Web and Intranet Development
Web and intranet software solutions are the most flexible software mix that any enterprise can employ today. Applications are distributed in real time to any computer system conected to the internet that you allow. Whilst the data is controlled at a central location. This thin client model is the most popular way to release new software.
The web allows for customers or suppliers to directly communicate with your business, whilst maintaining a consistent interface and centralized data. Intranets allow for centralized software and data deployment, which enable your team to operate from any location they have access to your network.
Web access can be found now on many devices beyond that of the standard desktop computer system; from handhelds, and mobile phones to digital TV. Poised Solutions can produce solutions to work on a multitude of devices.
Poised Solutions offers the following bespoke web and intranet solutions:
- Ecommerce websites.
- Presence websites.
- Interactive marketing driven websites.
- Customer relations websites.
- Accounting intranets.
- Business intelligent intranets
- Procurement extranets.
- System control panels.
If you are interested in hiring Poised Solutions for the analysis, design, project management or development of any of these websites or intranets, please get in contact, via the contact page.
Website and Intranet Model
The website and intranet model is fairly standard :
The two major sections of the Web model are the Client and Server side.
The client side is primarily involved with the interface given to the user. The server side involves processing any data and delivering the interface to the client side.
Client Side
The client side is a browser of some sort, for example the piece of software that you are using to view this page in.
The three main conponents of the client side are:
HTML is a markup language, its purpose is to carry the content of the website, the text and any structure associated with the page. XHTML is derived from XML (HTML from SGML), XML techniques can be applied to XHTML where necessary.
CSS is designed to add style to a page, and it makes it easier to change the look and feel of a entire site by changing just a few declarations.
JavaScript is an embedded scripting language, and it allows for programs (logic) to be run client side. JavaScript has been evolving well; and now a lot of preprocessing can occur client side, it allows for distributed processing as well, along with animation techniques.
There are a couple more client side elements, though their use can reduce site compatibilty.
The Java Applet is used when more powerful processing has to be done client side. The Java Applet can create a sandbox on the client system and run nearly full java based applications.
ActiveX is another offering to the Applet pool, though security is often lax under this technology so is perhaps better suited for Intranet solutions.
Flash allows for scalable vector animation, and also includes a processing environment.
Poised Solutions firmly covers the core three client side technologies; HTML, CSS, and Javascript, though we can develop for the others as well if the need arises.
If you wish to hire Poised Solutions to build your client side website or intranet, please get in contact, via the contact page.
Server Side
The server is the host(s) that you control to deliver the client side data to the client, and to process any returned data or generated data.
The server side is split into three main areas Web Server, Application and Database, though unlike the client side the technologies used here are varied.
Web Server
The web server is primarily there to take requests from the client side and deliver data to the client.
Poised Solutions tends to advocate Apache or Lighttpd, though IIS and Netscape Enterprise Server could also be deployed.
Poised Solutions deploys the following web servers:
Application Server
The application server could be a number of things, and it could support a number of languages.
CGI (Common Gateway Interface) is a one shot application server and tends to carry a high overhead per connection as the program is called every time. Nearly any language can be used by CGI though. Perl is quite common here, as well shell scripting languages. The Linux and BSD kernels tend to cache files in memory, so CGI can be quite nippy for applications with a fast startup, and small C programs can take advantage of this situation.
Apache supports the loading of code into its environment, often via the use of modules. ModPHP, ModPerl and ModPython are examples of an application server embedded in the Apache server. This approach is great for most sites, with response times being fast, though a degree of flexibility is lost, and stability can also be compromised.
The use of a real application server such as Python's Webware or Zope, IBM's Websphere or Perl's OpenInteract, amongst others, this approach offers a good degree of flexibilty and performance.
Requests are sent to the application server, typically over a network link (pipes can be used for local installs to speed up any latency this introduces). The main benefit comes in keeping the code separate from the web server and the ability to scale both the web server and the application server independantly. Sites expecting to grow quickly to a large userbase or do heavy computations would be advised to go down the route of application server.
Poised Solutions offers development on the following web application servers:
An application server will tend to use a specific programming language to extend it, quite often though not necessarily the same language used to implement the application server.
Poised Solutions develops server side code in the following languages:
Where performance is critical, code can also be developed in the following languages:
Typically a templating language will be used in conjunction with the server side application to allow the client side data creation to be done in a flexible logical manner. Component reuse is the main advantage, and much like the use of CSS allows for site wide changes from one location, so does the use of templating.
Poised Solutions can develop code in the following templating languages:
Templating languages are simple to pick up, so if you have requirements for another templating language, we would be happy to discuss that with you.
Database
Most web sites, and definitely intranets, are data driven. Web server logs aside, you will often wish to allow people to register and input data that you want to store, so they can retrieve it later or perhaps for others to access via the site.
A simple datastore is in essence a file, and most databases are in fact just a file, how that file is structured and the systems around that file are what make a database.
Sometime a simple flat file storage mechanism can be used, when data becomes more important though a database can be employed to handle the data in various ways.
The web has embraced RDBMS (Relational Database Management Systems) and the accompanying SQL (Structued Query Language), though if a solution is more suited to LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) then this too can be implemented.
The RDBMS databases that Poised Solutions implements on are:
PostgreSQL is a good standards compliant database with excellent performance. The command line ide is excellent, this alone makes working in a PostgreSQL evironment safe, and fast.
MySQL has gained favour over the years. Its database engine can be altered to suit a particular database's needs.
Oracle is perhaps the most widespread commercial database, performance and stability is good and of course the Oracle name itself carries some weight.
Sybase is another commercial database, tending to be cheaper to purchase than Oracle, performance and stability again is good, the Sybase name is perhaps less well known than Oracle though.
SQL is the common thread between these databases, and as long as standard SQL is used, migrating between these databases using the same SQL code is fairly straightforward. Though of course each have their own optimizations which can lead to a degree of incompatibilty.
With SQL being fairly standard Poised Solutions is happy to write SQL for any SQL compliant database if that solution would make more sense for the client.
Poised Solutions is happy to work with both large corporations and dynamic startups on their websites or intranets. If you are interested, please get in contact, via the contact page.
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