free hit counter code
 
 
 

ENS Architecture

 

The ENS is comprised of a number of components that work together to provide the ENS functionality. These components are designed to work in a distributed, fault-tolerant environment under heavy load while maintaining a high level of interactivity and responsiveness for system users. This section provides an overview of the Kenamea Enterprise Notification System architecture and its various components. It contains the following sections:

  • Architecture Overview
  • ENS Components
  • Clustered ENS Deployments

Architecture Overview

The following figure shows an architecture overview of the ENS.

 

ENS Architecture Diagram

Click to Enlarge Diagram

 

ENS Components

ENS consists of the following components that work together to provide the ENS functionality:

ENS Server

The ENS Server provides the server-side application functionality of the system. It is responsible for maintaining the interface to the notification repository, system metadata, Inbox management, and background system behaviors. The ENS Server is an enterprise application that runs in a J2EE application server environment.

 

Application Services

The ENS Server provides the following application services:

 

Presentation

  

Displays the ENS Inbox to users and the ENS Administration Application
to administrators.

Collaboration

  

Enables users to add and share text annotations, reminders, and attachments to notifications.

Workflow

  

Manages notification states and executes pre-configured user actions.

Administration

  

Provides access to administrative operations via the ENS Administration Application, the ENS Administration Command Line Tool, and data management scripts.

 

 

 

Core Services

The ENS Server provides the following core services:

 

 

Metadata

  

Manages configuration data, user authorizations, schemas for notification types.

Notification

  

Manages notifications, including states, collaboration options, expiration, and other features.

Auditing/Reports

  

Tracks all notification events and activities in an audit table; generates preconfigured reports.

Security

  

Provides access to administrative operations via Authenticates ENS Inbox users and administrators; optionally integrates with external LDAP-based user directories.

Authentication

  

Supports external authentication mechanisms and single sign-on.

EAI

  

Provides integration with external systems via Java adapters and Web services.

Repository Management

  

Manages database storage for notifications, metadata, and system
data.

LDAP

  

Manages users and groups and enables integration with external LDAP-based directories.

 

 

 

ENS Inbox Application

The ENS Inbox is an AJAX application that ENS users access to view and manage their notification items. The Inbox user interface shows a tabular view of notification items, and users can manipulate this view and switch between standard and user-defined views of the inbox items. Individual items can be opened for display and editing. Changes to the user's inbox (new items or updates to existing items) are reflected in the Inbox user interface in real time. The Inbox application requires user authentication, and user changes to the Inbox UI are persisted between sessions. The inbox appears as a list of notification items, each one described by its title, type, status, assignment, and most recent update information. Users can view the details of any notification by double-clicking on its entry in the inbox list.

 

ENS Communications Server

The ENS Communications Server consists of the following components: Connections Processor and Protocol Processor. These components work together to handle traffic between ENS Inbox users and the ENS Server. The ENS Connections Processor handles concurrent connections from ENS Inbox users and routes HTTP traffic to one or more ENS Protocol Processors. In ENS implementations with high numbers of user connections and high volumes of notifications, the ENS Connections Processor can be deployed in a cluster to enhance scalability, throughput, and availability.

The ENS Protocol Processor handles traffic from one or more Communications Processor and manages data to and from the ENS Server via the ENS Java Message Service (JMS) Bus. In ENS implementations with high volumes of notifications, the ENS Protocol Processor can be deployed in a cluster to enhance scalability, throughput, and availability.

 

 

ENS Administration Console

The ENS Administration Application is a Web application that manages the notification types and other metadata used by the system. It is a standard Web application that uses the ENS API to affect changes on the resources used by the system.

 

ENS Message Bus (JMS)

The ENS JMS Message Bus is the communications mechanism that distributes messages internally among the following ENS components:

  • ENS Protocol Processor (PP) and the ENS Server (handling ENS Inbox user requests and responses)
  • ENS Web service (presentation layer) and the ENS Server
  • Java client applications and the ENS Server
  • Java JMS adapters and the ENS Server (for integration with external JMS systems, where the ENS JMS adapter subscribes to JMS topics to which external systems publish events)

 

ENS Repository

The ENS repository stores all data persisted by the ENS, including the notification items, notification types, and per-user metadata. The repository is implemented in a relational database management system and is portable across different database products.

 

 

User Directory

The ENS performs user authentication against a user directory. Optionally, this user directory can be an LDAP-based directory that is external to the ENS—such as an organization’s enterprise directory server. User accounts and group information are stored in the user directory and accessed by ENS Server subcomponents using the light-weight directory access protocol (LDAP).

 

 

Enterprise Application Integration

External systems that create and respond to notification items in the ENS interface with the ENS Server do so through the ENS Java API and Web Services APIs. ENS provides various mechanisms for integrating with back-end enterprise systems via batch mode or real-time events.

  • ENS application programming interfaces (APIs) allow developers to write client applications to programmatically manage ENS notifications.
  • The ENS Web Service API allows client applications to manage ENS notifications using SOAP.
  • The Java Messaging API allows Java clients applications to manage ENS notifications via Java. In addition, ENS supports integration with external systems via the Java Message Service (JMS)—any external system (such as ERP, CRM, or trading systems) that can publish to a JMS topic can submit notifications for the ENS to distribute.

The ENS comes with an usable example RSS (Rich Site Summary / Real Simple Syndication) adapter, which is an implementation of the ENS Java Messaging API.

Do you effectively notify clients and advisors of corporate action events, such as voluntary tenders.....if not how much revenue do you think you're losing?

Do you leverage your operations group to drive productivity?

Do your employees have to go to multiple systems to access critical alerts and notifications?
How does the ENS integrate with source systems?

The ENS utilizes Webservices and Java APIs as well as JMS clients to integrate and interoperate with a client’s existing business applications and back office systems.
What Enterprise Service Bus will ENS interoperate with?
Kenamea has prebuilt proprietary adapters that integrate and interoperate with any message bus, including MQ Series, Tibco, Sonic and JMS.

How does the ENS integrate with Enterprise Portals?
Kenamea supports JSR 168 portlet specifications and can integrate the Inbox in an iFrame.
  ©2006 Scivantage, Inc.