PRODUCTS

NetMesh InfoGrid

NetMesh InfoGrid is the commercial, enterprise version of the open-source InfoGrid next-generation web application platform.

Today's mainstream web application platforms like Java Enterprise Edition (JEE) were constructed a decade ago for a Web 1.0 world. However, the world has moved on, and enterprises face many new requirements that are not addressed by traditional technologies such as JEE. For example:

Traditional (Web 1.0)	Today
A single database can meet all storage needs of a web application.	Performance or scalability requirements cannot be met by a single database. However, absent a platform such as InfoGrid, alternatives such as database sharding or the use of grid storage are too complex or expensive for many enterprises.
Web applications are standalone or consume data only from a small number of well-defined systems inside the enterprise whose upgrades are managed together.	Web applications are always connected to other applications. They consume data from many sources, including the public internet using formats such as RSS or OpenID. The formats and protocols to access those data sources change rapidly. Much data is consumed from sources outside of the control of the enterprise, which requires a agile change strategy. InfoGrid's Probe Framework makes connecting to outside data sources simple.
Application data is relatively static with a slowly-evolving schema.	Application data is complex, dynamic, and changing rapidly. Schema additions are frequent, particularly as the application is connect to more and more outside data sources. InfoGrid's Model-Driven Development, code generator and meta-data-driven type system enables developers to rapidly adapt.
Security requirements for the application are moderate, e.g. because the application is only used by a small number of users and attacks were (comparatively) simplistic.	A global, multi-billion dollar electronic fraud industry is investing serious money compromising web applications with ever-more sophisticated attacks. At the same time, applications are harder to protect because they have many more users, often outside of the firewall, and because they interchange information with so many other applications. InfoGrid's model-driven approach to security in the data layer, combined with a REST-ful design, makes securing applications simpler.

To address these requirements, InfoGrid adds many new capabilities to the standard JEE enterprise Java software stack. This is shown in the following diagram:

The major differences are:

On the database layer, InfoGrid enables developers to choose a traditional relational database, of an information grid for storage, with the same application programming interface (API). This enables developers to build an application once, and deploy it in a grid environment later.
InfoGrid performs much heavy lifting in a new software layer between the JEE application and the JEE server (such as Tomcat). Among other things, this enables developers to easily and securely reach out to data sources on the private or public internet and incorporate information from there in their web application.

As a result, developers chosing to build their web applications on InfoGrid can accomplish the following business goals:

faster development of modern web applications
higher application quality
higher deployment flexibility
lower development cost

To learn how InfoGrid can help your organization, please contact NetMesh.