9th sphere's CORE

CORE is the heart of 9th sphere's web applications. It's an architecture model which ensures that web applications created by 9th sphere are scalable, flexible, functional, and comply with best practices - all in the shortest amount of development time required.

With over eleven years of experience and some of the brightest minds in web development, the latest version of 9th sphere's CORE, version 5.5, is truly a must-have for any successful web application.

The latest release of CORE has been built to substantially cut down development time, as well as provide clean, efficient, and reliable features along with a fully integrated administration system. It includes a ‘plug and play' feature for pre-built applications, security components that exceed industry standards, and improves processing speed.


What is CORE?

9th sphere's framework is an underlying structure that supports the build of the logic and/or functionality of a dynamic website. Common logic/functions are abstracted and fed into the framework, making them readily available as needed without having to build them from scratch. Since these functions have been tested and moderated to almost every scenario, a significant amount of time is saved and the number of programmers' errors is minimized. The result is higher quality web applications.


Why use 9th sphere's CORE?

  • Benefit from over a decade of application development experience
  • Efforts are focused on continual advancement instead of re-development
  • Certainty that all developers are consistent with standards, style & best practices
  • Highly flexible and expandable architecture
  • Minimal learning curve for web developers
  • Implemented interface for user interaction
  • Small footprint

The following is a summary of some of CORE's features:

Website Administration System
Every project utilizing CORE has access to a Website Administration System. Many settings are configurable through this system, including access levels and user control.

Logs / Error Reporting
Built into CORE is a logging and alerting system. In case of any website problems such as connection issues to the database, database request errors, 404 errors, malicious robots, programming errors, and any other fatal errors, a notice with all the necessary information for debugging is instantly sent to our development team for investigation. The problem is identified and often corrected before most clients are even aware that an issue had occurred. This can be powerful in catching user related issues or even security threats before they cause major harm.

Modules
9th sphere is continually developing Modules, like our Content Management Application or eCommerce Application, that plug into CORE and expand its capabilities. New features are easily added to a website without the need for major structural changes. Where a wanted feature does not yet exist, custom development is easily possible. Modules are fully customizable to work with Client specifications, and can be styled to fit Client image requirements. As other projects are being built, 9th sphere's developers are regularly updating the Module library with new components.

Website creative has been separated in a different layer, allowing future changes or redesigns to be easily implemented without changing or re-wiring the code. As with all other aspects of CORE, all Modules are compliant with current W3C standards.

Security System
Comprehensive data filtering and validation ensures that commonly known security flaws and vulnerabilities are protected from unwanted access. 9th sphere has exceeded the requirements outlined in the generally accepted security protocol of the "Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP)".

Scalable Access
CORE uses a highly scalable, reliable, and functional access control system. Access levels for website visitors, or different administrative levels, can be assigned at the page and component level across the entire site to provide truly dynamic and user-oriented interfaces. For instance, you may need different approval processes for publishing content or want website visitors to only see certain parts of content based on their Membership levels.

Third-Party Web Application Integration
Third party web applications that often have many different coding styles and structure can be integrated with less effort due to the Module architecture of CORE. For instance, you may want to use a preferred third-party Forum or Blog application. Rewriting of code is not required for integrating a third-party application into CORE and little work is necessary to tie in Membership logins. No double login is required between the different systems.

SEO Friendliness
Regarding the importance of SEO, we have incorporated search engine friendliness into necessary components like URLs, pages, structure, content, front-end code, etc.

Speed
One of the downfalls of other frameworks has to do with the size of the application and the amount of resources it requires to run. CORE has been built with a footprint as small as possible to ensure that processing time from the server to the visitor's browser is optimized for top speed while still maintaining full functionality.

Multiple Language Support
Support for multiple languages is readily available. In Canada, companies often support both English and French based versions. Little change is required to support the addition of a language to a website at anytime.

Backward Compatible
Websites can be easily upgraded with newer or updated versions of CORE without any structural changes. Updates to the framework are built to be compatible with previous versions to allow for seamless implementation and minimal downtime.

Standards
Commonly accepted web standards have been built into CORE to ensure proper implementation. Standards include Object Orientation, W3C, and security protocol of the "Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP)".

Documentation
In the event that other developers need to understand or build onto CORE, full API and documentation is provided.

If you have any questions or would like to learn more, please contact us.