Case Study:
JEE Architecture Used for a Mission Critical Airport System

Context:
Scheduling, Management and Optimization of Ramp Operations
at Paris - Charles de Gaulle Airport

SoDExI is the subsidiary of Air France that handles all express cargo on Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) Airport. It processes more than 6,000 parcels per hour, and it guarantees that all shipments are loaded into an aircraft within 45-90 minutes after being checked-in by a shipper.

Crispico developed an enterprise IT software system that schedules, manages and optimizes all the ramp operations on the airport.

It is a mission critical system without which SoDExI couldn't run its operations:

• high performance / processing capacity (6,000 parcels / hour)
• reliability (99.9 % up-time)
• interface with other SoDExI systems (warehouse management system, GPS system)
• reduced maintenance cost
• extensible

Technologies Used

n-tier architecture

• Database server / JEE Application Server / Thin client as a RIA (Rich Internet Application)
• Centralized business logic - easy to deploy, easy to maintain

Java Enterprise Edition (JEE) technology

• JEE architectures are very well suited for enterprise applications in terms of reliability and extensibility
• Use of web-client facilitates maintenance tasks while being user-friendly and efficient to use
• Use of Model View Controller Framework separates the business layer from the presentation layer
• Easily interfaces with other systems (Warehouse Management, GPS) by using Web Services

Spring JEE Application Framework

• AOP (Aspect Oriented Programming) Framework handles the aspects that concern the system / container (transaction management, security, etc)
• Developers focus on the business tasks rather than low-level aspects of the system
• Higher quality, more reliable and tested code is produced
• Loosely coupled application layers lead to a robust system that is easy unit test and to extend
• Can run on any JEE application server (Apache Tomcat, JBoss, IBM WebSphere, BEA Weblogic)

Hibernate Object Relational Persistence Framework

• Multiple database support (Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, etc)
• Database specific optimized SQL statements
• This allowed our developers to easily apply Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) techniques and to take advantages from the advantages of OOP (UML modeling, unit testing, etc)
• Seamless integration with Spring Application Framework

Flex based front-end

• Unprecedented ergonomics and interactivity is possible while using the Flex technology
• Powerful real-time reporting capabilities