Distribution options

Platform offers hosted and private cloud environments:

  • Infinite Blue Platform manages and maintains the hosted Platform environment.
  • You manage private cloud environments by installing Platform on your own infrastructure or on any cloud platform.

In both hosted and private cloud environments, Platform tenants are virtual spaces that define settings and applications for a group of users. The person who initially signs up for a Platform account becomes an administrator for a tenant. A tenant can act like a development sandbox and be used mainly by one or more developers. Alternatively, a tenant can be used for development and when applications are stable, they can be exposed to end users.

You can provide access for end users to a Platform application in the following ways:

  • By creating accounts for them to access the application in your tenant. This includes creating User records and setting application permissions.
  • By creating a portal that exposes all or a subset of application functionality. See Portal Overview.
  • By generating the application as XML, which can be installed in any Platform tenant.
  • By publishing your application to the PlatformMarketplace. For more information, see Publishing to the Marketplace App and Using the Infinite Blue Platform Marketplace.

If you plan to distribute your application to other tenants, Infinite Blue recommends thinking about installation and upgrades early in the design process. Try publishing your application to the Marketplace or generate it as XML and then test the installation before distributing it to others. For more information, see Distributing applications in XML format.

Portal Overview

Portals provide a flexible way to build and expose external-facing applications in public websites or intranets for external users such as website visitors, partners, or employees on an intranet. With Infinite Blue Platform, you can create portals to allow just about any type of external user to access specific application functionality such as creating, editing, searching, and viewing object records. Portals consist of an arbitrary number of pages that form a cohesive website. Portals can be designed to adopt the look and feel of any website.

Portals often expose a subset of Platform application functionality to a specific set of users. For example, a Platform application for managing sales leads might have a portal integrated with your website to collect information submitted by website visitors. An application for employee management might have a portal for self-service access to employee profile information, company directory, and benefits information.

For more information on designing and developing portals, see Platform portals.