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PrizmDoc Application Services (PAS) Overview

PrizmDoc Application Service
We’ve received some questions from customers recently about PrizmDoc Application Services, such as:

  • What is PrizmDoc Application Services (PAS)?
  • Why do I need it?
  • How does it benefit me?
  • I’m interested in PrizmDoc Cloud hosted, why do I need to install PAS?
  • Where do I install it?

To provide some further clarity, we’re going to answer these questions for you today.

What is PAS?

So, just what is PAS? PAS is a service that provides application-level logic for the viewer; such as enabling document viewing sessions through the PrizmDoc Server, saving and loading of markup, and handling opening of documents.

Why would you need PAS?

This service is the gateway between the Viewing Client and PrizmDoc Server. It handles document and markup storage as well as forwarding requests to PrizmDoc Server.

How does PAS benefit you?

PAS reduces the size of the Client package. This makes for a much simpler process for installing the Client, which allows you to get the product up and running much quicker than before. An additional benefit is that the developer no longer needs to understand or edit additional code that was previously in the client. This code now resides in PAS.

Why do PrizmDoc Cloud-Hosted customers need to install PAS? Don’t they just need the Client?
The Client by itself does not have the capability to request viewing services such as content conversion, or markup services such as annotation, redaction, pre-conversion, and search. These service requests are handled by PAS.

Where do I install PAS?

PAS is intended to run on the same server as your web tier/application, although that’s not required. Because it’s a standalone service, it can run anywhere between your web tier/application and PrizmDoc Server, including on its own separate machine if necessary.

Understanding the Architecture Using PrizmDoc Application Services

The Web Tier Samples in PrizmDoc include a small amount of proxy code that forwards viewer requests to PAS. This is added for an enhanced out-of-box experience when evaluating, and we recommend using a reverse proxy in production for optimal performance. Instructions on how to configure a reverse proxy can be found in the “Configuring PrizmDoc Application Services in your Server’s Entry Point” topic.

PrizmDoc-diagram

In this architecture, PAS handles the business logic of running the Viewing Client, while providing a flexible API to allow handling only specific calls with custom application logic while letting the rest be handled by the service. Since this is a standalone HTTP service, it does not necessarily need to run on the same machine as the Web Tier anymore. It can also run alongside PrizmDoc Server, or on its own separate machine.

The minimal code that comes with the Web Tier Samples is now truly a suggestion, as any proxy into PAS will accomplish the task. For a more performant solution, we would encourage you to handle proxying through your web server of choice (such as Apache, NGINX, or IIS), allowing your web application to only contain your own logic, without the need to integrate any Accusoft sample code. This is outlined by the architecture below:

PrizmDoc-diagram2

For more information about PrizmDoc Application Services please reference the PrizmDoc documentation.