Revolutionizing Data Management: A Digitized Solution with Outsystems Infrastructure! ?? ??
Enterprise Edition Infrastructure

Revolutionizing Data Management: A Digitized Solution with Outsystems Infrastructure! ?? ??

This project highlights the successful development and implementation of a web app in the OutSystems cloud infrastructure platform. The web app addresses the challenges of managing regional supply chain regulatory data with access compliance and automation, effectively transforming manual data entry and updates previously done on Microsoft Word and Excel for multiple languages across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

The project encompassed various stages, starting with designing the app and building the databases, followed by rigorous development, integration, and testing in a development environment. Continuous integration ensured the app's stability and reliability. Finally, the app was deployed in the production environment, making it accessible to end-users.

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The solution developed is a web application built on the OutSystems cloud infrastructure platform with a fully aligned database. This solution addresses the problem of manual data entry and update processes that were previously done in Microsoft Word and Excel for managing regional supply chain regulatory data.

By transforming these manual processes into a digital web application, we have solved several problems:

1. Elimination of Manual Data Entry:?The web app eliminates the need for manual data entry in Word and Excel, which can be time-consuming, error-prone, and inefficient. It provides a more streamlined and automated process for entering and updating regulatory data.

2. Improved Data Accuracy and Integrity:?With the web app, data entry and updates are done digitally, reducing the risk of errors, and ensuring data accuracy and integrity. This is crucial for regulatory compliance and maintaining the quality of supply chain data.

3. Multilingual and Multinational Support:?The web app caters to multiple languages belonging to multiple countries in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. It enables users to input and access regulatory data in their respective languages, accommodating diverse regional requirements.

4. Access Compliance and Security:?The web app ensures access compliance by implementing security features such as access controls, monitoring, and data protection. This addresses the need for secure handling of regulatory data, safeguarding sensitive information from unauthorized access or breaches.

5. Automation and Efficiency:?The digital transformation of manual data entry and update processes brings automation and efficiency to supply chain regulatory data management. Tasks that were previously time-consuming and labor-intensive are now streamlined, saving valuable resources, and improving productivity.

Overall, this web app solution solves the problem of manual data entry, outdated tools, and inefficient processes for managing regional supply chain regulatory data. It provides a centralized, accessible, and secure platform for digitally transforming the way data is handled, ensuring compliance, accuracy, and efficiency in managing regulatory requirements across different languages and countries.

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Overview of Full Medium Platform Structure


Infrastructure Architecture and Deployment Options

The OutSystems architecture is a layered ecosystem that enables developers to build applications fast, build them right, and build them for the future.

The top layer of the architecture includes tools, a repository, builders, processes, and components that simplify challenging aspects of integration. These architecture components help manage the software development life cycle (SDLC).

Underpinning this architecture are services for automating complex change management and architectural review processes, removing repetitive tasks and guesswork involved in application development, security, code generation, and logging. The runtime layer offers the option of deployment either in the OutSystems Cloud or on your systems.

Standard, reliable technologies

OutSystems runs on standard and scalable technology and doesn't need particular runtime engines or interpreters. It takes the visual application models you develop and generates a standard, optimized set of server (.NET) and client components (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) deployable to standard application servers.

With OutSystems, you deploy standard client-server architectures on the OutSystems Cloud, your on-premises servers, or public clouds such as AWS or Azure.

Application deployment is on IIS application servers running Microsoft Windows Server.

Standard relational databases store application data and Platform Server metadata that your applications use. The currently supported database management systems are Microsoft SQL Server, Azure SQL Database, and Oracle. You can also integrate with other databases.

Solution Logic??

In OutSystems, the logic of our applications is implemented through Actions. While developing our applications, I created own custom actions and used the actions to perform job:

OutSystems built-in actions: Actions that are defined by the platform and cannot be modified or inspected. We can use them in our action flows, such as Entity Actions, System Actions, or Role Actions.

Custom actions: The actions that we create to define our business rules, fetch data from the database, run integrations with external systems, among other operations.

Actions that handle System Events: Actions that run at specific moments of the application life cycle, such as when a web session starts or a mobile app resumes. I was able to design the flow of these actions according to our business rules.

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An Example of a Logic Flow Created for Sign-Up Page

Environment architecture??

An OutSystems environment provides all the necessary infrastructure to allow you to develop and deliver applications. The available editions have at least three environments suited for development, test, and production.

An environment includes a fully functional set of components that allow you to:

  • develop visual code and integrations
  • compile and deploy the code
  • access and use the deployed applications in a browser or mobile device simulator

Environment deployment uses several underlying infrastructure components.

  • One or more application servers for the app runtime.
  • A database to store metadata and app data.
  • An OutSystems Platform Server installation.


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Overview of the Environment Architecture

Application Server

Each environment has dedicated application servers running multiple applications. App deployment is on Microsoft IIS and Windows Server.

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Overview of Infrastructure Options

At runtime, virtual directories map onto application domains. Multiple application domains run in a worker process.

Database?You can choose to deploy your environment databases on Microsoft SQL Server, Azure SQL Database, or Oracle. For SQL and Azure databases, you need to configure three catalogs, and for Oracle, three schemas:

  • Platform database
  • Log database
  • Session database

The catalogs or schemas can reside in the same database instance or server. Distinct environments have distinct catalogs or schemas. Non-production environments often share the same database server, so the different schemas help maintain separation between them.

Enterprise Edition Infrastructure

This scenario has a portfolio of departmental and external facing applications with different scaling needs, needing multiple pipelines. The external apps also handle sensitive data with strict policies requiring high availability.

The fundamental differences between the two portfolios require a split into two pipelines. One of the pipelines needs two front ends in Production, the other four front ends. The pipelines may require further scaling in the future. Any specific data access rules execute in one of the pipelines.

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Overview of the Enterprise Edition Infrastructure

For this infrastructure, two pipelines are necessary:

Six database servers:

  • One shared database server or instance with all the catalogs of LifeTime and Development.
  • Two databases for the two test environments of both pipelines.
  • One database server for the Production environment of the pipeline is on the left.
  • Two database servers (primary and replica) for the Production environment of the pipeline on the right

Ten front-end servers:

  • One for LifeTime.
  • One in Development.
  • Two for Test (one for each pipeline).
  • 2 in the Production environment that hosts the departmental applications.
  • Four for the Production environment comprising the mission-critical external facing apps.

Deployment options

OutSystems builds on reliable technologies, and its scalable architecture allows adjustments of infrastructure configurations to your needs. OutSystems supports your infrastructure providers such as AWS and Azure. Application code and data are always under the customer’s control.

In the OutSystems Cloud, managed infrastructure frees developers to focus on developing applications on the OutSystems platform.

Deployment can be in a self-managed infrastructure, your data center, or a public cloud. You manage the runtime application server (IIS), and the operating system in these scenarios.


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Overview of Deployment Options

Have fun, and build on!???

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About me???

Carole Capdeville

Data business lead - Syngenta

1 年

Very interesting article ! I am working on an OutSystems interface development for a specific project, good to know that you have some knowledge about it in case of ??

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