Open Purchase Order Extranet
The requirements of the client were to expose open purchase orders from the oracle purchasing application that has already been implemented. The application was to be implemented in a highly secured extranet mode so that unauthorized access to the application could not be possible. The data in the open purchase orders would be updated by vendors with current information. This information had to be provided to buyers in the client organization. The application was implemented with additional features to provide authentication of vendors, buyers and administrators.

In addition the application provides following capabilities -

• For buyers to maintain vendor access.
• Vendors to search for specific purchase orders Vendors to update data on the open purchase order.
• Automated email notification to buyers when a purchase order is updated

The application being like an extranet application had to be designed and built to provide maximum security from hackers and the like. The application is built using a n-tier architecture. The application server that process data and has all the logic resides behind the firewall and communicates directly with oracle purchasing. The web server communicates with an instance of a routing servlet that implements URL filtering. The routing servlet in turn communicates with the application server. Session management and data consistency is managed through the application server. The client to web server, web server to routing servlet, routing servlet to application server communications were all implemented using secure socket layers through the https protocol.

Technologies used: Application server on Solaris, Web server on Linux, Oracle purchasing on Solaris. Java technology components such as servlets, JSP, JDBC, JavaMail and SOAP.