A platform for PhD students and professors and professionals to share information and build relationships. Encompassing the experts from business and academic fields, the website should be a platform for all to share valuable information and provide the right minds with access to the right resources and create a global mindset - See more at: http://www.greymatterindia.com/a-platform-for-valuable-information-sharing

1. A Platform For Valuable Information Sharing
Grey Matter India
Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
http://www.greymatterindia.com

2. Client Requirements
Client required a platform for PhD students and professors and professionals
to share information and build relationships. Encompassing the experts from
business and academic fields, the website should be a platform for all to
share valuable information and provide the right minds with access to the
right resources and create a global mindset.
The website requires registration and the features that each registered
member could use would include: the ability to browse each section of the
website that would include news, events, messages, question and answer,
contacts, recent updates, statistics, articles, create your profiles, groups,
forums, view other member’s basic profiles, search and apply for jobs etc.
http://www.greymatterindia.com

3. Specific Features Requested Were:
Students should have the ability to share notes, gain insights, seek expert
advice. Students should also have the ability to create groups, join groups
based on their academic interests and
Students should be able to enroll for various courses of their interest and
interact with other students all over the world.
The website should be designed to increase collaboration between
students and faculty to make the most out of their experiences.
Help students to build professional networks fostering career growth.
http://www.greymatterindia.com

4. Challenges
The team faced the following challenges:
Site should be robust with the ability to handle millions of
connections at the same time without slowing down.
Web usability principles should be used to make the site
easily navigable.
Integrated features like articles, messages, statistics and
more while being executed simultaneously should be in sync.
Load balance must be maintained even at peak traffic hours.
Secure data transfer.
http://www.greymatterindia.com

5. Technologies Used
Operating System & Server Management
Red Hat Linux OS, Multi-Server Architecture
with
Staging & Production Environment through
Version Controlling releases, Server
Optimization,
Security & SSL Implementation, Alert
Monitoring
System Integration, Server Performance
Tuning at
regular intervals, Software Firewall
Configuration
& Maintenance
Development Tools & Environments
PHP5 +, Symfony Framework 1.4, AJAX, JS,
HTML5,CSS3 And etc.
Database
MYSQL Database Server, DB
Clustering,
DB Optimization, Master Slave
Replication, Query Optimization,
Scheduler for Backups
http://www.greymatterindia.com

6. http://www.greymatterindia.com
Manpower
Project Leader 1
Developers 2
Designers 1
Quality Assurance Testers 1

7. http://www.greymatterindia.com
Planning
Taking into consideration the enormous nature of the
website, a four tier development approach was used.
MS SQL database for Tables, Stored Procedures etc was
within the database layer.
Data conversion in the incompatible type systems in
databases and data access from databases was achieved
via Interface layer and Database Abstraction layer
respectively
Business logic layer comprised of all the business logic
procedures.
GUI of the website formed the UI Layer.

8. Architecture
The website included rich features for user data and social networking
capabilities. Symfony framework was used along with MySQL for database
purposes. Development architecture was built around the faster to market
concept. An interface translating the object logic to a relational logic was
created to access the data from relational databases in an object oriented
manner. An intermediary abstraction layer was created to access the
databases. Stored procedures were used only to retrieve complex data and
everywhere else conditional syntax was used. Images, application dta etc.
was called from their respective servers to keep UI layer free from the
business logic.
http://www.greymatterindia.com

9. Development Highlights
The framework was kept highly flexible to enable addition of new features in
the future. Pre-development research was carried for extensive
customizations and to be able to build a robust application. Strict adherence
to web usability principles and the website was made easily navigable with
the use of use of CSS, AJAX and HTML controls. The website was live and
fully functional within a span of 6 months.
http://www.greymatterindia.com

10. Sources
http://www.greymatterindia.com/a-platform-for-valuable-information-sharing
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