Ferrite uses an architecture based on combining processing filters to achieve the desired text and data manipulation. Each filter executes its own thread, possibly reading records from an input channel, performing some processing, and possibly writing the record to an output channel. When the workflow is started, the currently enabled component filters are chained together such the output of the previous filter forms the input of the next filter. A executing workflow can be stopped at will, or may be allowed to execute to completion. The execution continues till one of the following occur:
End of input on the Input Source.
One of the filters encounters an unexpected error and terminates.
The user interrupts the execution of the workflow.
The following sections explain out the core concepts of Ferrite in more detail.