA, Inc.
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Who Am I

• Brian Jones
• Director, Information Systems
• DPRA, Inc.
• Oak Ridge, Tennessee
• bjones_at_dpra.com or jonesbk_at_ornl.gov

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Background

• DoD creates United States Transportation Command
• manager for all DoD transportation
• develop transportation plans for U.S. National
  Defense Plans
• all modes of transportation air, land, and sea
• Wargame
• evaluate command control procedures
• test transportation analysis software

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Findings

• Software systems too complex
• Models too aggregate
• Run by technicians v. planners
• Not responsive to real-time changes

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Paradigm Shift

• From
• FORTRAN, Ada, LISP
• mainframes
• UNIX workstations/servers
• cumbersome (operated by technicians)
• expensive

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Paradigm Shift

• To
• PC platform
• mainstream app. development languages
• GUIs
• designed for planners (human factors, reduced
  complexity)
• bring transportation analysis into the desktop
  metaphor

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JFASTJoint Flow and Analysis System for
Transportation

• Began in late 1989
• First prototype in three months
• First real-world Desert Shield (1990)
• Development cost cut by approx. ten times

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Input

• Requirements data--items to move people, trucks,
  supplies 1-2M records
• Assets Aircraft, ships, and ports
• Assets characteristics over time
• Highway, rail, sea, and air network data

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Output

• Schedules and delivery dates
• Asset utilization profiles
• Reports/Graphs
• Animations
• Briefing slides
• Approx. 200M output data per analysis

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Tools UsedEvolving Solution

• 1989--FoxBase, QuickBASIC, C, FORTRAN (DOS)
• FoxPro, C, FORTRAN (DOS)
• FPW, C, VB (Windows/WFW)
• Present VFP, C, C, J (WindowsNT)

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Why VFP?

• Data-centric language/development environment
  (probably most important)
• Local and remote data
• Manage large amounts of data
• DBCs and free tables allow for extremely flexible
  designs
• Excellent RAD tool

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Why VFP?

• Performance
• Performance
• Performance

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Demo