EspressDashboard is designed to leverage users' existing infrastructure investments. It deploys completely within Java EE application environments, with no separate server-side application processes. The following diagram illustrates the basic architecture of an EDAB deployment.
The EDAB server deploys as a servlet collection within an application server/servlet & JSP container. Other servlets/JSPs can be deployed in the server to connect to and retrieve information from the EDAB server (like file names, user information, and privilege/security information). Database buffering allows report data to be re-used (within user-supplied parameters) for faster generation.
EDAB can be deployed in a single server or in a clustered environment. When running in a cluster, a load balancer routes all incoming client requests to cluster members, while maintaining a common back-end file structure. This configuration option allows EDAB to scale to high-availability deployments with thousands of users.
Most server functions can be administered remotely, using a browser-based interface. This allows administrators to manage users/groups, and configure the server from anywhere using only a Web browser.
End to End Security Management
EspressDashboard provides a powerful security framework to handle user/group privileges as well as report page and element level security. EDAB binds privileges to report developers using an ownership model that allows security to be enforced automatically as reporting implementations grow and change.
Users can integrate custom security models and users/groups with EDAB. EDAB allows direct integration with users in LDAP systems and stored in relation databases. In addition, EDAB provides open server extensions that allow users to programmatically integrate any custom security model with the EDAB architecture. Beyond privileges, security features are fully enforced in published dashboards.