ePublishing is designed with a three-tiered architecture that integrates sophisticated database capabilities with a business rules engine and an easy-to-use, intuitive, user interface. Our approach supports rapid development and implementation, low maintenance costs, high performance, and the flexibility to adapt to the changing needs of your business.
Tier 1 - Database Technologies
The first tier of the architecture – a clean, efficient database schema – is crucial to the functionality of a Web application. We enhance our database architecture through connection pooling, and a proprietary RDBMS Java Bean generator and caching system that substantially increases site flexibility and speed.
The net result for you is increased performance: your website runs faster, searches produce better results, and related content is presented more effectively.
We currently recommend MySQL to publishers for its performance, reliability, and low cost. However, ePublishing is database-independent, allowing us to work with the database of your choice, including Microsoft SQL Server™, Oracle Database™ and others.
Tier 2 - Business Logic
The power behind ePublishing's business logic is the Java programming language. Java offers the advantage of modular development of business objects, making it easier to maintain applications and websites, saving time and money.
J2EE and XSLT allow the database administrator, developer and designer to work in parallel, resulting in a highly reliable site that is easier to maintain and faster to deploy than if developed using traditional HTML templates.
This approach makes it easy to integrate your site with back-office solutions; such as a circulation system, call center, ad server, CRM system, eCommerce solution, merchant bank, fulfillment house or any homegrown in-house solutions.
Another advantage is that modular features can be added without taking the site down, as each feature is independent of the overall site architecture. Other systems make site modification a major time-consuming task. With JX2, you can “re-skin” or change the design elements of an entire site in just a few steps.
Tier 3 - Presentation Layer
The third layer of the ePublishing architecture is the presentation layer or user interface. No matter how robust a Web application may be on the inside, a poor user interface will undermine the success of a site. ePublishing's highly experienced user interface specialists and award-winning design team ensures your site will be intuitive and attractive, and will deliver practical functionality.
The team uses XSLT, a transformation language that converts the XML output from our systems into virtually any format, including HTML for Internet Explorer or Netscape, wireless HTML delivery, WAP, PDF, Excel, Word and plain text.
Multiple formats of documents can be generated easily because the presentation mode is separate from the data source. This is a significant improvement over other production methods, and best achieved through the J2EE/XSLT model. Projects can be completed in half the time with fewer staff.
