Deployment Topologies

A basic Civic Platform installation comprises the following software components:

  • Web server.Civic Platform packages JBoss with Civic Platform components and deploys these to the web server. The web server receives instructions to construct and deliver web pages to a Civic Platform browser-based client, and provides information from the browser-based client to the application server for processing.

  • ColdFusion MX web server.Civic Platform deploys the third-party tool ColdFusion MX to a web server. The ColdFusion MX web server provides the environment for the Civic Platform Classic administrative interface.

  • Application server.Civic Platform packages JBoss with Civic Platform components and deploys these to the application server. The application server executes the main functionality of Civic Platform. The application server retrieves and writes record content to the database, and integrates with the web server to send and receive information to and from the client.

  • Database server. The Civic Platform database (Oracle or SQL Server) stores all Civic Platform record content, except for attachments.

Your deployment can include the following optional components:

  • Index server.The index server provides Civic Platform with the ability to perform global full-text searches across all Civic Platform records. Without the index server, Civic Platform can only perform exact match searches for record metadata within specified application types.

  • Accela Report Writer (ARW) server.Generates reports of information stored in the Civic Platform database. ARW uses the same database as Civic Platform.

  • Accela Document Services (ADS) server.Provides access to stored documents. ADS uses a different database instance tha Civic Platform and ARW.

Distributed deployment topology shows a distributed deployment topology, that includes the ColdFusion MX web server, optional index server, report server, and document server. The ADS server requires a database instance while the ARW server shares the Civic Platform database instance. You can consolidate these optional components on one or more physical (or virtual) hosts, depending on your deployment requirements. Distributed deployment topology shows the optional components on separate physical hosts for clarity only.

Note:

Add-on products use a different deployment topology for the client.

Figure: Distributed deployment topology