Paul Gibson, System Architect

Paul Gibson, System Architect

Next Generation Platform: InfinityJanuary 2007

Paul Gibson , System Architect Monday 8th October

European Conference | Paul Gibson | Page #2

Blackbaud’s Next Generation Application Platform – Codename Infinity

Agenda

Describe the Infinity Platform

Demonstrate application features built on Infinity



What is Infinity?

State of the art technology platform

Designed and built by Blackbaud

Complimentary to current product offerings

The foundation for Blackbaud applications currently in development



Major Feature Themes

Open Standards, contemporary platform

Scalability and Performance

Security

Web Deployment

Solution Flexibility



Platform Feature Sub-Plots Internationalisation

– Unicode data

– Localisable UI

Good Hosting Citizen– XCopy Deploy server components

– Side-by-side versioning

– Scriptable maintenance tasks

– WebHealth events

Future Proof Architecture– Web 2.0

– RIAs (Rich Internet Applications)

– Gadgets

– Business Intelligence (BI)



What is a Platform? Common Core Architecture

– Web Services

– Security

– Data access

– Configuration management (the production factory of PD)

Common Application Services– Ad-hoc Query

– Security administration

– Batch

– Code tables

– Data entry forms

– User experience (shell)

– Etc.



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Product XBullseye

MS SQL Server 2005

.Net Framework 2.0

ASP.Net

SQL Report Services

Windows Workflow Foundation (V. 2)

Security

Query

Code Tables

Catalog System

Batch

Form Services

ClickOnce Services

Build / Configuration Management

Client Shell

Database Audit

Report Services

Business Processes WebHealth Monitoring

Web Services



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MS SQL Server 2005

.Net Framework 2.0

ASP.Net

SQL Report Services

Windows Workflow Foundation (V. 2)

Security

Query

Code Tables

Catalog System

Batch

Form Services

ClickOnce Services

Build / Configuration Management

Client Shell

Database Audit

Report Services

Business Processes WebHealth Monitoring

Web Services



What we are building on

Microsoft SQL Server 2005– SQL Server Report Services 2005

ASP.Net 2.0– .Net Framework 2.0

– SOAP Web Services

– Visual Studio 2005

– Windows Server 2003 +

– ClickOnce SmartClient



7x Architecture vs. Infinity7x Architecture Infinity

32 bit 64 bit and 32 bit

Client/Server Web Service

Rich Client Smart Client

Client installation footprint 100% web deployed

VB6 (VB98), COM VB 2005, .Net 2.0

SQL Server 2000 and 2005 SQL Server 2005

Single client-side COM API Xml Web-service API, DB API, Shell API, Server API

Object Oriented (OO) Service Oriented (SOA)

Fixed set of extensibility points (attributes, plugins, VBA)

Infinite extensibility!



In 7.X Architecture we rolled a lot of our own technology

SQL Server 2000

Database:

Microsoft

Proprietary

Authentication

Blackbaud

Proprietary

Reports

Blackbaud

Proprietary

Import/Export/Queue

Blackbaud

Proprietary

Misc UI Widgets

Blackbaud

Domain Features

Blackbaud



For Infinity, we leverage the Microsoft Platform where appropriate

SQL Server 2005

Database:

Microsoft

Windows

(Single Sign On)

Authentication

Report Services

Reports

Microsoft

DTS / SSIS

Import/Export/Queue

Microsoft

Platform/Domain Features

Blackbaud

3rd Party

Misc UI Widgets

Infragistics



More Effort on Better Features!

Platform/Domain Features• Platform

• Web endpoints (SOAP, RSS)

• Customisation

• Security

• Scalability

• Usability

• Application

• Specific challenges of not-for-profit organisations for each problem domain

• Details embargoed



Open Standards XML

– SOAP Web Service API

– Extensibility catalogue system

– RSS

SQL– Direct read/write database access

• SSIS/DTS

• Bulk imports

• No limits on the full power of TSQL

.Net Framework– Call web services from other application

– Extend built in services

– Implement custom client-side forms/features hosted in our shell



Scalability and Performance

Designed for Enterprise scale– MS Lab Benchmarks– 1250 users, 10 million gifts

– White Paper available

Significant investment in QA automation– 2300+ Developer Unit tests

– Daily load tests on multi-million record, multi-hundred user simulation

Instrumented for Operations– WMI

– WebHealth monitoring



Security Principle of Least Privilege

No client installation, supports low-rights users

Integrated Windows Authentication (Single Sign On)

Synchronise to NT / Active Directory/LDAP groups Audit Trail

– Implemented at the DB layer

Rich “Feature Level Security” model



Flexibility Role based Security/User experience model

Every page is customisable– “Add a tab to the Constituent record”

– Reorganise built-in features around custom workflow

– Implement new features and integrate with existing workflows

Every feature is “pluggable”– Substitute custom “Delete record after notifying DBA and checking

elaborate business rule” operation for the standard “Delete record”.

– Low-code development of custom KPIs, Lists, Forms, Processes



Demos and Questions?

Paul Gibson, System Architect

Documents

microsoft platform

art technology platform

server componentsside

onmicrosoft sql server

sql server report services

shell api

db api

com apixml webservice