The Portal Connector Architecture
The Portal Connector is a powerful add-on for the Sitefinity CMS. The add-on provides a window into Microsoft Dynamics CRM data through various widgets and presentations that are completely customizable.
To achieve this functionality, The Portal Connector integrates with Sitefinity and Dynamics CRM to synergize the relationship between the Sitefinity CMS and the Dynamics data.
Infrastructure
Hosting Sitefinity with The Portal Connector can be done with any Windows host. The requirements of hosting are only limited to the ability to connect to Dynamics CRM. Your Dynamics CRM server must be in a position to allow connections from The Portal Connector Sitefinity add-on.
Below are a few network diagrams that explain the various infrastructure types of The Portal Connector and Sitefinity, these examples are only the common scenarios and your set up is not limited to these:
Figure 1 On Premise Dynamics CRM with Sitefinity and The Portal Connector
Figure 2 On Premise Sitefinity and The Portal Connector with Dynamics CRM Online
Figure 3 Sitefinity and The Portal Connector hosted in Azure using Dynamics CRM Online
TPC / Sitefinity Architecture
The Portal Connector is a software layer on top of Sitefinity and Dynamics CRM. The following diagram illustrates the application layers and connections between Sitefinity, Dynamics CRM and The Portal Connector:
Sitefinity Architecture
Sitefinity's multi-layer architecture is designed and built around the key concepts of extensibility, interoperability and integration, and flexibility. This is achieved by:
- Abstraction patterns that hide the implementation and storage location details
- Various extensibility points
- Public API for all the system components and services that build Sitefinity's out-of-the-box modules.
The following diagram illustrates the application layers in a website running Sitefinity:
Sitefinity's N-tier application architecture allows stacked groups of system components isolated in layers, so you can make changes in one layer independently of the other payers.
You can read more about the Sitefinity architecture here.