innomatic platform architecture overview

The platform for multi-tenant web applications

Innomatic Platform Architecture Overview

Understanding the Innomatic Platform & the Innomatic Ecosystem

What is Innomatic Platform

Innomatic Platform is an Open Source development and management platform useful for programmers and

system administrators to quickly create various kinds of modular applications based on web technologies and

to make them rapidly available to customers drastically reducing installation, update and management times.

It's not a framework such as Symfony or Zend Framework: unlike these last two, Innomatic is a platform made to

create, manage and distribute multi-tenant applications in web technology and enable them for multiple

customers contemporarily from a single system.

It contains several frameworks and many architectures can be installed upon it: applications can be created in

different ways assembling various frameworks, components and finished products.

A couple of examples of applications you can create with Innomatic

Innomatic Platform is especially suited for building and operating SaaS systems and products.

A couple of examples of applications you can create:

• Backoffice applications (e.g. business processes), that are integrated with other systems

• Open to the public front end applications

• Intranet / extranet applications

• Mobile applications that are integrated with the platform

• Internet of Things devices

Backoffice applications: an example

Front end applications: an example

Native mobile applications: an example

The main type of companies that use the Innomatic platform

The main type of companies that use the Innomatic platform:

• Structured Companies: to create internal applications

• SME: Use ready made applications available on the Innomatic Market and/or Innomatic Cloud and custom

made Innomatic Partner applications.

• SaaS Service Providers: to manage and enable applications for multiple customers simultaneously

• Web Agencies: to create custom web applications

• System Integrators: to create custom business applications

• Software Houses: to build standard software products, that will be distributed through their own channels,

Innomatic Market or Innomatic Cloud

Web Agencies, System Integrators and Software Houses can become Innomatic Partners.

Several frameworks and standards built into Innomatic

• A kit to make administrative panels based on MVC and evolved and extendable widgets usable in back

office applications

• A system to create multi-tenant applications with single-tenant databases, managing multiple instances

for the single client with a single installation of the platform.

• An application management system to:

• package them, describing them in an xml file as a set of extendable components of various types

• install them in the platform, with version and packet dependency management

• enable them on single customer instances with a single operation

• update them with a single operation automatically on all the customers instances

• distribute them through a web service(Innomatic Market) without the need to install files by hand

• Much more: architectural best practices, web services kits, several specialized mini-frameworks, etc.

Innomatic Platform Enterprise Edition and SaaS Edition

Innomatic can be set up in two different modes:

Innomatic Platform Enterprise EditionThe platform will be dedicated to a single client, for example to his systems (Internal IT, server outsourcing).

Some benefits: simplified deployment, single back office for all applications, access to AppCentral / Innomatic

Market, etc.

Innomatic Platform SaaS EditionThe platform will be used by those that supply applications in SaaS mode, centralizing the management of

multiple applications and customers in a single system.

Some benefits: centralized application management, multiple domain/tenant management (customers),

modularity, speed, single back office interface, operation automation, etc.

Innomatic Platform IDE

The Innomatic Platform IDE is a set of Innomatic Platform applications and development tools that simplify and

speed up development.

Some current tools:

• process debugger

• profiler

• log analyzer

• software copy protection system

• AppCentral server connector

• Innomatic project skeleton with vagrant support and chef recipes

Innomatic Mobile

Innomatic Mobile is a framework for creating native iOS and Android applications that communicate with Innomatic Platform, writing the code just once.

Innomatic Mobile applications are written in Python by means of the kivy framework, a multi platform framework that builds native user interfaces.

Innomatic Mobile embeds a series of ready made features, such as an offline/online synchronization layer, error logging, etc.

As a secondary benefit, applications written with Innomatic Mobile can work on desktop computers without changing a line of code.

Innomatic IoT (Internet of Things)

Innomatic IoT is an hardware based solution that communicates with the Innomatic platform through a predefined protocol, useful for building "Internet of Things" devices.

Thus it is possible to create devices that access server side application logic such as Innomatic applications.

Innomatic Market

Innomatic Market is the Innomatic application marketplace built by Innoteam and its partners and is accessible

to all customers subscribed to an Innomatic Subscription

Applications can be downloaded through the AppCentral system, integrated into Innomatic.

Public access channels and Open Source libraries, external system connectors etc. are present in AppCentral

repositories.

Innomatic Cloud

Innomatic Cloud is a SaaS service supplied by Innoteam, whose mission is to automate companies.

Applications built by Innoteam and its Technology Partners can be found in Innomatic Cloud.

The service is managed by means of Innomatic Platform Saas Edition installations hosted on an Amazon Web Services infrastructure.

Innomatic Platform Architecture

Domains and applications

The Innomatic building blocks are:

Domains

A domain is a "container" (tenant) dedicated to a single client where multiple applications can be enabled.

Innomatic Platform Enterprise Edition allows the management of a single domain, the Saas Edition can manage

an unlimited number of domains.

Applications

Each application contains a set of components and they can be enabled on one or more domains.

When an application gets updated, the platform makes sure that all the domains containing an enabled version of

the application get updated.

Domains

Creating a Domain

Applications

Enabling an application to a domain

Applications, Domains and Domain web apps

Innomatic Platform Framework

Innomatic contains a components based framework suitable for building backoffice and generic applications.

Frontend applications can be developed using specialized web application handlers.

Web Application Handler - Generic framework

Web Application Handler - Innomatic Desktop

Integration layer: connectors

An example of a framework layered over Innomatic:Innomatic Media CMF

Building applications

Environments

Platform support for Develoment / QA / UAT / Production environments.

Process debugging

Process debugging - Runtime and profiler

Bug reporting

Continuous integration / deployment

• Platform support for Unit / Functional Testing

• Platform support for different environments / configurations

• Platform support for testing/ CI platforms

• Deploying an Innomatic application is like uploading a file / using a script / download from AppCentral in the

cloud

• Deploying a generic web app: various methods (rsync, capistrano, git, upload, etc.)

• Centralized distribution through AppCentral repositories

• CI task for packaging Innomatic applications and sending them to AppCentral repositories

• stable / unstable / nightly build AppCentral repositories

• automatic application update for all domains

Distributing applications

Distributing applications: direct installation inside Innomatic

Installing an application inside Innomatic

Dependencies

Distributing applications: through AppCentral repositories (e.g. Innomatic Market)

Installing an application with AppCentral

Multiple application versions from AppCentral

Distributing applications: through an Innomatic based SaaS platform (e.g. Innomatic Cloud)

Protecting code with Innomatic IDE KeyMaster

Developers can protect their code and control its distribution by means of an encryption system and distribution of authorization keys; the uploading and decryption parts are integrated into Innomatic.

Innomatic IDE KeyMaster is an Innomatic application that uses a code encryption library and generated keys to unblock it.

One is expected to separately buy an ionCube encoder license: http://www.ioncube.com/sa_encoder.php?page=pricing

The keys can optionally define:● limit date: if the key isn't updated within the due date,

the application will stop working● domain limit: maximum number of domains

(customers) where one can enable the application● user limit maximum number of users per domain● version: maximum version covered by the key● IP / range: code execution only on a certain ip/ip range● password: password necessary to install the key

Innomatic Platform is available at GitHub: https://github.com/innoteam/innomatic

Project web site:http://www.innomatic.org

Innoteam web site:http://www.innoteam.it