Connecting 24Flow with Onsite IT Infrastructure

Introduction

24Flow is a cloud-based solution hosted on the Salesforce platform. 

When your ERP system is deployed onsite, we need a secure way to connect it to 24Flow.

24Flow has created webservices to accomplish this. These webservices are hosted on middleware. The customer is responsible for setting up and maintaining that middleware infrastructure.

For this middleware, there are 2 options:

1. The customer has a middleware platform available.

2. The customer does not have a middleware platform yet.

In the latter case, this document describes a middleware reference architecture that can be deployed by the customer and that can host the above mentioned web services.

Middleware reference architecture

The middleware reference architecture is a lightweight, containerized middleware solution for connecting local infrastructure in a secure way to the cloud.

Whenever 24Flow makes a request to the local infrastructure, it sends this request to the middleware that proxies the request to the particular custom webservice that connects with the local endpoint (eg. ERP server, …). The reference middleware thus effectively acts as a reverse proxy with authentication for your local IT infrastructure.

The reference architecture requires a signed SSL certificate to guarantee the identity of the service towards 24Flow.

The reference architecture can host one or more webservices, each hosted in their own container. The Webservices are REST-based and establish the application layer communication between Salesforce and local IT.

As a sidenote, besides connectivity to the ERP server, other webservices can e.g. be.:

• A webservice for connecting to a locally deployed solver service (planning optimization).

• A webservice connecting to another locally deployed IT system.

• A webservice connecting to an MQTT server.

System Requirements

When connecting to your local infrastructure, the reference architecture is deployed onsite on a virtual server, provisioned by the customer.

The system requirements for the Virtual Server are as follows.

Maintenance

24Flow is responsible for maintaining the webservices only. 

The customer is responsible for the maintenance of the middleware. If it is based on the above description reference architecture, this implies:

• Installation and maintenance of the Virtual Server and the Linux Debian OS.

• The signed SSL certificate provisioning and renewal.

• The Docker framework and Portainer.

• Backups & patches of OS and application.

Glossary

• Docker: Container management application.

• Portainer: a user interface that simplifies the management of containerized applications running on platforms like Docker.