Penn State University wanted to make its huge storehouse of information readily available to students, faculty, and staff. But simply combining its legacy mainframe system with client-server functions quickly crashed key business applications during heavy usage.

Using Cincom Smalltalk, PSU developers rapidly rolled out a three-tiered system using the mainframe, web servers, and traditional desktops with thin clients. By reusing components, functions could be written once and placed on servers accessible by all applications, thus saving time and money in both labor and equipment. It also meant that the system could be expanded as needed, legacy mainframes could be linked for data access, and passwords could be protected and authenticated.