Technology Platform
Interneer has adopted Microsoft tools and platforms as a corporate standard for its product suite. Microsoft delivers best-in-class tools and platforms with the reliability, performance, scalability, and manageability required by enterprise solutions. Backed by a large global support network and a rich set of industry partners, Microsoft’s .NET enterprise strategy integrates and Web-enables your enterprise today while building the foundation for the next generation of Internet applications.
Microsoft .NET is a revolutionary new platform, built on open Internet protocols and standards, with tools and services that combine computing and communications in new ways. The platform also simplifies communication and integration with other Microsoft products.
Interneer utilizes Microsoft .NET servers as a deployment platform because of their proven history. Windows 2003 Server is used to provide web and application services with high reliability, efficient management, and support for the latest advances in networking hardware. It provides the best foundation for integrating your business with the Internet.
The SQL Server 2005 database provides high performance, scalability, and reliability. Beyond these core enterprise qualities, SQL Server 2005 provides agility to your data management and analysis, allowing your organization to adapt quickly and gracefully to derive a competitive advantage in a fast-changing environment. The record-holder of important benchmark awards for scalability and speed, SQL Server 2005 is a fully web-enabled database product, providing core support for Extensible Markup Language (XML) and the ability to query across the Internet and beyond the firewall.
Microsoft enterprise platforms give the lowest cost to performance ratio. In test after test, Microsoft platforms have not only scaled to the highest levels, but have also done so at a lower cost.2
Development Tools
Development tools play a fundamental role in the effective use of information technology to build Enterprise Applications. Development tools enable organizations to create, customize and integrate the corporate applications that can turn information technology into a competitive edge in the marketplace. Interneer utilizes Microsoft Visual Studio.Net, Flash MX and Visual SourceSafe to address all aspects of the application lifecycle development, including user interface, middle-tier component development and assembly, revision control and data access component development.
In addition, Interneer uses additional libraries and tools to facilitate with identifying bottlenecks and bugs, like debuggers, SQL profilers, performance monitors, and memory management tools
Application Architecture
Integrated enterprise applications are a primary focus for Interneer. Building such applications requires up-front attention to the design process, and requires a modular, open application architecture. To meet these requirements, Interneer’s enterprise application architecture includes intelligent application partitioning, the use of modular and reusable components, scalability, and open interoperability with 3rd party applications. The application architecture is logically divided into the User Interface, Business Logic and Data Access layers. This architecture provides a flexible component-based structure that is ideal for web applications.
Structure
User Interface Layer - Developed in ASP.NET (.ASPX file type), HTML, Java-Script, CSS and Flash, this layer contains the code for all user interface components. ASP.NET runs under the Internet Information Server (IIS) and the .Net Framework and communicates with .NET or COM objects for accessing data and business logic of the application.
Business Logic Layer - The business logic layer contains the code to interact with both the user interface and data access layers. Business objects contain the specific business logic that is performed by the user interface on the data.They run on the .Net Framework and communicate with .NET or COM objects for accessing data and business logic of the application.
Data Access Layer - The data access layer accesses the data from the database.The .NET objects in the data access layer use Microsoft ADO.NET to expose data from the data store into usable row sets.
Benefits
This architecture provides several fundamental benefits, such as:
Multi-tier partitioning - The application can be partitioned into independent layers for user interface, middle-tier business logic and data access. This provides flexibility and modularity so that applications can be easily adapted to changing requirements and varied customer configurations.
Reusable Components – Most of the business logic is encapsulated into reusable .NET components. These components can be transparently distributed across middle-tier servers on a network.
Scalability - Middle-tier business components are run within the .Net Framework, which provides seamless support for distributed database transactions, and thread/resource pooling for servicing thousands of concurrent users.
Support for Standards - The architecture is built on standard languages such as VB.Net, HTML, JavaScript, Flash MX and Dynamic HTML. In addition, other standards fully supported include SSL, HTTP and SQL.
Integration with the IAP
Interneer’s IAP provides a standard interface for integrating back office systems. Standard interfaces exist for importing information, such as employee data,from HR systems into the platform. Likewise, standard interfaces exist forexporting information, such as labor hours information, into payroll systems.The IAP incorporates business logic, web services and XML which advance the speed of deployment and dramatically reduce any integration effort. This infrastructure allows for system-to-system communication through reliable access to existing data and systems. In addition, the IAP’s Application Programming Interface (API) Tool Set exposes a set of functions that enable other systems to query and update information in the IAP. This capability allows your IT group to perform seamless integration with other non-IAP-built systems or applications. For example, you can access data using APIs in your existing Order Entry System or for Data Warehouse purposes. Your IT group can virtually use any programming language to interface with IAP XML and SOAP-based Web Services. The IAP also allows for the end user to configure business logic within the IAP that will use web services or XML to not only access this information but retrieve, search or copy this data into the current application being configured. For example, a software developer can retrieve data from Oracle, and then pass the data to the IAP via a web service using XML. Within the IAP, the administrative user can then decide what to do with the data (e.g. display it in a report, add it to a table, etc.). This user can also pass additional data back to Oracle. This process does not require any programming by the end user.
The data is returned to Oracle as XML via the web service. The Oracle software developer can then process the output data, such as adding it to an Oracle database. Additionally, the API Tool Set allows you to import and export data to and from Excel files; automatically kick off third-party client-side application via a macro, and integrate files in Microsoft Project into the IAP’s workflow.
The API Tool Set also includes comprehensive technical documentation and sample code to expedite integration.