Forum OpenACS Q&A: Re: Why use OpenACS

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6: Re: Why use OpenACS (response to 1)
Posted by Talli Somekh on
i also find adding a section like this helps.

talli
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Architectural Components

The OpenACS is built on a completely free and open source foundation. Nolicense fees will be incurred throughout the life of the system. All components, each of which has been tested in extremely high-demand environments, are freely available fordownload from the Internet. These components are:

GNU/Linux – The most well-known open source software system, GNU/Linux is an enterprise class server operating system. It is highly tested, supremely stable and extremely scalable. In addition, it has an enormous base of knowledge and a wealth of qualified users and administrators. GNU/Linux is currently running sites such as Amazon.com, EBay and Orbitz.com.

AOLserver – The middle tier of the OpenACS is the high performance web application server AOLserver. Used by America Online to power the busiest sites on the internet such as AOL.com, Netscape.com, Mapquest.com and Moviefone.com. AOLserver is similar in scope to servers such as BEA Weblogic, IBM's Websphere and Apache's Tomcat. The features that make it a strong server include

  • a multi-threaded architecture for extremely efficient performance in high demand environments;
  • native database APIs for simplified database access
  • pooled database connections for fast, readily available database connectivity;
  • and an embedded scripting language (Tcl) for rapid development of business logic.
AOLserver is also open source and is freely available from AOLserver.com

PostgreSQL – PostgreSQL is the most advanced open source relational databaseavailable and was the first such database to be fully ACID-compliant (the requirements for a database to be called relational.)Begun as a project at the University of California at Berkeley, PostgreSQL has been in development for over 30 years. Until recently it was the database for Source Forge,premier repository of open source projects. Currently is it the database running the .INFO and .ORG registries.

OpenACS – Enterprise class toolkit for community oriented web applications. (See previous discussion)

Qmail – Qmail is an enterprise class Mail Transport Agent (MTA) that is runningservices such as Hotmail.com (as of 2002), Yahoo! Mail and Topica. It was developed to with security foremost in mind and has proven itself to be a workhorse for high volumeemail systems.

note - stick whatever OS, MTA or DB you want to use. but introducing and presenting them quickly helps.