System Architecture

This chapter provides a global overview of the Enterprise architecture, followed by how Web Services fit into the big figure.

3-tier architecture

Enterprise uses a 3-tier architecture:

Users interact with client applications. They can use Content Station, Smart Connection InDesign / InCopy or a web browser running a web application. But also Smart Mover and Smart Connection for InDesign Server as well as third-party systems can act as a client when talking to the application server. All of these clients can request the application server through HTTP to run any of its Web Services. Enterprise Server is the application server and has all business logic to determine which actions are allowed, which triggers other actions, etc. The server connects through a database- independent module to the underlying SQL database and possibly file server to store the binary files.

Application server layers

Zooming into the application server reveals the following layers:

An incoming Web Service request fired from a client arrives at the interface layer. This layer interprets the incoming structure and transforms it into a PHP object structure. The object structure is passed onto the service layer. The actual implementation is done at the business layer. This uses the database layer to transform the object structure into ‘generic’ SQL statements. The DB driver layer is responsible for translating the SQL statements into dedicated SQL for a specific database flavor, such as MySQL, MSSQL or Oracle.

Client applications calling Web Services

Client applications connect to one or many interfaces through which they fire Web Service requests. At the application server, a Web Service comes into action. The following overview shows how that is done.

For example, an InDesign user has created a new document and is about to Check-In the layout. The Smart Connection plug-ins in InDesign are connected to the Enterprise Server through the workflow interface. On the user’s Check-In command, they fire a CreateObjects request through the workflow interface. The server invokes the CreateObjects service to store the layout.