5.3 Considerations

It is suggested that you make the final platform recommendation based on the following considerations:

Platform - Choosing the right platform depends on several other elements. The platform in this context means the operating system and the underlying hardware.
Homogenous/heterogeneous solution - This is closely related to the platform, whether the solution deals with different platforms (heterogeneous) or just one (homogenous).
Availability - Availability is very complex from an architecture standpoint. It is related to the number of systems. The higher the redundancy, the higher the availability; this also means higher costs. It is very important to ensure just the right level of availability; less than required can cause loss of business, more than required can raise the costs.
Performance - Performance has influence on the end user experience and has a significant impact on the business. Users want fast responses, and the system has to perform well, no matter what kind of application is involved.
Security - Security has always been an issue. It depends on the business, and becomes very important for mission-critical applications. Just as with availability, the right level of security has to be found. Security can be very strict or stay at a basic level; this depends on the requirements.

System management

Solutions cannot stand alone without any system management. e-business solutions are moving towards centralized system management, but users still have to deal with multiple tools to manage the system within their solution.

Figure 5-4 on page 71 shows the framework of a complete Pervasive Portal solution and the relationship between the components. The solution supports internal users (intranet) and external users (Internet). For external users, the only component different from those for internal users that have to be addressed is the security represented in the diagram by the Security Layer for external access block. The black captions represent the logical nodes and the white captions represent the product. The blocks below the Notification, Synchronization and Device Manager represent their components .

Figure 5-4: Pervasive Portal solution framework

The diagram shows how the connectivity is provided to the Portal for each type of device. Wireless devices need a wireless gateway, voice devices also need a Voice Server; all the others access the portal directly.