doLithe - New Technology Firm Emerges

doLithe - New Technology Firm Emerges

It's been over a year and a half since its conception in a downtown Wellington bar and doLithe is still alive and well. doLithe was formed by Olmec Sinclair and Milan Mogin and specialises in the design and development of affordable web applications.

Using a selection of open source technologies, doLithe has assembled a unique framework that allows for the rapid creation of powerful online retail and content management web sites.

Online retail is the process of advertising and selling products and services via the web. doLithe's webCatalogue offerings are targeted at businesses looking to establish an online trading presence by providing a website with integrated management tools. These tools allow businesses to take control of their own online content and products. Once a webCatalogue site is up and running it is managed and updated from within the site itself.

Of course security is a big concern these days and doLithe has taken extra care in the development of the underlying architecture to ensure that it is as robust as possible. Each action that can be performed on the site has a corresponding task. Tasks can be grouped together to form roles which can then be assigned to users of the site. This means that a user must have the correct task before an action can be carried out. As well as action level security, doLithe provides database encryption to ensure all data is kept private an confidential. Combining this with a SSL secure site certificate provides optimal site security.

Open source has been around for along time but in recent years it has gathered a huge following of devoted designers, and developers who have helped tremendously by bringing some of the newest technologies to the open source arena. Because doLithe uses open source technology it is not bound by the hefty contracts and licensing imposed by software manufacturers such as the Microsoft Corporation. This is an advantage that can be reflected on the clients in the form of lower hosting and development rates.

doLithe's web development framework, called eSemble, is based on Linux and the Apache web server application. A Java object layer is used to manage site data, which is stored in a centralised database. Data, business logic and presentation has been completely separated with the use of XML and XSL style sheets. This allows doLithe to apply a unique 'skin' to a common (shared) data management tool set which in turn reads and writes from a shared database.

This common or shared approach to data storage and system code has many advantages. By storing data in a central location it is possible to perform extensive data mining to extract valuable business details an statistics about site activities, buyer preference etc. The main benefit from having a shared code base is ease of upgrades and version control. Once new code is released all client sites using the code are instantly updated with any fixes, addition etc.

The doLithe web site is located at http://www.dolithe.com and provides in depth information into the products and services provided by doLithe.

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