Community Server Architecture

Built on top of the object-oriented Microsoft .NET 2.0 platform, Community Server receives all the advantages of native compiled code and can run on either 32-bit or 64-bit Windows operating systems.

Our proven social software has been built from the ground up to take advantage of the core capabilities of the Microsoft .NET platform. As an application, Community Server is organized around 3 logical tiers:

Presentation Layer

Community Server's presentation layer provides all the rendering of Community Server functionality into HTML (and other markup) that can be rendered in and tested with all major Web browsers. Our innovative approach to your presentation layer abstracts all functional aspects of the applications out of the presentation layer, which enables developers and designers to easily match the presentation to the goal of their online brand presence.

Business Logic and Core Services

The Business Logic and Core Services layer of the Community Server architecture stack includes an abstract data access API, over 75 different business logic components, an event pipeline for plugging in custom business logic, and a set of background services for operating tasks outside of the processes serving active requests. Organizations that truly wish to "go to the metal" can interact with the Business Logic layer of Community Server to call directly into the application or plug into many of the events for handling scenarios not already supported by Community Server.

However, the preferred way of extending Community Server is through the new Developer API (detailed below).

Repository Tier and Data Storage

Through the data access API, the core services connect to the data repository through a well-defined set of database calls. This tier enables you to extend the Community Server platform or make it better fit your unique business needs!

Key Extensibility Points

• With an open and published API, available source code, and an event-driven pipleline, there are a variety of ways to extend Community Server to help implement, market, and manage your collaborative social networks.
• The user interface can be extended and customized without any recompilation to the code, and new user interface elements can easily be added.
• The core services business logic can be extended through pluggable modules that can participate in the processing of any request.
• The user authentication system also supports a pluggable single sign-on (SSO) for Windows Active Directory, Microsoft ASP.NET, Microsoft Passport, and Custom for any other SSO systems.
• Complete Web services (REST) API for building applications on top of Community Server or integrating with your existing systems.

Developer API

In Community Server 2008, we placed a lot of emphasis on providing developers an extensible API for building on top of the Community Server platform.  This Web services (REST) API provides full access to all Community Server applications and administrative tasks. Furthermore, Community Server 2008 ships with a .NET proxy DLL that can be easily added to any Microsoft .NET application to enable developers to use the Community Server Web services API without any knowledge of the Web services themselves. This proxy DLL wraps all the functionality of the Web services API into a single point of access for developers.

Using this extensible API, Community Server developers can build rich interaction between their community and their own applications. For example, it is now very easy to include discussions or comments on virtually any content. Because this Web services API was built using a RESTful approach, it is also a programming model familiar to developers using other platform such as Java, PHP, and RAILS.

SOFTWARE & HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS

For optimal performance of Community Server, we recommend:

Additional recommendations:

• Clustered Web Application Servers – 3 or more clustered servers for uninterrupted request servicing
• Dedicated Enterprise Search Server – moves search off the database onto a dedicated search server, which is queried via Web services APIs
• Web Application Server Configuration – a 32-bit dual-processor, hyper-threaded CPUs, 2-4 GB of memory
• Database Server Configuration – a 64-bit dual-processor, hyper-threaded CPUs, 2-4 GB of memory, 15K RPM spindles with separate controllers for system, data, and log files
• Back-up Recommendation – All data within Community Server resides within the database. We recommend continuous incremental back-ups throughout the day and full back-ups once a day

Simple enough? We agree. Get Community Server TODAY!