Whenever I design complex systems I tend to design the system responsibilities first. Each system component should have a clear and easy-to-understand responsibility that can be explained to my colleagues in a maximum time of three minutes. If this simple test fails the system design is still mangled up and needs to be clarified.
Today we will have a look at the AxCMS.net 9.0 landscape to check the responsibility design behind.
The Big Picture
The AxCMS.net 9.0 composes two main parts: The Management System at the one hand and the so called Live System at the other. The Management System is the system element in which the system editors do their work: They compose web pages, they upload images or other binary data, they put pages ond objects into categories or simply create textual content. Things editors normaly to.
To fulfill their task the editors normally make use of a silverlight 3.0 capable web browser. If the Management System is configured to use WebDav then images and binary data can be also handled via the windows explorer. Additionally the Management System offers interfaces to the Microsoft WSS WebService. This way you can directly interact with Microsoft Sharepoint based data. If the Management System is set up to run in an Active Directory based environment it is also possible to use AD based single sign on mechanisms which user and group based rights management.
To sum up you could say that the Management System is the editors interface to the AxCMS.net 9.0. Saying that you should then say that the Live System is the end users interface to the AxCMS.net 9.0. All the things that the system editors prepared for their end users will be presented via the Live System.
Mind the Gap
This seperation of Management and Live System is done for a very good reason: Your company might be very modern and your company truely respects the freedom of speech in any given way. But you certainly don´t want to find this free speech on your companies website.
So normally you will want your editors to work in a very secure and reliable environment. Is most cases this environment is your companies LAN. Your web application on the other hand will not reside in that environment as it should present itself to all the people out there. That is why the AxCMS.net 9.0 enables you to run the system element responsible for editors work in an environment separated from the element that is responsible for presenting stuff to the rest of the world.
Both systems work with their own databases and their own configuration environment. In fact, the Live System is totally unaware of the Management Systems existence.
Borderland
The data transition between the Management System and the Live System is provided by the Publish Service. The Publish Service uses Microsoft .Net web services as interfaces to the individual transition parts: While the UserWebService provides an interface to query for live user data the PublishWebService is responsible for everything that includes publishing editors work to the live system.
The Publish Service is designed as a one way service: the communication flow is directed from the secure environment to the unsecure environment. The communication towards the Publish Service can be secured in several ways: Since it will be used only by the Management Systemit only needs to accept incoming traffic from that source. Additionally any communication can be secured via Microsoft Web Service Enhancements, that provide a transparent user / password based session handling. Furthermore, you can secure the communication channel using SSL encryption.
While you were Sleeping
The last element I want to talk abount today is the AxCMS.Service. The AxCMS.Service is a task controlled service daemon that is responsible for every asynchronous background activity in the AxCMS.net landscape. Examples include the the creation of search indices, mass mailing (via the MailCenterWebService) or the creation of the visual page history.
As we are speaking of two separated systems, the AxCMS.Service can und should be installed on every single instance inside the AxCMS.net landscape.
Putting it All Together
To summarize the things said so far, we could easily distinguish the system elements responsibilities:
- Management System
Provides an highly secure interface to the AxCMS.net 9.0 and the web solutions build upon. The interface is to be used by the editor to create the web solutions content and structure.
- Live System
Provides the end user interface to the AxCMS.net 9.0 including the content and structure published by the editors
- Publish Service
Provides interfaces to securely transmit data from the Management System to the Live System (and back)
- AxCMS.Service
Provides task to fulfill asynchronous background activity
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