Development flow
The illustration below describes the flow in Frends Architecture when developing a new Process.
Here is a more detailed explanation of the image above:
A user accesses Frends through the provided endpoint in the Frends web application. All connections are secured using valid SSL certificates and pass through the Azure WAF.
The user inputs configuration information in the Frends web application to develop a new integration.
When saving a new integration, the given configuration information is persisted in the Configuration Database, which is always encrypted as per Azure SQL Security best practices.
Additionally, the new integration is compiled into a NuGet package which is stored in the Process Version Control Storage which is an Azure Blob Storage account. The blob storage account data is encrypted via AES 256.
The compilation sends a message notifying the Frends Agent of a new deployment request to the Agent Connectivity Queues which are Azure Service Bus queues. The queues are secured using SSL and accessed via SAS authentication by the Frends Agent.
The Frends Agent listens to new incoming messages in the queue and upon receiving a deployment notice the Agent connects to a specified Process Version Control Storage to retrieve the compiled Frends Process NuGet package. The connection is secured with SSL and authenticated via SAS authentication. After downloading the new package, the Agent simply loads the newly compiled libraries and Processes into use.
At this point the Agent is ready for the Logging Flow described on the next module.
At all stages secure keys and certificates are stored in the Azure Key Vault and accessed by the web application when needed.
The next article is Introduction to Logging Flow