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White Paper IFS Applications 8 Architecture and Technology
White Paper IFS Applications 8 Architecture and Technology
IFS APPLICATIONS 8
ARCHITECTURE AND
TECHNOLOGY
Content
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.................................................................................................. 1
APPLICATION FOCUS.................................................................................................... 2
BUILDING FOR CHANGE................................................................................................ 2
IFS FOUNDATION1....................................................................................................... 3
IFS SERVICE-ORIENTED COMPONENT ARCHITECTURE................................................... 4
USER EXPERIENCE....................................................................................................... 6
INTEGRATION, WEB SERVICES.................................................................................... 10
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE........................................................................................... 13
SECURITY................................................................................................................... 15
TOOLS.........................................................................................................................17
SIZING AND SCALABILITY........................................................................................... 20
About IFS ................................................................................................................ 22
IFS APPLICATIONS
8 ARCHITECTURE AND TECHNOLOGY
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Technology can be used to achieve competitive advantage, streamline customer
service and increase efficiency and profitability. However technology can also create
pitfalls such as vendor lock-in, overly complex system integrations, and escalating
costs. IFS develops the technology and architecture in IFS Applications for agility,
ease of use, low total cost of ownership, and interoperability with other applications
and technologies.
IFS Applications is built up of components, each of which provides business
functionality and integrate with the other installed components. This allows change
and evolution within a component without affecting other components. With a proven
track record of building for change, IFS provides step-by-step, non-disruptive introduction of new technologies into operational systems. This ensures that a companys
business will always benefit from the latest advancements.
IFS openness and commitment to standards protects investments from vendor
lock-in. IFS Applications supports Microsoft , Oracle, and IBM technologies
alongside Linux, JBoss and other open source technologies to enable companies to
use market competition to their best advantage.
IFS Service-Oriented Component Architecture combines the agility and ease of
use of service-oriented architectures (SOA) and the proven benefits of components
and object orientation (OO) to create a powerful architecture. Integration with other
applications is supported through XML, web services, Java and .NET technologies.
IFS Enterprise Explorer, web and portal user interfaces are designed to be attractive,
intuitive, efficient, and to suit the particular tasks that users have at hand.
Because business applications are mission-critical to the companies that use
them, IFS pays special attention to product qualities such as security, scalability, and
availability. Security is designed into IFS Applications, and the more secure configuration options are default. All server-side tiers, including database and application
servers, can be clustered for maximum availability.
APPLICATION FOCUS
While IFS prides itself on using leading technology in IFS Applications, IFS is an
application vendor, not a technology vendor. Our focus is not on technologies that
require system integration in order to be applied, but on innovative use within the
context of IFS Applications. Our aim is to build new innovations into our application
so that everyone benefits, not just those who can afford to purchase and integrate
disparate applications and technologies.
An example of this focus is how Google style Enterprise Application Search
(EAS) was introduced into IFS Applications. Rather than developing an independent
search server which would require integration with applications, IFS put the EAS
capability directly in the IFS Applications user interface, with database indexing
and security filtering working out of the box.
IFS FOUNDATION1
IFS Foundation1 is IFS strategic packaged architecture platform for componentbased business applications. Based on open standards such as XML, Java EE and
.NET, it includes the technology and tools to design, develop, deploy, configure,
integrate, and administer IFS Applications.
IFS Foundation1 is also the product family name for all things related to IFS
technology and architecture. IFS Foundation1 includes:
The definition and documentation of IFS Service-Oriented Component
Architecture.
Runtime containersframeworks required to run and manage an IFS
Applications installation. This includes runtimes for business logic, portals, web,
and rich Internet applications.
User interface environment enabling access to IFS Applications from web
browsers, PCs, touch-based devices and more.
Tools and routines to manage the full lifecycle of the applications. From solution
development, through installation and configuration, to administration and use
of IFS Applications.
Common services such as security services, user profiles, change history logging,
event notifications and user collaboration.
Everything in IFS Foundation1from the choice of core technologies to the functionality in the toolsis optimized for the development of large, scalable, high-quality
business applications.
MULTITIER ARCHITECTURE
IFS Service-Oriented Component Architecture is a layered, multitier architecture.
Each tier has its own job to do and does it in a standard way with a clear separation
from, and interface to, other tiers. Each tier has its own software objects. These are
all derived from a common domain model and implemented with technologies to
suit their purpose.
The fully normalized data storage tier is based on the relational database model. This is
the prevalent storage technology for today and the foreseeable future. The database server
is configured so that no data can be accessed or modified except through the business
logic. This guarantees data integrity and prevents back-door modification.
The business logic tier is the heart of the application. It implements business
knowledge, functionality, and processes. This tier is divided into two subtiers.
The application core subtier contains domain model implementation and activitylevel business logic. The services layer contains web services for use by integrations,
clients and process level logic.
The presentation tier provides interaction with human users and client-side
applications and devices. The same business logic serves many different types of
interfaces, such as web browsers, tablets, and PCs. Interfaces in the presentation tier
access the functionality of the business logic tier through access providers.
Each business component contains multiple software components or objects.
Business components interact with each other to perform larger tasks and execute
processes. Communication only happens inside the business logic tier. IFS
Service-Oriented Component Architecture is divided into three main tiers, with
the business logic available through access providers to IFS user interfaces and
custom interfaces.
The Java EE application server runs the services layer business logic, the web/portal
presentation tier, and integration services.
Clients access the business logic through HTTP (or HTTPS using SSL) protocol to
the web server. This allows easy passage through firewalls, proxies, and other network
infrastructure. Port numbers can be configured. Office Business Applications (OBAs),
integrations and custom interfaces access the business logic through the same access
providers as used by IFS Applications clients, and thus use the same protocols.
USER EXPERIENCE
Over the last decade business has continued to become more complex, and with it
the use of, and reliance on, business applications has increased. The size of applications has grown in terms of providing support for new business processes as has the
depth of functionality. To prevent an increase in size from resulting in increased
complexity, an intuitive and efficient user experience is required. With higher rates
of staff turnover, temporary hires, and short-term assignments it is no longer possible
to send staff on days or weeks of training to learn a new application. On the contrary,
a person with the appropriate business skills should be able to walk up and use a
business application with no prior training.
IFSs vision is to provide a user experience that gets users to Love the application.
By working toward this vision we replace user resistance to a new application implementation with user excitement, a difficult transition with fast adoption, and feelings
of contentment after a go live with inspiration to explore and find even more benefits.
As part of this vision IFS follows a set of key design principles:
Design is important. The visual appearance and appeal of the software are
important factors. But design is not just about the visuals; it is also about creating a system interaction that works for what the user wants to do.
Enterprise applications are a lot like the Internet. Both are systems that are too
large for any human to fully comprehend or know in their entirety. Yet on the
Internet most people successfully find the information they seek, and navigate
and use services with ease. IFS has applied familiar search and navigation techniques from the Internet in IFS Applications.
Creating a good user interface requires design processes that are driven by the
task, role, and environment at hand. A good user interface for data entry is different from one for planning or analysis. What works well for engineers in the
office might not work at all for technicians in the field. Relying on a single user
interface technology for all tasks, roles, and purposes is an outdated principle
that does not put the needs of the users first.
For certain tasks, other applications can offer a more effective work environment. In these situations it is more effective to provide access to IFS Applications
functionality and information from within those applications.
Devices with touch-based controls, advanced sensor functionality and that are
small have emerged and become popular in the recent years. IFS Enterprise
Explorer is designed to efficiently be used with touch-based interactions.
Since the 1980s, applications have transitioned from green-screen, through Windows
interfaces, to a combination of Windows, web/portal and touch-based tablet/smartphone clients. This increasing diversity of user interfaces will continue, allowing
more people to use applications in more places and on more occasions, and using
new devices and terminals. IFS Service-Oriented Component Architecture makes it
cost-efficient for IFS to provide a complete set of user interface technologies that
suit different users, tasks, roles, and environments. The openness of the architecture
also makes it easier to create and integrate other interfaces.
LANs, WANs, as well as through the public Internet. For corporate LAN environments additional deployment strategies are possible, including pushing the client to
the users. IFS Enterprise Explorer is developed using .NET and C#, which provide
the best platform for a truly rich user experience as well as a highly productive
development environment.
needs of their users and the way they perform tasks. By more effectively guiding a
user to task completion, an optimized user interface not only reduces training
needs, but can also reduce stress and increase user satisfaction.
IFS Applications can be personalized in three layers: user profiles, configuration,
and code customization.
User profiles hold the working environment preferences for individual users.
Changes are performed by users in real time directly in the applicationwithout the
need for separate and hard-to-use tools. The profile is stored in the database so that
users will always have access to their personalized environment also when roaming
between work PC, home computer, or a borrowed device.
User profiles control the following aspects of the IFS Applications user interface:
Tailor screens by showing, moving, hiding, reordering, resizing fields, columns,
and tabs.
Standardize practice by defining additional fields as mandatory or read only.
Streamline navigation by customizing the navigator, shortcuts, and menus for
process flow navigation.
Simplify screens by hiding menus, commands, fields, columns, and tabs that are
not relevant.
Boost productivity by creating predefined searches and page behavior.
As each user has both a personal profile and a default profile, super-users or administrators can provide a base personalization for a group of users, which they can
then further adjust according to their personal preferences. The rights to modify the
user profile can be turned off entirely, for part of the profile, or enabled only for
some users. User profiles are preserved across upgrades.
Configuration controls system-wide shared behavior. Changes are performed by
administrators using the IFS Solution Manager tool. Examples of what can be
achieved through configuration include:
Define custom attributes on existing entities, for example Last year turnover
on Customer entity.
Define events and event actions, for example to send an e-mail alert when the
status of a contract changes to Signed.
Define menu actions to navigate, order reports, or invoke a process on the server.
Enable generic features such as change history logging and security checkpoints.
Configuration is preserved across upgrades.
Code customization allows the business logic of IFS Applications to be overridden
or extended, making it possible to change any aspect of the behavior. Code customizations are tracked in the IFS Life Cycle Support system, and productivity tools like
the Delta Engine assist with re-application of code customization on upgraded versions of IFS Applications.
INTEGRATED DOCUMENTATION
The web-based documentation and training material is integrated directly in the
application. Users jump straight to the relevant parts of the materials, where process
models and instructions guide them to the best way of using the applications. Links
in the instructions and models take the users to the right places in the application to
perform tasks. Detailed explanations of the content and purpose of any field are
only a mouse click away.
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IFS CONNECT
IFS Connect is IFS own lightweight integration broker, designed for XML and web
services. It provides additional integration value, including:
Content-based routing of inbound and outbound messages in one-to-one and
one-to-many configurations.
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INTERFACE BROWSER
In all integration work, access to technical specifications for services, interfaces and
messages is critical to ensure rapid and successful integration. In particular, for web
services the use of Web Service descriptors (WSDL) to describe service structure
and content is a significant productivity enhancer.
The interface browser is an interactive tool allowing an integrator to browse the
technical API documentation for IFS Applications. It contains listings and search
capability for all IFS Applications core objects, web services, events, IAL objects,
and XML-enabled reports. For each of these, the technical API specification
(function names, syntax, data types, etc.) is presented, with XML, XSD, and WSDL
documents where applicable.
DATA MANAGEMENT
Data management applies in three key scenarios. During initial implementation,
data needs to be migrated from legacy systems. In a heterogeneous environment
with different applications, or different versions of the same application, master data
such as customer information, parts and company chart of accounts often needs to
be in synch. Such master data management might also be useful within an installation
of an application to automate maintenance of master data for multiple companies,
sites etc. IFS Data Migration is designed to support all three scenarios.
Legacy data can be imported from any database table or plain flat files. The
imported data is temporarily put into a loading table where it can be supplemented,
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cleansed, and quality assured as required. From the loading table, data is then
inserted into IFS Applications through the business logicnever directly into tables.
This guarantees the data integrity of IFS Applications and avoids faulty data causing
problems later.
For heterogeneous environments IFS Data Migration can be configured to perform
real-time replication of data between systems. Data mapping gives control over
which parts of data are transferred between systems so that, for example, it is possible
to replicate sales part descriptions, but not prices, or concatenate and split fields if
required. Conditions determine which subset of the data should be replicated.
Data management within an installation is possible since the same installation of
IFS Applications can be both sender and receiver for the same type of data, for
example sending part information in site A and receiving it into site B. When used
for replication within an IFS Applications installation, IFS Data Migration can
bypass the entire integration stack, resulting in very high performance and near
real-time replication of data.
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
IFS Applications has been designed with the belief that business intelligence (BI),
whether it is a basic report or advanced analysis, should be available at the point of
action where decisions are made. Business decisions are not only made in the boardroom based on prepared monthly reportsthey are made by all people in the
organization several times per day. Many decisions are made by users working in
IFS Applications, whereas others are made based on calculations in spreadsheets or
analysis in specialized applications. Some decisions require up-to-the-second realtime data, whereas others can be based on daily, weekly or monthly analysis.
To provide BI at the point of action, IFS follows three key principles:
Information viewing, reporting, analysis, dashboards, KPIs etc. should be available directly, built into the application user experience to provide BI support in
context where and when it is needed.
Organizations should be given a great deal of freedom to determine which information should be in real time, and which should be updated and analyzed
according to a set schedule.
The information architecture should be open, so that information produced in
IFS Applications can easily be accessed and analyzed in 3rd party tools as well.
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c ollects and presents higher level information on equal terms to IFS and 3rd party
BI tools alike.
At the core of the open information architecture are Information Sources and
IAL objects. Information sources present key information on financial performance,
sales, projects and more in the form of star schemas, with facts and dimensions.
IALs are lighter-weight information views that present aggregate transactional data
from IFS Applications for the purposes of reporting, KPI calculations etc. Both
information sources and IALs can be configured to present real-time data for up-tothe-minute reporting, or scheduled to copy a snapshot of the data into a data mart
on regular intervals.
Since information sources and IALs make their information available through
views in the database, any 3rd party reporting or analysis tool that can retrieve data
from an SQL database can use the structure and pre-packaged information. This
makes integration with popular reporting and BI tools easy, and facilitates easy
extraction and transfer of IFS Applications information into an external data warehouse if desired.
BUILT-IN
Providing built-in business intelligence support is about making sure that BI tools
are well integrated into the business process and the overall application user experience. Beyond that it is also about providing users with abilities to perform simple
analysis directly within the application user interface, without needing to switch to
external tools.
Micro-reporting capabilities are built directly into the IFS Applications user
interface. For example, group and sum reports can be created directly in the
application screens. At the push of a button, the information can be transferred to
Microsoft Excel and other applications for further analysis.
More advanced reports are created using the Quick Reports concept. Report
designers can use either plain SQL or Crystal Reports to predefine reports. Users
then select, run, and view those reports directly from within the IFS Applications
user interface.
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The finished reports can be viewed directly or can be stored in IFS Document
Management for more controlled distribution, access, and versioning. In business
processes such as budget planning, write-back is available. This enables users to
create a report on budget data, for example, work with the budget in Excel, and then
write back the new budget revision to IFS Applications.
IFS Business Analytics is built as an add-in to Microsoft Excel. It connects to
IFS Applications servers using the same secure technology of the .NET Access
Provider and HTTP(s) protocol as used by the IFS clients themselves. Connecting
to the servers is optionalfor just viewing published reports, logon is not required.
SECURITY
Business applications contain vast amounts of information that is critical to your
business, and much that is sensitive or secret. Protecting this information from
unauthorized access, tampering, destruction and other malicious behavior remains
imperative.
A decade or two ago, IT security was much about controlling system access and
backing up data to prevent information loss in the event of system failure or physical destruction such as fire. With the growth of local area networks, wide area networks and later the Internet, focus shifted toward network security. Organizations
have since run a tight race against intruders to install firewalls, encryption, virus
scanners, and other technologies to protect corporate networks and resources from
penetration and sabotage.
As networks are becoming more secure, intruders turn their attention to the
applications that run on them. Authorities are also turning up the regulatory pressure
on fraud prevention and accountability. Legislation such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act
(SOX) puts a spotlight on the ability of business applications to support segregation
of duties, logging, and non-repudiation.
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IFS Applications is built on the principle of secure by design and secure by default
to prevent application vulnerabilities. Security is enforced at the architecture and
framework levels, minimizing the risk of vulnerabilities being introduced through
the oversight of individual developers. In addition, the Foundation1 platform provides
a rich set of security services and tools for IFS customers to implement appropriate
security practices.
When it comes to network security, IFS firmly believes in the use of widespread and
proven security solutions over home-made security by obscurity technology. IFS also
believes that security concepts and the underlying application architecture must be easy
to understand and consistently implemented to enable organizations to properly con
figure the right security. In IFS Applications security is built innot an afterthought.
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TOOLS
The IFS Foundation1 platform contains tools that support four aspects of an IFS
Applications solution.
Software installation. Initial installation and setup of software, plus subsequent
installation of additional options and software updates.
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Solution configuration. Setup and configuration of services such as web-servicebased integration, event management, history logging, and data replication. May
also involve the production of company-specific report layouts, data migration,
and similar.
Application administration. Regular administration and management including
activities such as user account and profile management, security administration,
log and queue management.
Custom development. Development of custom software or integrations that
access IFS Applications, or of additional components for the application core,
services layer, and presentation layer of IFS Applications.
ADDITIONAL TOOLS
In addition to IFS Solution Manager, there are specific tools for further aspects of
solution configuration, including:
IFS Report Designeran easy-to-use WYSIWYG report designer. It allows the
creation and modification of layouts for order confirmations, invoices, and other
business documents.
IFS Data Migrationthe preferred tool for migrating data from legacy systems
into IFS Applications. IFS Data Migration facilitates data loading and cleansing.
All data are loaded via IFS Applications business logic to ensure the integrity of
the result.
Additional tools such as IFS Business Analytics for Excel-based reporting are
available in modules outside the Foundation1 platform. The open architecture
of IFS Applications also makes it easy to use 3rd party tools for reporting, business
intelligence, integration and more.
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Both tools leverage IFS Applications design models, meta-data, and frameworks to
boost productivity, design reuse, and quality when interacting with IFS
Applications core layer.
Code customization and development requires Foundation1 development licensing.
NETWORK SIZING
With interactive applications such as IFS Applications, WAN latency is a crucial
parameter that affects network sizing because latency directly affects response time,
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and therefore user experience. The table below shows acceptable round-trip latencies
for use of the IFS Applications clients.
Frequent user
Occasional user
200 ms
350 ms
500 ms
900 ms
In addition to latency, performance and response times in user interaction are also
affected by WAN bandwidth.
The figures presented here are approximate guidelines only. More details on the
definition of frequent and occasional users, test methodology, and judgment criteria
are available in IFS Applications Network Sizing Guide.
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About IFS
IFS is a public company (OMX STO: IFS) founded in 1983 that develops,
supplies, and implements IFS Applications, a component-based
extended ERP suite built on SOA technology. IFS focuses on agile
businesses where any of four core processes are strategic: service
& asset management, manufacturing, supply chain and projects.
The company has more than 2,000 customers and is present in
50+ countries with 2,700 employees in total.
More details can be found at www.IFSWORLD.com.
For further information, e-mail to info@ifsworld.com
www.ifsworld.com
This document may contain statements of possible future functionalit y for IFS soft ware products
a n d tec h n o l o gy. S u c h stateme n ts of f u t u re f u n ctio n a l it y are for i n formatio n p u rposes o n ly
a n d s h o u l d n ot b e i n terprete d as a n y commitme n t or represe n tatio n . I F S a n d a l l I F S pro d u ct
n ames are tra d emar k s of I F S . T h e n ames of act u a l compa n ies a n d pro d u cts me n tio n e d h erei n
may b e t h e tra d emar k s of t h eir respecti v e o w n ers .
IFS AB 2012