Re-Using Engineering Tools: Engineering SaaS Web Application Framework
Robert Klinc, Iztok Peruš, Matevž Dolenc · Computing in Civil and Building Engineering (2014) · 2014
While early days of structural analysis (and other engineering) software have been dominated by self-developed and self-maintained programs and applications, most of these tools have lately been abandoned in favor of out-of-the-box commercial software packages, usually due to the inability to cope with the advancements in the computer industry from both software and hardware perspectives. Even though the computational engines of these software tools and applications are still sound, the pre- and post-processors are outdated and not suitable for modern engineering use. On the other hand, the last decade offered simple, intuitive, effective and widely accessible services of the modern web resulting in the fusion of services blurring the boundaries between desktop computers, laptops and other consumer devices. Consequently, more and more applications are developed as web services move from the desktop environment to the browser. This paper presents the architecture, development and deployment of the web application framework that can transform console stand-alone tools into fully functional web applications. The framework was developed following the principles of the service-oriented architecture using cloud computing guidelines and the software-as-a-service model of deployment. The use of modern web programming principles and techniques provides the ability to use the framework on a wide range of consumer devices while the underlying high-performance/throughput computing system ensures scalability, flexibility and performance. Last but not least, two case applications utilizing the proposed framework are presented.