Overview of the Oracle InForm system architecture

The Oracle InForm software is a four-tiered software design. The following illustration is a logical representation of the system architecture.

Tier	Software component hosted on the tier	Description
Client	Web browser	Displays the pages of a study and receives user input.
Web	Web server and gateway software (MS-IIS)	Services requests to and from the web browser.
Web	Cognos Analytics Gateway	Manages the transfer of information from the Web server to another server. Provides secure access to the Cognos Analytics Server.
Application	Oracle InForm application server	Logical server that acts as a transaction manager for InForm studies under the Oracle InForm Service. The Oracle InForm Server handles caching and Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) packages. Each study is associated with an Oracle InForm study application server. If the Reporting and Analysis is installed, the Oracle InForm Model Updater Service runs on the Oracle InForm Server to synchronize the clinical model.
Application	Cognos Report Server (Application services)	Runs reporting-related requests for operating system services. There is one Cognos Analytics Service per physical server machine.
Application	Cognos Content Manager (Content repository)	Manages the storage of customer application data, including security, configuration data, models, metrics, report specifications, and report output. Content Manager is needed to publish packages, retrieve or store report specifications, manage scheduling information, and manage the Cognos namespace.
Application	Oracle Directory Server	Provides secure Admin access to Oracle InForm Reporting.
Data	Oracle database instances for:	Oracle InForm study database—Stores the study components and the clinical data. Studies typically share an instance of the Oracle database with the Oracle InForm Admin schema. Oracle InForm Admin database—Used by the Oracle InForm Service to manage all the studies on a physical machine. There is one Oracle InForm Admin database per Oracle InForm Service. Oracle InForm Reporting database—Stores views for Cognos Reporting through the Reporting and Analysis module. The Oracle InForm Reporting database shares an instance of the Oracle database with the Oracle InForm Admin and study databases. Cognos Analytics Content Store—Stores user-created reporting objects such as folders, saved reports, and saved views. The Content Store can share an instance of the Oracle database with the Oracle InForm Admin and study databases or can reside in a separate Oracle database instance.