Cascade Server

For the Cascade software management product, see Cascade (software)

Cascade Server

Developer(s)	Hannon Hill
Stable release	Cascade Server 7.6 Series / August 19, 2013 (2013-08-19)
Written in	Java
Operating system	Cross-platform
Type	CMS
License	proprietary
Website	http://www.hannonhill.com/products/

Cascade Server is a web content management system that uses push technology, and is developed by Hannon Hill.

Technology

Cascade Server is built with Java, and comes bundled with Apache Tomcat as its Servlet container. It uses several common Java frameworks and libraries, including Spring Framework, Apache Struts, and Hibernate. The use of Java allows the product to run on multiple operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

Cascade Server can be installed in-house or hosted by Hannon Hill. For its database, Cascade Server can use Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, or Oracle. The most recent version is the Cascade Server 7.6 series, which was released in August 2013.

Cascade Server provides WYSIWYG editing capabilities using TinyMCE.

Cascade Server relies heavily on XML for configuration and implementation of sites. It allows for the definition of custom data structures through a proprietary XML language, which can then be transformed into multiple formats using Velocity and/or XSLT. The application uses the Xalan library to apply XSLT transformations.

History

Cascade Server is developed by Hannon Hill Corporation, which was founded in 2001. Cascade Server is currently used by many types of organizations, though the product has a particularly strong penetration in the higher education market. A listserv, independently maintained by Cascade Server users, helps provide support to the Higher Education community.

The seventh annual Cascade Server User Conference was held September 16-18, 2012 in Atlanta, GA. It was attended by over 125 users from over 80 different organizations and took place at the Georgia Tech Global Learning Center in midtown Atlanta, GA.

Features

• Browser-based for both Windows and Mac
• WYSIWYG HTML editing
• Ability to upload and manage all file types
• Management of multiple sites
• Content reuse across multiple sites
• Content access rights
• Full audits and reporting for administrators
• Scheduled and manual publishing
• Search engine friendly, human-readable URLs
• Integration with LDAP servers
• XML syndication for RSS feed generation
• Structured Authoring

Cascade Server's push technology architecture requires a separate database for applications that make use of user-generated content, such as blog comment sections or user-submitted calendar events. Interaction with these types of applications may be handled through Cascade Server's SOAP web services layer, which allows a server-side application to interact with Cascade Server and then publish an updated file.

See also

• Content management system
• List of content management systems