Introducing Natural Development Server

This document describes the purpose and the functions of Natural Development Server (product code NDV) which are used in conjunction with NaturalONE or Natural for Windows (as client) in a Natural Single Point of Development (SPoD) environment.

The following topics are covered:


Purpose of Natural Development Server

Natural Development Server enables you to use NaturalONE or the Natural Studio development environment provided by Natural for Windows to develop and test Natural applications in a remote Natural UNIX environment running under the operating system UNIX.

For more information on NaturalONE and remote development, see

  • NaturalONE documentation (describes the SPoD client side; how to manage offloaded Natural objects in the Eclipse workspace, and also how to modify them directly on a development server).

  • Natural Single Point of Development documentation (general information).

For more information on Natural Studio and remote development, see

  • Natural for Windows documentation or Help system (describes the SPoD client side; how to manage Natural objects directly on a development server).

  • Natural Single Point of Development documentation (general information).

With Natural version 9 on Mainframe, Unix and Linux, NaturalONE and the Natural Development Server are integrated into Natural. The Natural editors (program editor, data editor and map editor) are disabled. As NaturalONE and Natural Development Server licenses are integrated with Natural, they can be activated with the Natural (NAT) license key. This does not apply to Natural for Windows.

Remote Development Functions

The following topics are covered below:

Establishing a Connection between Client and Server

A connection to an active development server can be established by mapping it in the client (that is, in NaturalONE or Natural Studio). A dialog will be shown for setting up the connection in which you have to specify the following information:

Server

Host name The host name defines the remote node name where the server is running (or the IP address of the server).
Server port The server port defines the TCP/IP port number for the development server.
Environment name The environment name can be used to give the addressed server a logical (descriptive) name. If this box is left blank, a default name will be created automatically.

Startup

Session parameters If dynamic parameters are required for your development server, specify them in this text box. Otherwise, leave this text box blank.
User ID Your user ID is automatically provided.
Password If Natural Security is installed on the development server, specify the required password in this text box. Otherwise, leave this text box blank.

These settings are transferred to the selected Natural Development Server and evaluated to create an exclusive Natural session that is responsible for executing all development requests for that environment. Once you have sucessfully mapped a development server, the Natural objects of the connected remote development environment are shown in NaturalONE or Natural Studio.

Using the Remote Development Functionality

You can use the entire functionality of NaturalONE or Natural Studio to create, edit, stow or execute Natural objects on the remote Natural environment. You can map to multiple environments from one NaturalONE or Natural Studio. Each mapped environment owns a Natural session on the Natural Development Server, even if you map multiple environments on the same server.

When you are working with NaturalONE, it is recommended that you work in the so-called "local mode". In local mode, the sources are no longer stored or modified directly on the development server. The central place for keeping the sources is now the Eclipse workspace which is connected to a version control system.