DotNetNuke Intranet Portal for MNC’s

5/24/2018 DotNetNuke Intranet Portal for MNC s

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Case Study

DotNetNuke Intranet Portal for MNCs



CLIENT currently has a Sharepoint portal which caters to their needs. But this system is costly and

not intuitive enough to attract CLIENTs end-users to use on daily basis.

The client demanded a DNN portal which can be customized to meet CLIENTs current portal

functionalities and also make it a single access point for all CLIENT users to have their applicationsaccessed through this portal. The DNN portal will have an intuitive design which would appeal to theend-users and users will be able to use this system as part of their day-to-day job for theirimportant activities.

The scope of the project includes:

To provide an excellent portal solution that would be attractive, user-friendly, cost-friendlyand carries all the existing functionalities with ease.

The portal will have different modules catering to the users and these modules will becontrolled via access sites given to the user groups.

Users can sign-in with their AD login credentials. Third party applications will be integrated in such a way that the user will not have to punch

in credentials again and their access will be carried into the modules via the portal itself.

End-users do not need to be tech-savvy in order to use the system. User-friendly controlslike rich text editors and form fields are needed in order to manage the system as well as the

content.

Further maintenance and update of the system needs to be an easier affair and can be madeby any asp.net developer.

Client Requirement

Project ChallengesThe team faced the following challenges:

Developing a portal offering all the features and functionalities with an exclusive focus on theusers day-to-day important activities.

Providing a robust framework for supporting the smooth functioning of the portal accessed bynumber of users simultaneously.

Single-sign On Integration with SAP and Other Third Party Applications Harmonizing the simultaneous execution of various integrated features and options while

maintaining the consistent load balance.

Synchronizing and incorporating web usability principles while developing numerous featuresdesigned for enhancing the users' experience.

Ensuring user privacy and safeguarding their content.



Technologies Used

Manpower

Planning

The following approach was decided in order to meet the clients requirements:

After taking all scenarios and requirements into consideration and looking at the cost factor,the Brainvire team decided to implement DotNetNuke (DNN) for allowing client to manage

portal content.

A new intuitive dashboard design and site overhaul was done in order to attract its end-users and also give them clear visibility on important areas.

A 3-tier architecture approach was decided as the same is used by DNN.

Operating System &

Server Management

Windows OS, Multi -Server Architecture with Staging & Production

Environment through Version Controlling releases, Server

Optimization, Secur ity & SSLImplementation, Scheduler for Back-ups,Alert Monitor ing System Integration, Server Perf ormance Tuni ng at

regular intervals, Software F irewall Configuration & M aintenance

Development Tools &

Environments

.Net F ramework, DNN, Visual Studio, ASP.NET, C#, SSRS, AJAX,

HTML , CSS, JavaScript etc.

Database MSSQL Database Server, DB Clusteri ng, DB Optimization, Master

SlaveReplication, Query Optimization, Scheduler for Backups

Project Leader 1Developers 4

Designers 1

Quality Assurance Testers 1



Architecture

We used a 3-tier architecture which includes Presentation Layer (PL), Business Access Layer(BAL) and Data Access Layer (DAL).

BAL: Business Access Layer contains the business logics, validations related to data.

DAL: Data Access Layer contains MSSQL Server Database, Tables, Stored Procedures and so on.It also helps Business Layer to connect the data and perform required action by returning data ormanipulating data (insert, delete, update).

PL: Presentation Layer contains .asp or html where data is presented to the user and inputs are

taken from the user.

Note here that the presentation layer has no direct communication with the data access layer - itcan only talk to the business layer.

The cycle of requests and their associated responses can be shown in the form of a simplediagram:

The Presentation layer requires skills such as HTML, CSS and possibly JavaScript, plus UIdesign.

The Business layer requires skills in a programming language so that business rules can beprocessed by a computer.

The Data Access layer requires SQL skills in the form of Data Definition Language (DDL) andData Manipulation Language (DML), plus database design.



The main advantages of the 3-Tier Architecture are:

Flexibility - By separating the business logic of an application from its presentation logic, 3-Tier architecture makes the application much more flexible to changes.

Maintainability - Changes to the components in one layer have no effect on any otherslayers. Also, different layers require different skills (such as HTML/CSS is the presentation

layer, PHP/Java in the business layer, SQL in the data access layer) so these can be

managed by independent teams with skills in those specific areas.

Reusability - Separating the application into multiple layers makes it easier to implement re-usable components. A single component in the business layer, for example, may be

accessed by multiple components in the presentation layer or even by several different

presentation layers (such as desktop and the web) at the same time.

Scalability - 3-Tier architecture allows distribution of application components across multipleservers thus making the system much more scalable.

Reliability - 3-Tier architecture, if deployed on multiple servers, makes it easier to increasereliability of a system by implementing multiple levels of redundancy.

Development Highlights

Using DNN the development was done very quickly and efficiently. DNN provided the basemodules and their functions which were easy to deploy with all basic functions running

flawlessly.

The developed application provided the client with a system capable of handling all the dataand with ease of access for everyone.

The detailed requirement gathering was done that helped setting up a well-designed systemwith all the modules integrated into it along with the control over user access.

The web usability guidelines were strictly followed during development and the interfacewas made easily navigable through judicious use of AJAX, CSS and HTML controls. The site

was developed and fully functional within a span of 6 months.

The clients ASP.Net based legacy systems were integrated with the DNN portal whichallowed users to log into the second application without having to enter credentials again as

the application passed the session to other systems.

Portal was made with a responsive layout which worked as well on tablets and smart phonesand other handheld devices.

Documents

DotNetNuke Intranet Portal for MNC’s