At the heart of eSnap is the concept of snapin. A snapin is an object that references a database table or directory, and indicates this reference to the system while providing methods and properties that allow interaction with the user and the developer. Once a snapin is created (i.e. registered), the system has enough information to build a search based on this snapin. To be able to search across all registered snapins, eSnap relies on the “crawler”.

The crawler is a program that works in the background (implemented as an NT Service), periodically updating a search table. The crawler updates only the Common Business Element (CBE), which is the primary identifier and possibly several alternate fields. Whereas registering a snapin is a relatively simple process, the bulk of the work is to develop web-based dynamic pages (ASP) for each snapin. Developing snapins is greatly simplified by eSnap’s native APIs as well as several templates that can be used as basis for new ASP pages.



From an architectural standpoint, eSnap revolves around three axes:

1. A database that acts as a repository for the system,
2. A crawler that runs in the background and constructs search references, and
3. A set of API and templates that enable system updates and rapid deployment of ASP pages.