FEAST Application Architecture

FEAST architecture

FEAST was designed with a classical 3-tier architecture,  using flexible communication between the layers. This makes it possible to exchange the communication protocol and thus connect nearly every application to the system.

Interoperability between different software systems from different manufacturers is a frequent requirement in heterogeneous enterprise environments.

The communication between the application and dialog layer of FEAST is therefore accomplished using Web Services standards. This includes HTTP for transport, XML and SOAP for message encoding and WSDL for interface description. Thus a FEAST service is accessible by every client that can communicate using these protocols. By inserting a proper server for scripting in the middle also a four layer thin client architecture using PHP, Javascript or ASP.NET can be implemented.

Relying on Web Services standards and supplemented by an UDDI service, FEAST can be used as a base for building applications according to the concepts of a service oriented architecture (SOA).

The Business Content Adaptor (BCA) makes up the core of the application layer. To manage the communication between the layers is only one of its tasks. The BCA also hosts the modules containing the business logic of the application. Each module operates independently of each other, thus processing the user input and updating the application data. Modules can be deployed and updated at runtime, thus maximum availability is achieved.

The data layer contains the persistent application data. The most common type of data source used here is a SQL-based relational database management system (DBMS). However, FEAST is not limited to SQL data sources. Using a sophisticated data source abstraction layer every kind of data source can be made accessible by the application programmer, e.g. SAP/R3, LDAP, local files or other processes. A common interface is used for all data sources with individually configurable commands. This way it is very easy to exchange a data source regardless of its type with a minimum coding effort or even without changing any source code at all.


Taking it all together FEAST is a good companion for keeping up with todays manifold and frequently changing system environments.

FEAST Components

FEAST components

FEAST includes the following components:

  • WSgen is a generator tool for creating server and client side communication code taking a WSDL interface description as input. This way the developer can use web services without the burden of a deep knowledge of these standards. Furthermore  WSgen is able to create make and project files for e.g. Visual Studio and even test clients that form a base for creating unit tests for the service implementation with very low effort. The result of a generation step is an immediately compilable and deployable module that only lacks the application specific implementation of the server side method skeletons.
  • Business Content Adaptor (BCA)  is an application server that hosts the modules containing the implemented business logic and provides easy integration of various data sources. Also data source access control is provided by means of configurable authorization and authentication.
  • ANCOT - the ANalysis and COnfiguration Tool - is an application for administrating the BCA and deploying or updating service modules.
  • libFEAST - the support library extending the Qt Class Library by various classes for client and server development. It contains all necessary classes for web service communication.

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