Modifying the Information Service Configuration

The Information Service:

• provides a mechanism to perform a federated search of any repositories that a user has a connection to. The term federated means connected and treated as one. The classes in the Information Service package enable the creation of a single filter which can search disparate repositories (for example, SAS Metadata Repositories and LDAP repositories).
• allows repository-specific searches to be performed, so that efficient searching can be achieved.
• provides a convenience method for fetching an item from a repository using a URL.
• can be used in conjunction with the User Services and the Authentication Service to authenticate users, create User Contexts, locate servers that the user has access to, and create repository definitions to use in making server connections.

For more information about the Information Service, see com.sas.services.information in the Foundation Services class documentation.

The Information Service configuration consists of the following items:

• Protocols: the protocol definition maps the repository protocol to a Java class that implements the com.sas.services.information.RepositoryInterface interface. When connecting to a repository, the protocol class definition is used to create the new repository object.
• Repositories: a repository is a persistent storage mechanism for metadata and content. The repository definitions specify how to connect to the repository and how to allow client software to connect to a repository by name. You must create a repository definition for each repository your application is going to access. (You must also define a repository when using the getPathUrl method of the MetadataInterface.)
• Repository groups: a repository group identifies a set of repositories that can be searched together.
• Smart objects: smart objects are objects that act as wrappers for metadata entries in order to hide the details of repository-specific metadata types. A smart object definition consists of the following:
  • the protocol of the repository that contains the metadata
  • the interface for the smart object
  • the repository-specific type of metadata
  • the action to take to implement the object
  • the filter class to use to search for this type of object (object)
  You can use smart objects to specify implementations (smart object action definition) for one or more repositories. You must specify an implementation (smart object action definition) for at least one repository type. In the smart object action definition, you can also specify a filter to use for implementing different smart objects for the same repository type.
• Factories: factories are objects that act as wrappers for metadata entries in order to hide the details of repository-specific metadata types. However, with factories, you can not specify an interface or filter to use when creating the object. In addition, within each factory, you can only specify implementations (factory object action definitions) for one type of repository. A factory definition consists of the following:
  • the protocol of the repository that contains the metadata
  • the repository-specific type of metadata
  • the action to take to implement the factory

  Note: You must use smart object definitions if you wish to specify the following:

  • an interface for the object
  • a filter to use when implementing the object
  • multiple repositories for the actions of an object

To configure the Information Service, follow these steps:

1. Open SAS Management Console and connect to a metadata repository.
2. In the navigation tree, expand the Foundation Services Manager tree to locate and select the Information Service that you want to modify.
3. Right-click the Information Service and select Properties. The Information Service properties window appears.
4. Select the Service Configuration tab. Click Edit Configuration. The Information Service Configuration window appears.
5. In the Protocols tab, click New to add a protocol or select a protocol and click Edit to edit a protocol. Enter the following information:

   Protocol

   specifies the protocol for the information service.

   Class

   lists the fully qualified Java class for the selected protocol. When requesting a connection to a new repository, this class is used in the connect method.

6. In the Repositories tab, click New to add a repository, or select a repository and click Edit to edit a repository. Enter the following information:

   Information Repositories

   lists the repositories for the specified protocol.

   Protocol

   specifies the protocol for the Information Service.

   Description

   specifies the repository description.

   Host

   specifies the fully qualified DNS name of the host where the repository server is running.

   Port

   specifies the TCP/IP port on which the repository server is listening.

   Domain

   specifies the authentication domain in which the repository server is running.

   Base

   specifies the base directory for the repository.

   Proxy

   specifies a URL for a proxy server.

   Auto-Connect

   when checked, specifies that the information service should automatically connect each authenticated user to the repository.

   Secure

   when checked (and if security is supported), specifies that the connection to the repository should be made using a secure protocol.

7. If you want to define repository groups, select the Groups tab. Click New to add a repository group, or select a repository group and click Edit to edit a repository group. Enter the following information:

   Name

   specifies the repository group name.

   Member Repositories

   specifies the repositories that are members of the repository group. Select a repository from the Available Repositories panel and click the arrow button to move it to the Member Repositories panel.

8. If you want to define smart objects, select the Smart Objects tab. Click New to add a smart object or select a smart object and click Edit to edit a smart object. Enter the following information:

   Name

   specifies the smart object type name. This string should exactly match the string returned from the smart object implementation's getType() method.

   Interface Class

   specifies the fully-qualified Java interface that objects of this type will implement.

   Filter Class

   specifies the fully-qualified Java class to use to most effectively search for objects of this type. This class will likely contain specific extensions to the com.sas.services.information.Filter class to make searches more efficient.

   Actions

   defines how and when objects of this type will be created. An action definition contains a protocol, a repository-specific type, a fully qualified Java class for the implementation to instantiate when that type is encountered, and an optional filter to run against an object which it must match for the action to be taken. Click Add to define a new action, or Edit to change an existing action and enter the following information:

   Protocol

   specifies the repository protocol that this action applies to. Select omi for Open Metadata Interface, ldap for LDAP directory server, or dav for WebDAV server.

   Type

   specifies the repository-specific type to look for when creating this type of object.

   Class

   specifies the fully qualified Java class to create when encountering this type in the repository.

   Filter

   specifies an optional filter which an object must validate against before this action is taken. The format of the filter is
   [*association/]@attribute='value'
   
   

   association

   specifies the name of an association from the specified repository type; the objects in the association will be tested against the attribute portion of the filter.
   

   attribute

   specifies an attribute to test for validation. The attribute can be an attribute on the objects in the association or, if no association is specified, an attribute can be an attribute on the object itself.
   

   value

   specifies the attribute value to test the object against to be sure it is the correct type.

9. If you want to define factory definitions, select the Factories tab. Click New to add a factory or select a factory and click Edit to edit a factory. Enter the following information:

   Protocol

   specifies the protocol for the Information Service.

   Types

   specifies the factory types associated with the Information Service and the selected protocol. You may select more than one factory type.

   Action

   specifies the action associated with the selected factory. The Action table lists the type, class, method, and filter for each action. Click Add to define a new action, or Edit to change an existing action and enter the following information:

   Type

   specifies the action type. Select Class (to specify a class to generate the smart object), Constructor (to specify a constructor for a Java class that implements the smart object), or Service (to specify a Foundation Service).

   Filter

   specifies the fully qualified Java class to use to search for objects of this type. The class will most likely contain extensions to the com.sas.services.information.Filter class to make searches more efficient.

   Class

   specifies the fully qualified Java class to instantiate for the action.

   Method

   specifies the method for the action. This field is displayed only for action types of Class and Service.

10. Click OK to save the Information Service configuration to the metadata repository.