Platform Structure Overview

The Blink Mobility Platform uses Amazon Web Services to deliver an extremely scalable and robust deployment platform, using most aspects of the AWS to achieve superior results.

To allow us to allow optimized worldwide resolution for requests to AWS regions, we make use of Amazon’s Route 53, which delivers reliable, scalable DNS as well as prioritised round-robin DNS resolution.

The Elastic Compute Cloud allows the use of web service interfaces to launch instances as required.

We use AWS’ Elastic Load Balancers to determine when we need to add additional computing power. With the Elastic Compute Cloud’s (EC2). Using the AWS Elastic Load Balancer (ELB), we can route requests to the most appropriate EC2 instance based on load and proximity, as well as monitor such loads and initiate additional EC2 instances if required, often within minutes. The EC2 allows us to scale up or down as required, providing resizable compute capacity.

CloudWatch is used to monitor all AWS resources in real-time, including Amazon EC2 instances, Amazon EBS volumes, Elastic Load Balancers, and Amazon RDS DB instances. It allows us system-wide visibility into resource utilization, application performance, and operational health.

CloudFront is used to deliver static content.

Testing and Demonstration environments are kept on separate instances, so that they do not impact upon our Production Environment.

The Building Blocks

The Platform revolves around the Interaction. An Interaction defines a particular user request – it’s a verb. Interactions find, display, link, and fetch varied information from disparate information sources.

• Where is the nearest library?
• How many PCs are available?
• I need to report a pothole!
• When’s my plane leaving?
• What jobs do I have to do today?

With the BlinkMobile system you describe these verbs in an object we call, unsurprisingly, an Interaction.  You don’t create application functionality, you don’t store any data, and you just encapsulate behaviour as micro applications.

These objects are the core of the BlinkMobile architecture.  We call it our Interaction-oriented architecture – every aspect of functional delivery is in support of these User Interactions.

Using What’s Available

 A service-oriented architecture abstracts business functionality into well-defined services whilst the Interaction-oriented architecture provides a device independent visualization of those services that can be delivered as a platform service.

If there aren’t services in neat APIs, Interactions can still deal with them.  Interactions can deal with html, documents, spreadsheets, and databases etc.. An Interaction can access almost any information that can be accessed through the Internet.

Before we go any further, make sure you have familiarised yourself with our Glossary of Terms, found in your Files section of this course.

About Interactions

 Satisfying a particular user need is what Interactions are all about.  A Blink Mobility Platform based solution is focussed upon satisfying user needs. There is no need to employ desktop browsing metrics. These are meaningless in terms of satisfying user needs.  The key is to satisfy needs with the minimum of fuss and clicks.  That requires you to think about what the user needs at their point of need and bring the appropriate information to bear from whatever sources and services can add value.  This is exactly what an Interaction does. 

 Regardless of the device your users will use, or the underlying systems that deliver the information, users will still want to know what is happening with their order, or whether their parcel has arrived.

The Interaction is the real-life unit of work that there is an ongoing benefit in delivering.  It has ongoing worth.

Interactions can be styled and configured to look like part of a native application.

About answerSpaces

Interactions sit within the container (answerSpace) and are managed across an enterprise using Interaction Pools and an Interaction Manager.

Interactions are organized into what, to the user, looks like an app through the answerSpace.

You can deliver many answerSpaces from the one platform.

The answerSpace allows you to define a user’s experience.