INOVA Framework: - Enterprise Information Systems Design, Implementation and Management: Organizational Applications - page 344

and applications developed in the frame-
work among them.
• Scalability . The web portal had to be struc-
tured by modules, so it could grow in size
and capacity based on the demand. There
must exist also the possibility of migrate
the web portal to more powerful platforms
in a small amount of time and price in case
the demand or the new technological ad-
vances suggest to do so.
• Eficiency . The web portal applications
must be able to grow quickly and efficient-
ly. This must be done with a small amount
of time and at the lowest cost possible.
• Friendliness and quality . It must be intui-
tive and attractive for enterprises, and inte-
grate simple and error-free functionalities.
• Computing power . The framework must
support data processing algorithms, and
calculate complex recommendations. The
portal must be able to support several work
sessions of users using the system at the
same time. It must also acknowledge pre-
vious work sessions of the users and cus-
tomize the interface of the portal to that
user.

• Database: MySQL 5.1 (Welling &

Thomson, 2005). We chose this database
because of its characteristics of open source
software, its reliability and its high perfor-
mance. Because of the amount of data we
are going to store in our database is not
projected to grow to high levels, we con-
sidered MySQL was an adequate solution.
Although we had started working with ver-
sion 4.1, the fact that the 5.1 version allows
to execute triggers and procedures decided
us to upgrade to that version.

• Programming languages: HTML, PHP

5.2.5, CSS, Javascript.

• Web based Content Management System.

We decided to use a CMS to help us match
the efficiency requirement, develop the
web portal and simplify the publication
of new web content, allowing content cre-
ators to submit content without requiring
technical knowledge of HTML. Besides,
it helps in the implementation of a model
view controller pattern (MVC) (Gamma et
al, 1993), which facilitates the task of ad-
ministering and managing the web portal.

Chosen CMS: Xaraya

System Architecture

After comparing several CMS, we finally decided
to use Xaraya. Some of the reasons to do so, are
the following:

The mentioned requirements must be met in an
architecture based on open software. After analyz-
ing which were our needs, we decided to use the
following architecture: • Xaraya is an open source framework based

on PostNuke which gives programmers
and designers considerable flexibility. • OS platform: CentOS 5.2. It is an

Enterprise-class Linux Distribution, totally
free, which allows us to have the func-
tionality we need, and ensures us a certain
amount of stability.

• Its modular design allows separating func-

tion from form and content from design
(Yu, 2005). Because of the use of modules,
the scalability of the system is extensive.

• HTTP Server: Apache 2.0. This open-

source HTTP server provides HTTP ser-
vices in a secure and efficient server that
follows the current HTTP standards.

• It uses robust permissions, data manage-

ment, and multilingual systems to dynami-
cally integrate and manage content.

• It follows the WWW standards.