Technology Framework
Click2Community's Java-based software products are designed from the
ground up to be both robust and scalable supporting high volumes of
transactions and traffic. Distributed object technology is the foundation
of our multi-tier architecture. It involves building software components
that can be run on separate servers but still interact to provide business
functionality. Key attributes that distinguish our framework are:
Web Based
Our tools are easy to use and easy to configure, thanks to our multi-tier
architecture, that places business processing logic on the server and
the user interface in a browser. Our application logic is written in
Java (Servlets, Java Server Pages, Enterprise JavaBeans) that provides
maximum flexibility and ensures our software runs on the majority of
platforms. A browser-based client application minimizes the technology
burden (licensing, distribution, administration) that a "heavy client"
would impose. This approach also provides us with the flexibility to
offer access via other devices such as hand-held Personal Digital Assistants
(PDAs).
Web Application Server
A web application server is a sophisticated piece of software that
hosts our distributed software components. Our development and deployment
environment leverages IBM's WebSphere Application Server. It handles
crucial issues such as concurrency, transaction management, resource
management (including database connections), session management, and
fault tolerance. This translates into scalability and performance for
our applications.
Open, Widely Supported Standards
Using technologies such as Java/J2EE and XML provides maximum flexibility
and ensures our software runs on the majority of platforms. It also
avoids "vendor lock-in" allowing us to use best of breed tools.
Java and J2EE
Our solutions are developed in Java for its many strengths that include:
- Portability - A properly written Java program
can be run on multiple platforms - Windows, Unix, Mac or mainframe
- Robustness - Elimination of explicit pointers
and automated "garbage collection" (reclaiming of unused memory) makes
Java less prone to crashes and memory leaks than other languages.
Its design encourages good programming practices.
- Networking - Java was designed with networking
in mind and it has a rich set of classes supporting server-side Internet
programming.
- Broad Support - Java has been embraced by
most vendors and is considered the language of choice for developing
Internet applications.
Java's framework for enterprise computing - J2EE - provides a comprehensive
set of specifications around which scalable business applications can
be built. Most of our application code is developed utilizing IBM's
Visual Age for Java, a powerful development tool that offers tight integration
with our overall development and deployment platform.
Enterprise JavaBeans
Where appropriate, our server-side components are developed as EJB's
(Enterprise JavaBeans). They are based on the Sun specification for
enterprise extensions to the Java language, J2EE. EJB benefits include:
- Wide industry support - will run on any J2EE compliant web application
server
- Transactional in nature, ensures data integrity
- Security
- Facilitates integration with legacy systems - enables web transactions
to participate in the transactions on your enterprise systems
GUI Jackets
We utilize Macromedia's UltraDev, WebSphere Studio and a variety of
multi-media development tools to provide interactive and visually appealing
interfaces to our applications. Our "GUI Jackets" are written in xHTML,
dHTML and Javascript. They are presented in a number of professionally
designed templates in a variety of style and color themes that can complement
your brand strategy or be further customized.
RDBMS
Oracle8i Enterprise Edition provides powerful software for managing
our application data. Oracle's database software is the preferred RDBMS
of choice for e-business applications, on-line transaction processing
applications (OLTP), query-intensive data warehouses, and high capacity
web sites. We utilize Oracle for our production and development databases;
Embarcadero's database administration tools are used for modeling and
administration.
XML
The eXtensible Markup Language has rapidly become the lingua franca
of data interchange and integration. We utilize XML to store system
configuration settings and to exchange data with legacy systems. It
is a language from which other markup languages can be created. With
its companion technology XSLT (eXtensible Stylesheet Language for Transformations)
it can also be used to tailor output to different display devices.
The UML
We utilize the Unified Modeling Language (UML) to define our application
functionality and design. The UML is an industry standard object-oriented
methodology for modeling business processes. Using a variety of written
and diagrammatic representations, it facilitates the identification
of the business objects that underly these processes. Using software
tools such as Rational Rose and Visual Age for Java helps build those
objects.
