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The Technology Behind  Benefit
Enterprise Application Portal
The core of  Benefit is our proprietary, Java Enterprise Application Portal. This is a server-brokered framework and the supporting API's for delivering rapidly-developed, highly-configurable, and parallel-scaled Web applications. Features include support for portal sites, configurable graphics, role-based presentation, data security, and architecture/API support for HIPAA compliance.
Supporting Hardware
The Benefit data center features a redundant and fault-tolerant array of application servers, controlled and load-balanced by a dedicated master router. This architecture allows us to scale our data center rapidly simply by increasing the number of application servers in the array. We also maintain a remote backup server that securely backs up all Benefit data, multiple times per day.
Security
The Benefit Portal provides two separate role-based security mechanisms: presentation and data. The presentation components of the application are made up of individually-configurable panels that can have a three-state view property (view/edit/hide) configured by user or role. This gives site administrators tremendous control over what kinds of users may perform which tasks. In addition, each user can be associated to certain data in the system. For instance, a certain broker might only be able to view and edit data from a certain client's location, or an office administrator might only be able to view data that is associated with his/her manager.
Site Architecture and HIPAA Compliance
In addition to the role-based presentation and data security, Benefit contains many security-oriented features, such as the use of Secure Socket Layers (128 bit SSL), plus encrypted URL's to prevent packet filtering or data-spoofing, separate backend database instances for each broker client, persistence layer change-logging, and a user-logging monitor.
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Flexible Access
Employer Portal Sites
Portal sites are separately-configurable extensions of Benefit portal instances. If a broker were to implement a Benefit Portal at the URL, "mybroker.com", they could extend the use of that portal to their customers by simply assigning them a role in authentication (user/password) within the broker's portal.
Portal sites support something more exciting: creation of a child portal at "employer.mybroker.com", containing all the data at "mybroker.com" that is related to the customer, extending the "mybroker.com" implementation, and allowing the "employer.mybroker.com" site administrator to customize the views, security, and look-and-feel of their portal site. With the exception of HIPAA-protected data, the "mybroker.com" users have access to all data in their clients' portal sites, allowing the broker to configure and use their Benefit Portal as their business requires -- and their related benefit carriers and employer clients to configure and use it as they require. Every portal site can have its own logo and colors that are easily customized.
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