Ideate

The Ideate Framework is purpose-built to accommodate the dynamics of the research enterprise. The light-weight Framework is based on a Service Oriented architectural style.

Instead of hard-coding a solution to a generalized business specification, Ideate deconstructs business requirements into discrete functional components called services, which act as flexible building blocks for assembling applications to suit varied needs. This service paradigm supports far greater customization and adaptability than traditional monolithic development methodologies.

Benefits of Service Orientation

·   The elimination of hard-coded business logic and integration;

·   Repository of re-usable service components;

·   Capacity for dynamic composition enables mass customisation;

·   Allows business to compose process from a palette of infinitely reconfigurable functions;

·   Decomposition of Line-of-Business (LOB) applications facilitates sharing of cross-functional services for composite applications;

·   Extreme loose-coupling for ubiquitous separation of concerns;

·   Ability to evolve services independently allowing non-disruptive incremental improvements.

In Ideate, the only hardcode is the framework itself that enables the filing and execution of processes. Instead of tens of thousands of lines of hopelessly entangled code, Ideate offers the harmony of a well organized library of system resources.

The architecture is straightforward and elegant. System resources – services, rules, process maps, data mart entities, etc – are stored in a virtual file system. Each resource is a discrete component that can be configured individually. The virtual file system provides version control, and features audit history and roll back capabilities. The resources can be readily retrieved by name, type, author, date, etc.  In addition, each application gets a file folder with hotlinks to all of its constituent resources. Individual resources can be shared across multiple applications. An entire application folder can be copied to jump start a new version or a new application.

Ideate’s architecture is optimized for performance as user interactions never invoke more than a handful of small files at any given moment. If a process gets ‘stuck’, the resources involved for that transaction can be isolated quickly, reviewed and repaired, while all other processes continue to run in the background.

This model allows for rapid assembly of highly customized applications from existing ideate resources, while maintaining product support for the underlying Ideate services. Ideate’s componentization of processes and disciplined separation of concerns allows for incremental, non-disruptive change for continuous process improvement.

“…from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful
and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

 Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, 1859

Tags: Features, Flexible