Social Network Service (SNS) Website LAMP Development

Our client wanted to create a social network service (SNS) online network that embedded into the largest B2C or C2C e-commerce website in Asia and Pacific Area. According to their business needs and further development, the client considered to add SNS system to the existed e-commercial website.

Client Business Requirement:

1) The social network service website should be flexible for further updating and maintenance. The SNS website should be user friendly and easy to use for both administrators and users.

2) Different user types should have different level authorization, for example, admin type, general user type, or organization type.

3) An on-line message board system for communications between users.

4) Search functionality should contain Advanced Search functionality and allow users to search information.

5) The SNS system should provide a level of security to access networks that created by users.

6) The SNS system should include all basic functionalities, for example, user registration, user login, forum, discussion boards, groups, messages, ask and answer center, chat rooms, feedback, news, etc.

7) Because the main users of B2C/ C2C website are young people, so the interface and the layout should be eye-catch and full of energy.

Considering the existed e-commerce website was based on PHP, after discussion and analysis, our website development team decided to use an open source web development platform, also called a web stack – LAMP. LAMP, short for Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP, LAMP uses Linux as the operating system, Apache as the web server, MySQL as the RDBMS, and PHP as the object-oriented scripting language.

The advantages of LAMP:

1) Free License: The LAMP stack brings zero licensing fees to the web developers.

2) Support: Web developers can get support from the large number of LAMP communities worldwide in multi-languages.

3) Platform: The LAMP stack can be set up on wide range of platforms. Even on Windows or OS X-based Apache/ MySQL/ PHP environments instead of Linux platform.

4) Hardware: Linux can run very well on very inexpensive servers. Linux can do this because it provides administrators with the flexibility to run only what is needed to do the job.

Our web development team established a large community system for the B2C/ C2C e-commerce website. The aim of this community is to provide a platform that allows users (buyers and sellers) to share opinions, discuss topics, join groups to make friends, ask and answer, chat rooms, feedback, etc. The whole community system was developed in PHP, an open source server side scripting language that can be used to develop a whole range of dynamic web applications. PHP is based on Object Oriented architecture and most of its features, concepts and syntax are based on the C and Perl programming languages. Our web development team chose Apache as HTTP server which can serve both static and dynamic web pages. Apache is available for a variety of operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, Novell Netware and UNIX. MySQL is the most popular open source relational database management system (RDBMS) that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. The reason why people choose Linux for the most well-known web stack is Linux can be installed on a wide variety of computer hardware, ranging from mobile phones, tablet computers and video game consoles, to main frames and supercomputers. Linux is the leading server OS, accounting for more than 50% of installations and runs the top 10 fastest supercomputers in the world.

Our web development team helped the client to create the Social Network Service (SNS) system based on LAMP web development technology successfully and the SNS system was launched on time. The SNS system runs stable, reliable, and flexible, our web development team will help the client to upgrade the system if necessary in the future.

Read More