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We have over a decade of experience developing secure, scalable and entensible
website architectures - and have always followed these basic principles:
- Decouple Presentation, Content and Code
- Use the same interface for managing sites that are used by customers
- Don't force customers to use cookies, javascript or browser add-ons
- Keep your site secure, portable and scalable
gcSite™ is a portable, extensible solution that runs on Linux, Windows™, Mac OS X™ and many other systems.
Examples
This site uses our gcSite™ engine. We regularly switch our site between
Linux/Apache/MySQL and Windows™/IIS/SQL-Server platforms, with no
disruption of service; it runs equally well on most other popular server platforms.
No cookies, javascript or browser plug-ins are required in order to use all the features of this site
Decouple Presentation, Content and Code
This allows your web designers, content developers and engineers to work independently:
- Unifying branding appearance and customer navigation
- Targeting presentation for specific audiences
- Reducing time-to-market for co-branded sites
- Minimizing site down-time, broken features and security holes
- Designers and content developers need not know HTML or how to program
Commonly-used technologies such as PHP/JSP/ASP go against this premise, by combining page layout,
style, content and software logic into a single document - creating bottlenecks between web teams and
increasing the likelihood that a page will break.
gcSite™ encapsulates all presentation (branding, navigation, page layout,
color palettes and styling) in easy-to-use wiki-like templates. All programmatic features
(parameters, logic, dynamic server-side generation, client-side software) are encapuslated within
portable/extensible modules - which are plugged into the templates. All content
(text, images and data independent from presentation) is encapuslated in native storage - databases,
filesystems, external services.
Use the Same Interface
Many sites use a different set of tools for CRM, adminstration and authoring - and none of them
are usually the same interface used by your customers. This tends to insulate your web developers
from the workflow issues encountered by your site visitors/members/customers. Each new external
interface also opens up the potential for additional security holes.
gcSite™ uses a role-based access system. Visitors who are not logged in, will only
have access to view-only public features. Members/Customers who are logged in have access public
and community features that allow them to post messages, customize their profiles, and other
member-only features. Members may be given roles (via an Access Control List) that allow them
to customize/manage their portion of the site or community. Roles may span multiple sites (brands),
or be limited to a section or even to just a single page within a site.
gcSite™ roles are tiered - site admins may delegate roles for areas that they have control over.
For instance, a community admin may give rights to a member to update a Notices page.
All of gcSite™'s authoring, administration, reporting and CRM features use the same
interface/branding as that of your customers. Access is controlled via member roles; use
of certain roles may be restricted to intranet access. This methodology enforces security
that is just as tight for your customer's shopping carts as they are for your CRM
systems.
Cookies, Javascript and Flash
No cookies are required for the operation of gcSite™ features; if enabled, gcSite™
will use cookies to optimize browser capabilities and record server state - but the site will work just fine without them.
Javascript is not required for the operation of gcSite™ features; by default,
all user interface features (such as roll-overs) are supported through Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
If enabled, gcSite™ will use javascript to determine browser capabilities in order to
automatically select templates best suited for the customer's browser.
gcSite™ does not require Flash™ or other browser plug-in technology -
however, gcSite™ will automatically select the correct template for Flash™, VRML
or other plug-ins if such support is detected on the user's browser.
gcSite™ also determines the customer's OS and screen capabilities
(including whether they are using a WAP device),
so that you can select templates to target products/services for their platform.
Security, Portability and Extensibility
gcSite™ supports SSL and uses a proprietary session management system to enforce access
control.
gcSite™ includes a proprietary
3D Captcha
system that is reasonably easy for humans to read, while detering most
automated computer vision systems.
gcSite™ runs on Linux, Windows™, Mac OS X™ and most other common
server operating systems. Both IIS and Apache are supported on Windows™; Apache is supported
on Mac OS X™ and most other Unix-based systems. gcSite™ supports MySQL and
any other DB with an ODBC interface. gcSite™ is so light-weight that it will run
on hand-held devices.
gcSite™ supports class-based n-tier architectures, distributed master/slave
and clustered databases, and remote services (REST/SaaS, SOAP/xmlRPC). All database access is abstracted
to decouple DB administration for sofware engineering, to enhance security, provide DB portability,
and scalability.
Licensing Graphcomp gcSite™
Please contact us
for quotes on licensing and integration services.
gcSite™ is a trademark of Graphcomp.
Windows™ is a tradmark of Microsoft Corporation.
Mac OS X™ is a trademark of Apple Computer Inc.
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