PAS software solutions use Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) with all the main components separated via web services. This means that the software is quick and easy to integrate with other systems and multiple deployment options can be supported.
The system is an n-tiered solution, developed natively using Microsoft VB.NET and ASP.NET, for deployment under the Microsoft .NET framework, under Microsoft Windows and MS Internet Information Services (IIS).
The core Calculation Engine uses XML natively for its internal data structures, and uses a proprietary XML schema to dictate the structure of both incoming data and outgoing results. The functionality of the core calculation engine is exposed via stateless .NET web services using SOAP over HTTP or HTTPS.
The use of stateless web services allows for a high degree of flexibility and interoperability in the integration with other systems. It also provides both a significant degree of flexibility and scalability once deployed. Typically the software is deployed on a dedicated high-end cluster of multi-processor servers, behind a hardware based load-balancer to distribute load evenly.
In addition to the core engine, we provide optional additional modules including:
- Web user interfaces - we provide customisation and bespoking to various levels, from the use of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to fully bespoke pages designed to meet a client's specific requirements. Typically this will be integrated with a client's own website or portal, providing single-sign-on and data pre-population.
- Orchestration - we provide an optional middle tier that typically provides security, routing, logging and configuration management capability.
- Document Generation - in addition to returning raw XML results data, we can provide a document generation component whereby data is formatted and presented in documents generated as PDFs.
- Database - we provide an optional data store that can be employed as storage or caching of reference or/ configuration data. It can also store calculation results, documents, and audit or management information.
This separation of the core components allows us to build solutions that can be deployed as
- Web Services Returning Results
- Web Services Returning Reports
- Web UI producing Reports
