Web Development Projects

Systems Monitoring

Project size:	Over 170,000 lines of code
Platform:	Server: PHP, MySQL, Apache, Linux Client: Delphi, Python
Technologies:	OOP, SOAP, JavaScript, XML, XSLT, XSL-FO, WebDAV, MS Exchange integration

This system was created for a Belgium company and it covers some key areas of their activity:

• Remote monitoring of customers' networks and computers.
• Technical support and issue tracking.
• CRM - Customer Relationship Management.
• Billing and timesheets.

The central system collects detailed information about some hundreds computers from company's customers: software and hardware configuration, antivirus updates, backup status, peripherals, Active Directory information etc. Through customizable monitoring profiles the engineers can define what information they want to collect and specify alerting conditions.

The monitoring agent deployed on each computer receives from the central server instructions about what information to collect and when to report it. It also has an advanced auto-update system, which allows automatic deployment of new versions of the monitoring application, without needing user intervention or computer restart.

A ticketing system is used for providing on-line technical support to customers and for tracking internal issues. Tickets can also be auto-generated by the monitoring system using the alerting rules defined by the engineers.

Custom reports in MS Word and PDF can be dynamically generated directly from the website. Such reports, either for internal or for customer's use, can contain a wide variety of information: data about computers and peripherals, users and resources usage, charts of disk usage, backups and antivirus updates status, intervention reports etc.

The ticketing system also collects information about the type and amount of work done by each engineer for each customer. This information is then processed and exported to the ERP system for customer billing and internal cost management.

The central system was developed using PHP and MySQL, while the monitoring agent was developed in Delphi. XML is used for communication between the central server, the monitoring agents and the ERP system. PDF reports are created using XSLT, XSL-FO and FOP, while MS Word reports generation is done using XSLT and WordML.

Place Authority

This is an application currently developed for an American customer. The goal of the system is to centralize geographical orientated genealogical data for a very large number of locations throughout the world. The initial data is collected from sources like USGS or NGA (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency). It is estimated that once in production it will hold information for over 10,000,000 locations.

The system has two parts: a main system developed in PHP and a Java/Tomcat system for implementing a full-text search engine using the Lucene API (http://lucene.apache.org). The database engine is PostgreSQL. SOAP is used for communication between the modules. There are two main types of interactions: indexing and searching. For indexing, the PHP system will issue indexing commands to the Java server, i.e. for single objects, batches of objects or full re-indexing.

The types of objects to be indexed (places, names variations, historical records etc.) can be easily extended in the PHP system using OOP inheritance. When it receives indexing commands, the Java server will dynamically fetch through SOAP the descriptions of the object types (SQL queries for reading data, fields descriptions and how to index them). Progress status about the indexing processes is accessible on-line from the PHP system. For searching, the PHP system passes the search criteria to the Java server, from which it receives the search results which are then presented to the user.

Since the amount of data to import and process will be quite large, the application will use a custom system of background processes (also in PHP). Just like in the case of indexing, the progress of the background processes can be monitored from the Web interface.

There will be a large number of contributors from all around the world with various levels of access permissions. Therefore the system also implements locking and change control features, allowing all the modifications to be fully traceable. Furthermore, changes made by contributors with lower level access will be subject to review by authorized users. The number of required approvals (or rejection) is customizable depending on the contributor’s access level.

OhanaSoftware.com

E-commerce website developed for an American company selling genealogy-related software applications. The visitors have all the usual features: account management, shopping cart, tracking of purchases. They can choose if they want physical deliveries or on-line downloads, can make purchases as gifts etc.

For the site owner, the administrative interface offers a variety of tools: customers management, tracking of payments and deliveries, newsletters, affiliates and referrals, financial statistics, labels printing and so on.

The list of products is dynamic and fully customizable. For each product the owner can specify the prices and various discounts being offered, the licensing options, the method for generating the unique license codes or how multiple products can be grouped in bundles.

The system is developed with PHP and MySQL using the Smarty templates engine.

DotComBlitz.com

Web-based application developed for an American customer, being sold to website owners who wish to deploy sites for those interested in domain names commerce.

Having a modular structure, the website owners can choose the modules they want to purchase. Once the system is implemented, they have an administrative interface for defining the subscriptions they want to offer, the pricing models, what features will be available for each subscription, manage users and configure site parameters etc.

Some of the features of the system: search for expired or soon to expire domains according, check search engines positioning of domains, monitor domains for availability, "domains basket", names generator, WHOIS tool, search engine submissions and domain names selling.

There is also a central repository of domain names which is used as information source for certain modules in all deployments of DotComBlitz. This database contains couple of million domain names, which are continuously checked for search engine positioning.

Because some of the modules (including the ones in the central repository) work with very large amounts of data, they use a custom multi-process system for parallel processing.

The application was built using PHP, MySQL and the Smarty templates engine. XML-RPC is used for inter-processes communications and for exchanging data between DotComBlitz installations and the central repository.

Improved Teamware Office Web interface

This package contains a number of fixes and enhancements for the Web Interface of Teamware Office versions 5.3 and 5.4: cross-browser compatibiliy fixes, improved tree folders navigation, a threaded view for Forum messages etc.

Starting with version 6.0 these fixes have been included in all standard releases of Teamware Office.

WalkingPaperz

Website offering an original way for people to express their feeling in writing. Visitors can purchase on-line a variety of documents to fill with the content of their choice. The administrative interface contains tools for managing the printing and delivering of the documents.

Discussion Forums and On-line Chat features are also available on the website for those wanting to discuss their problems with others.

Jontash-Investments

Forms processing website created with PHP and Mysql. Visitors interested in selling, purchasing or leasing real estate can submit their information on the website. The site owner has a management interface for contralizing this information and following up the leads.

Joke.ME.uk

Webmail site, built with PHP an Squirrelmail on a Courier-imap / Qmail / Apache / Linux platform.

Some of the features of the site are: self registration, SSL encryption, calendaring functions, spelling and translation etc.