Connecting to the SAS Metadata Server

Available Interfaces

The SAS Metadata Server is an object server; it uses the Integrated Object Model (IOM) provided by SAS Integration Technologies to communicate with clients. SAS Integration Technologies provides interfaces that enable clients to connect to the SAS Metadata Server generically as an IOM server. When you use these interfaces, you must be familiar with the interfaces and classes that define the SAS Metadata Server and the SAS Open Metadata Interface server interfaces. In addition, you must know how to read and write an XML document to use the metadata access functionality of the IOMI server interface.

As an alternative to the SAS Integration Technologies interfaces, SAS provides the SAS Java Metadata Interface. The SAS Java Metadata Interface hides the details of IOM servers and the steps of how to create a connection to a SAS Metadata Server from the client. It provides a Java object interface to the metadata access functionality of the SAS Open Metadata Interface. This object interface defines an interface for each SAS Metadata Model metadata type. These interfaces enable clients to use getter and setter methods to read and write metadata attributes and associations, instead of requiring clients to submit XML metadata property strings that define values, like the IOMI methods do. In addition, these interfaces provide methods for connecting to the SAS Metadata Server with the ISecurity, ISecurityAdmin, and IServer server interfaces, so that clients do not need to know the details of their implementation.

Because of its ease of use, the SAS Java Metadata Interface is recommended over the SAS Integration Technologies interfaces, both for performing metadata access tasks and for connecting to the SAS Metadata Server with the non-metadata server interfaces.

Connecting with SAS Integration Technologies Interfaces

SAS Integration Technologies provides the SAS Object Manager for Windows client development and the Java Connection Factory for Java client development. For more information about the interfaces, see the SAS Integration Technologies: Windows Client Developer's Guide and the SAS Integration Technologies: Java Client Developer's Guide.

Connecting with the SAS Java Metadata Interface

The SAS Java Metadata Interface and SAS Open Metadata Interface are contained in JAR files in the SAS 9.3 VJR. For information about the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) and JAR files required by the SAS Java Metadata Interface, see JRE and JAR Requirements. The server interfaces are provided in the sas.oma.omi.jar file.

A Java client accesses the APIs by importing the appropriate packages, instantiating an object factory, and connecting to the SAS Metadata Server with a handle to the interface that is appropriate for the task that it wants to perform. A SAS Java Metadata Interface client that will perform metadata access tasks imports the com.sas.metadata.remote package. A client that accesses the ISecurity, ISecurityAdmin, or IServer server interface imports the com.sas.metadata.remote package and appropriate interfaces from the com.sas.meta.SASOMI package. For information about the specific com.sas.meta.SASOMI interfaces that are required, see the server interface documentation.

The SAS Java Metadata Interface provides the MdFactory interface to instantiate an object factory for the SAS Metadata Server, and provides the MdOMRConnection interface to connect to the SAS Metadata Server. The MdOMRConnection interface includes the following methods to enable you to connect to the SAS Metadata Server:

makeOMRConnection—connects to the SAS Metadata Server with the SAS Java Metadata Interface. A client uses the SAS Java Metadata Interface to read and write metadata.
makeISecurityConnection—connects to the SAS Metadata Server with the ISecurity server interface. ISecurity contains metadata authorization methods. A client uses the ISecurity server interface to request user-defined authorization decisions on access controls that are stored as metadata.
makeISecurityAdminConnection—connects to the SAS Metadata Server with the ISecurityAdmin server interface. ISecurityAdmin contains security administration methods. A client uses the ISecurityAdmin server interface to administer access controls that are defined directly on resources and to manage ACTs.
makeIServerConnection—connects to the SAS Metadata Server with the IServer server interface. IServer contains server control methods. A client uses the IServer server interface to pause and resume, refresh, get the status of, and stop the SAS Metadata Server.

For examples of the statements that are required to establish a connection to the SAS Metadata Server with the SAS Java Metadata Interface, see Sample Program. The sample program is a metadata access client.

For more information about connecting with the non-metadata server interfaces, see Authorization (ISecurity Interface), Security Administration (ISecurityAdmin Interface), and Server Control (IServer Interface).

Server Connection Properties

A client must specify the following server connection properties to connect to a SAS Metadata Server. Optional properties are described in the SAS Integration Technologies documentation.

host

The IP address of the machine hosting the SAS Metadata Server.

port=number

The TCP port to which the SAS Metadata Server listens for requests, In addition, clients will use this port to connect to the SAS Metadata Server. The number value must be a unique number from 0 to 65,535. The default port number is 8561.

user name

A valid user name on the host machine, or a SAS internal account. For information about internal authentication, see SAS Intelligence Platform: Security Administration Guide.

password

the password for the user name.