The Exie 2.0 system is a multi-tier computer system designed to be used in the PPM applications space, but can also be used for more traditional Business Oriented Application. The model above describes the Physical Architecture in Exie 2.0. The most important modules of the Exie 2.0 system are:

• The End-User tool, a flex client, this application allows the end user to use the solutions programmed in Exie 2.0.

• The netbeans platform, this program consists of an IDE for building Exie 2.0 solutions and required artefacts.

• JEE Server, this server hosts the Solution Engine, the dynamic program interpreter for Solutions.

• Other system services, that are available both for the Netbeans Platform and the JEE server.

Exie 2.0 uses mostly standardized components. A consequence of this is that the infrastructure is standard and maintained and developed by companies that have heavy investments within this area and are going to continue to support it for the foreseeable future.

The main in-sourced products in Exie 2.0 are:

GlassFish (JEE5); Suns JSE6; NetBeans RCP; Adobe Flex; Eclipse Modeling Framework; Talend; Microsoft SqlServer 2008

In Exie 2.0 a solution (program) can be desribed using the Builder Tool, implemented on top of the netbeans platform. The builder tool store the solution in the Versioned Solution Repository, and can signal a Solution Engine to start running a version of the solution. The Solution Engine can then make the Solution available to users that have access to the Solution.

The Solutions in Exie 2.0 are programmed using a mix of very high-level abstractions that enable people without programming experience to build Solutions. Even though the abstractions are at a high level, the variation points of the concepts presented to the builders, and the way the abstractions can be combined enable the builders to build powerful smart applications that cater well to end users needs.

The applications that are deployed to the Exie 2.0 environment as described above where they utilize standard access control mechanisms and other services that are deployed in the Exie 2.0 environment. This allows the Exie 2.0 Solutions to integrate well in an enterprise computing environment.

Exie 2.0 Solutions and Components

Typical Exie 2.0 Solutions could include a Budgeting, Forecasting, or a Scorecard module. Taking the Scorecard module as an example, the end user could drill down into detailed sub-reports of the scorecard using a linking structure. All Exie 2.0 Solutions have a common structure with a driving Component visualising a data structure or process from the customer’s own domain that the customer is familiar with; this structure may be filtered and manipulated before it is presented to the end-user. Through interaction with this familiar data structure the user is presented with Components according to a Solution description.

The Solutions described in Exie 2.0 are interpreted by the solution engine. The Solution Engine interprets the solution as a set of component assemblies and invokes the plug-in supporting a component when needed. The Solution engine is responsible for passing configuration from components to plug-in components during invocation of the plug-ins. Communication between components/plug-ins and the solution engine is otherwise handled by a shared context.