Getting Started

This chapter describes the processes for administering a SAS Integration Technologies (IT) implementation. In general, IT administration involves configuring the application resources for your site and defining the properties for each resource. The specifics of the process depend on the requirements for your implementation. The basic administration steps are as follows:

1. Plan your implementation:

   • Define how your organization intends to use the features of Integration Technologies, such as publish/subscribe and distributed applications.

   • Determine the hardware and software elements that will be involved in your Integration Technologies implementation. For example, if you are administering a distributed application implementation, you will need to know the communication requirements for connecting your client and server platforms.

   • Determine security roles and access control policies for data and other resources.

2. Set up the LDAP directory server. Integration Technologies uses an enterprise directory provided through the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). This directory provides a common repository from which user, resource, and security-policy information can be centrally managed. Because all of the IT administration tasks involve working with LDAP information, the first administration task is to install and set up an LDAP server. If you already have an LDAP server, you must install the Integration Technologies schema. For details about installation and setup, see Setting Up an LDAP Directory Server.

   Note: For a limited implementation of Integration Technologies, you can use flat configuration files instead of LDAP. However, if your configuration requires more than one or two SAS object servers, or if multiple clients will be using the servers, we strongly recommend the use of LDAP as a central metadata repository. The use of LDAP also gives you the ability to use access control lists to control access to the servers in your enterprise.

   Note: Alternatively, for a limited implementation of Integration Technologies, you can supply the server parameters for the configuration directly in the application program.

3. Define LDAP objects. After you have set up the LDAP server, begin adding definitions for the LDAP objects needed for your implementation. Examples include SAS server and spawner definitions, archive paths, and channel definitions. Use the Integration Technologies (IT) Administrator application to perform these tasks. For general instructions, see Using IT Administrator. For instructions on setting up specific resources, refer to the appropriate topic in the index at left (Administering SAS Servers, Administering Stored Processes, Administering the Publishing Framework, or Administering SAS Data Sources).

4. Implement Security. Integration Technologies uses Access Control Information (ACI) rules in the LDAP directory to determine which resources can be accessed by the user. For a given object or group of objects, an ACI rule can either allow or disallow access to individual registered users or groups of users. For instructions on setting up users and access rules, refer to the Administering Security topic in the index at left. Further security is available through SAS Login objects, which control access to the SAS data and processes which reside on servers.

5. Perform ongoing maintenance tasks. After you set up your implementation and roll it out to the user community, you may occasionally need to change your Integration Technologies configuration. Therefore, you should establish a maintenance procedure for making changes to the LDAP information.