Our vision is to be known for making advanced technology easy to use. This is why at IFS we care as much about how technology is used as about technology itself. We don’t try to set the standards but conduct continuous research into emerging technologies and standards instead. As they mature and gain acceptance, they’re introduced into IFS Applications. IFS Foundation1—IFS’ component architecture and technology platform—is designed to incorporate and deliver new industry standards and technologies in an evolutionary, cost-effective way.

Built for change
Applications require the right environment to function effectively and prosper over their life cycle. That’s why we’ve built essential support and services into a complete IT architecture.

Although separated, activities and entities have been jointly developed. Entities are the building blocks. They know how to store their own data but not how the data should be used. Too much built-in logic creates conflicts. Which is why the activities communicate to the relevant entities and provide instructions.

Processes are the link between customer business practices and the corresponding system configuration—making it possible to reconfigure on the fly. The presentation layer consists of a number of user interfaces.

Five-layered architecture

With traditional systems, changing business processes means difficult and time-consuming reprogramming. This is because behavior is not encapsulated (isolated) in components. In IFS Foundation1, we have separated the software pieces of a business component into several layers. Each piece has clearly defined interfaces and responsibilities and is totally encapsulated from the others. The layered architecture consists of data sources that store and manage data, entities that retrieve and modify data, activities that contain the actual business logic for your workflow, business processes that define the workflow, and user interfaces for presentation. This unique architecture offers many benefits—the most important is flexibility.

Life cycle management
The IFS Foundation1 life cycle management model consists of tools and products to handle all aspects of the system—from design to reconfiguration. They provide life cycle support for components and business processes. For example, there are tools and products designed to boost productivity and quality in the design-develop-test cycle of component development.

Additional tools and products for business professionals and system administrators support ongoing business process improvements and reconfiguration of existing processes.

Open integration services
Open integration consists of software services that enable and support integration of your business processes with other parties, applications and technologies. Every single business activity, entity, and process can be accessed by interactive clients and by application-to-application messaging.

IFS Foundation1 provides multiple open software development frameworks that make building powerful business applications easy and cost-effective. The frameworks ensure a consistent implementation and use of core functionality. In addition, the services provided by these frameworks can be used and reused across multiple solutions and components.