Hippo ECM Architecture
What are the components of Hippo CMS and how do they interconnect?all text and illustrations.Overview
Hippo ECM consists of a number of seperate components that integrate through a standard Java Content Repository interface. This modular architecture is based on the notion of seperation of concerns, thereby allowing for maximum extensibility, interoperability and scalability.
Each component is described in more detail in its own section below.
Hippo Repository
Hippo Repository is the central component in Hippo ECM. All content is stored in the repository, and all content management functionality is implemented here. The content and the CMS functionalities are exposed through a standard Java Content Repository (JSR-170) interface. Hippo Repository is based on the JCR reference implementation, Apache Jackrabbit.
Hippo CMS
Hippo CMS is a web application, essentially providing the user interface through which the content management and administrative functionalities exposed by Hippo Repository can be used in an intuitive and user friendly way. Hippo CMS is fully customizable through a GUI plugin architecture based on the Apache Wicket web application framework.
Hippo Site Toolkit (JSP)
Hippo Site Toolkit provides the tools for rapid development of websites in a Hippo ECM environment. Features include a templating engine which is easily configurable through the Hippo CMS user interface, and a tag library and expression language to accomodate the development of a JSP based view layer.
Hippo Portal
Hippo Portal allows partners, employees and customers to choose their user experience, with personalized applications based on role, context, actions, location, preferences and team collaboration needs. Hippo Portal provides a composite application or business mashup framework and the advanced tooling needed to build flexible, SOA-based solutions, as well as the unmatched scalability required by any size organization. Hippo Portal is based on the open source enterprise portal Apache Jetspeed
Hippo Site Toolkit (Cocoon)
A toolkit comparable to the one for JSP is planned for the XML based publishing framework Apache Cocoon.
Applications
Through its modular architecture, and its use of the JCR open standard, Hippo ECM can integrate with any application, new or existing, as long as it uses the JCR API. Examples of applications that can integrate with Hippo ECM are email and calendar software, data import and export, wikis, blogs. Details and examples are given in the JCR Interface section.