1. Introduction & Download
CentraSite is a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) registry and repository, jointly developed by Fujitsu and Software AG. It allows you to manage and govern your SOA environment and to achieve control and transparency across all IT resources related to the SOA. It stores and manages web service descriptions and application integration models, as well as related SOA artifacts including business process and information models. CentraSite also reports changes on these SOA items throughout their lifecycle in the enterprise. Such a centrally located, extended SOA registry and repository is an important component that is necessary for any serious SOA implementation. You can download CentraSite from centrasite.org (see screenshot 1). To be able to download CentraSite, you first have to fill out a registration form. After doing this, you will see a screen with further information. As mentioned, there you will receive a link to the download location via email after your information entered in the registration form is reviewed. For further information, please see the links below.
Click on "Download CentraSite" to access the registration form.
2. Before starting the installation
CentraSite is available in two versions, Community or Enterprise Edition, depending on the license you have acquired.By default, the installation installs a Community Edition to your target machine. To upgrade from Community Edition to Enterprise Edition you need the according license file called inm22.xml. The license file is provided by email.
An upgrade from Community Edition to Enterprise Edition can be performed using Software AG's System Management Hub.
If you are using CentraSite in the context of the Crossvision suite, we recommend reading the section Crossvision (TM) "Installation considerations of the online documentation".
For the installation of CentraSite, the following hardware and software requirements apply:
| Hardware | |
|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Pentium-class processor or compatible, 2.0 GHz (recommended) |
| RAM | 1 GB (recommended) |
| Disk Space | 1 GB (recommended) Note: Disk space must not be compressed. |
| Software | |
| Operating System |
* Microsoft Windows XP Professional (with Service Pack 2) * Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard or Enterprise Edition |
| Application Server Tier | CentraSite automatically installs Apache and Tomcat as Application Server Tier. |
| CentraSite Control | Remote access of CentraSite Control may require modification of the firewall settings of the host machine of the CentraSite Application Server Tier. Assuming a default installation of CentraSite Application Server Tier, the ports 53305 (APACHE_PORT) and 53307 (TOMCAT_PORT) must be available. |
| Web Browser | We recommend you to use a recent CSS-, Java- and
JavaScript-capable browser. The following browsers have been tested successfully: * Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7. Note: CentraSite Control is only supported for use with Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7 on Windows platforms. |
| SVG Plug-In | To use the Graphical Impact Analysis feature of CentraSite Control, it is necessary to install an SVG plug-in for your web browser. One such plug-in is the Adobe SVG plug-in which may be downloaded from http://www.adobe.com/ |
| Eclipse Environment | For the Eclipse-based plug-ins of CentraSite the Eclipse SDK
3.1 or SDK 3.2 environment is required, running on Java 5 (CentraSite
installs a Java 5 runtime environment; for details on using Eclipse with
this runtime environment, see the section
Installation of Eclipse Plug-Ins (Windows Only). Note: Remote access of the Eclipse Update Site may require modification of the firewall settings of the host machine of the CentraSite Application Server Tier. Assuming a default installation of CentraSite Application Server Tier the ports 53305 (APACHE_PORT) and 53307 (TOMCAT_PORT) must be available. |
3. Installation Steps and Options
To perform the installation, you must be logged on as a user with administration rights.
To start the installation, insert the media into the appropriate drive. If Windows AutoRun mode is active (this is the default), the installation procedure starts automatically. If AutoRun mode is not active, you can install manually by running <MEDIA_ROOT>/setup.exe.
Follow the instructions below to complete this step.
Do not remove the media until the installation has finished.
Stop Windows applications before starting the installation!
On the welcome screen, just click "Next >" to access the next screen.
Read and accept the license agreement by selecting the radio button with the label "I accept the terms in the license ageement". The "Next >" button remains disabled until you do this. After accepting the license agreement, click "Next >" to access the next screen.
On the "Customer Information" screen, enter your name and the name of your organization. If you forgot something on the previous screen, then you can click "< Back" to return to this screen. Otherwise click "Next >" to access the next screen.
Here on the "Destination folder" screen you can choose the folder into which CentraSite has to be installed on your system. In most cases, there's no need to change the already preselected folder on this screen. Although if you want to change the destination folder, you can do this by clicking "Change ...". This will open a standard Windows filechooser dialog that enables you to change the destination folder. When finished, you can access the next screen by clicking on "Next >".
On the "Custom Setup" you can select the components you wish to install.In most normal circumstances,you can leavethe selections as they are. For more information, please see CentraSite documentation. If you finished with this step, click on "Next >" to access the next screen.
This is the last screen before the installation starts. You will be notified that all settings are done and the installation is ready to start. This is the last possibility to abort the installation by clicking "Cancel". To start the installation click "Install".
4. Setting up your firewall
Since your firewall - if one is activated on your computer or on your network - which blocks any unknown network traffic and given that CentraSite is a network based application, you will first have to configure your firewall to accept traffic coming in to and going out from CentraSite. To do this you have to open the ports, over which CentraSite communicates with your browser and other applications, in your firewall.
In the instructions section below only the steps for the standard "Windows Firewall" are described. If you have another firewall installed, please consult the documentation of this firewall. If the other firewall installed on your PC is listed in the "Links" section below, just click on the link to access the page of the manufacturer.
From your start menu open your control panel, and the click on "Windows Firewall" to access the dialog where you can modify the settings of your firewall.
In this dialog you can modify the settings of your firewall. By default the tab "General" is activated so that you first have to click on "Exceptions" to access the tab where you can modify your the port settings for your firewall.
On this tab all settings for open ports and network appliccations are listed. With the checkboxes at the left side of the list, you can mark settings as inactive or active without having the need to delete them when they are not needed, and to recreate them when they are needed again. If you want to define a setting as inactive, just deactivate the checkbox on its left side. If later you need the setting again, you just have to reactivate it by reactivating the checkbox. Generally after you have finished the installation of CentraSite, the settings for CentraSite are not yet defined. To define port settings you just have to click "Add Port ..." and you will access the next dialog where you can define the settings for the port.
In this dialog you can define the settings for your port. To do this just enter "CentraSite Apache Port" or any other name, which is a well description for these settings, into the "Name" field. In the "Port Number" field, enter 53305 which is the port number of the Apache server running within CentraSite. When you have done this, click "OK" to save the settings.
As you can see the defined settings now appear in the list and are activated. Now you have to add settings for a second port number because under CentraSite you have also a Tomcat running as Servlet container. Click again on "Add Port" to add the port for CentraSite's Tomcat.
Now you are again in the "Add Port" dialog. Into the "Name" field enter a self describing name (for example "CentraSite Tomcat Port"). In the "Port Number" field, enter 53307 which is the port over which CentraSite's Tomcat communicates. The click "OK" to save the settings.
Now we're back again in the overview dialog and as you can see the new added port for Tomcat is also added to the overview. Make sure that all requirements settings are activated and click "OK" to save them all.
Links:
- [ Wikipedia - Firewall ] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewall
- [ Wikipedia - Personal Firewall ] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_firewall
- [ Wikipedia - Windows Firewall ] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Firewall
- [ Microsoft - Undestanding Windows Firewall ]
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/security/internet/sp2_wfintro.mspx
- [ Wikipedia - ZoneAlarm ] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZoneAlarm
5. Installing Eclipse plugins
Apart from the web-based graphical user interface, CentraSite Control, the distribution of CentraSite comes with Eclipse-based plug-ins for development purposes. These plug-ins can be used with any Eclipse 3.0 or 3.1 installation on any of the supported platforms. The Eclipse plug-ins follow the paradigms of the Eclipse Workbench: Views and a perspective are provided for displaying the contents of a CentraSite registry/repository. Actions can be carried out from context menus and toolbars. The working environment can be customized using standard Eclipse Workbench functions. For detailed information on the Eclipse Workbench, refer to the Workbench User Guide which comes with Eclipse. General information on Eclipse is available at http://www.eclipse.org/. The Eclipse plug-ins make use of the following features and tools that are provided by the Eclipse Foundation:
- Eclipse Registry Browser.A site explorer for access to remote WebDAV sites and browsing on registry content.
- Eclipse Reporting GUI. A reporting tool based on the Business Intelligence and Reporting System (BIRT) for designing and generating customized reports based on these flexible definitions.
Open the Eclipse environment and from the menu entry "Help", select the items "Software Updates > Find and Install ...".
In the following "Feature Updates" dialog, select the item "Search for new features to install".
Your Eclipse environment can be on the same machine as the CentraSite installation or on a different machine. The plug-in installation option "New Remote Site" can be used to cover both situations. Where the Eclipse environment is on the same machine as the CentraSite installation, the "remote" machine can be specified as "localhost". In order to install the plug-ins of CentraSite, choose the button "New Remote Site".
A dialog "New Update Site" appears. Here you must specify a name of your choice for the plug-in location and the URL of the location where the Eclipse plug-ins are provided in the CentraSite installation. This example assumes that you supply the name "CentraSite" as the name of the plug-in location; this name will be visible as the top-level node that is referred to in the subsequent Install dialog. Specify the URL as follows:
- For Eclipse 3.0: http:// <hostname>:53305/CentraSite/Eclipse30/
- For Eclipse 3.1: http:// <hostname>:53305/CentraSite/Eclipse31/
Choose "OK".
Should you experience problems connecting to this URL, check for any proxy settings in your Eclipse environment.
When returning to the install dialog now, the option "CentraSite" is now available and activated. Click "Finish".
The following "Install" dialog requests you to select the features to install. In the expandable view, the top level node "CentraSite" must be selected. Also, the option "Show the latest version of a feature only" must be selected. Should this apply, choose "Next".
The next step of the installation is to accept the license agreements in the Feature License dialog. Select the appropriate radio button with the label "Accept the terms in the license agreement" and click "Next"
In the following dialog you have the possibility to change the location to which the files will be installed. It is recommended to leave these settings unchanged, in the event that Eclipse knows automatically into which location plugins are to be installed. Changing this setting without exact knowledge may cause problems later when you try to run the plugins. Click "Finish" now, to begin with plugin download.
The download of the instalation files starts now. Wait until the download is finished and the next dialog is opened.
When a warning appears, that a feature is not digitally signed, just click on "Install" to accept the installation of this feature. To avoid further similar warnings for other unsigned features, you can click "Install All".
Now a dialog with a progress bar, showing the installation progress, appears on your screen. After this, the plugins are installed and ready for use.
Note: Before running the plug-ins you must first restart the Eclipse environment.
In order to establish the connection to CentraSite open the Eclipse "Preferences" dialog by using the menu entry "Window > Preferences". In the tree on the left pane of this dialog, open the path "CentraSite > Registry Connection". The "Connections" dialog appears. In this dialog, click the "Add . . ." button to add a new connection to the empty list of connections in the dialog.
A dialog, via which you can define a single connection, appears. In this dialog subsequently enter, the name identifying the connection, the name of the host machine on which you CentraSite is installed, your user name and alternatively your password, if you want to be connected automatically, without entering you password, each time you use the CentraSite eclipse functions. Confirm all changes by clicking "OK".
Now you are back in the connections overview dialog, and you connection to CentraSite is listed. Confirm all changes by clicking "OK". You will be able to use CentraSite functions in Eclipse now.
6. Starting CentraSite Control
CentraSite Control can be started from the Windows Start menu.
To start CentraSite Control
- Choose Programs > CentraSite > Control.
This displays the login screen. Supply your user ID and password to log in. If you wish to log in as a member of a domain, specify the user name in the form "DomainName\UserID".
You can also start CentraSite Control remotely using a URL of the form http://CentraSiteHost:53307/CentraSiteControl/, where CentraSiteHost represents the name of the host machine where the remote CentraSite server is running, for example http://MyHost:53307/CentraSiteControl/.
Note: Remote access of CentraSite Control may require modification of the firewall settings of the host machine of the CentraSite Application Server Tier. Assuming a default installation of CentraSite Application Server Tier the ports 53305 (APACHE_PORT) and 53307 (TOMCAT_PORT) must be available.
7. Working with services
In the "Registry" overview of CentraSite Control, an overview of the registry features of CentraSite is listed. These features are:
- ApplicationServer: This object type allows you to register information about application servers. Any application servers used by the CentraSite application server tier are preregistered.
- InterstageBusinessProcess: This object type allows you to register and maintain process-related objects. To view the list of currently registered processes, choose "Process" in the navigation view.
- Organization: This object type allows you to register and maintain organization-related objects. To view the list of the currently registered organizations, choose "Organization" in the navigation view. You can assign a service to an organization to provide the details of who is the provider of this service.
- Package: This object type allows you to register and maintain package-related objects. To view the list the currently registered packages, choose "Package" in the navigation view.
- Report: This object type allows you to register and maintain reports. To view a list of the currently registered reports, choose "Report" in the navigation view.
- Service: This object type allows you to register and maintain web services. To view a list the currently registered web services, choose "Service" in the navigation view.
-
User: This object type allows you to maintain objects that represent users. A user in this sense can be either:
- A user created with CentraSite Control as an object belonging to the object type User.
- A user who has been defined at the operating system level and who is the owner of one or more objects in the registry or repository. This could be, for example, a user of a software package that registers a web service in CentraSite; in such circumstances, the user is added automatically to the registry.
In the example below, we will use the object types "Organization" and "Service". We will create an organization and assign all new created services to this organization.
In order to start the dialog where you can enter the data for the new organization, click with the right mouse button on the "Organization" icon in the Registry view. Then select the command "New organization..." from the context menu.
In the newly opened dialog box, select the "General" tab and there type the name of the organization into the "Name" field and an optional description into the "Description" field. Click on the floppy disk icon on the left side of the dialog's toolbar to save changes.
Go back to the Organization overview by closing the dialog or clicking on the "Organization" icon in the Registry view. If the changes were saved correctly, you will see the newly created organization there.
Click the "Import Web Service" icon on the toolbar. When you click this icon, the dialog box for importing new web services will appear.
The following dialog display a list of object types. From this list, choose "Import Web Service" and then click "OK".
Choose from which source you want to import your service.
- Choose the first radio button, if you want to import the service from a web server which is providing this service.
- Choose the second radio button, if you want to import the service from a WSDL which is stored on your file system.
- Choose the third radio button if you want to browse another UDDI registry for services.
In this example we will use some sample services provided by a server running on my own PC. If you don't have running services on your PC or some example WSDLs stored on it, you can also take a look at the site XMethods.net. There are a lot of free usable services listed there.
Note: Before using a web service from the site XMethods.net, read carefully the terms and conditions related to the usage of the service !
Click on the "Browse..." button on the right side of the "Provider" Field to select a provider for the service.
In order to select a provider for the web service, open the "Type" combobox at the top of the dialog and select "Organization" as type. Then click on "Search". All available organizations will be listed. From this list of organizations, select "Demo Paradise" and then click "OK" to apply changes.
You will now automatically return to the "Import Web Service" dialog. Click "Finish" to apply all changes.
After you have clicked on "Finish", The "Name" field of the dialog will be empty again. You can now register another service or return to the overview of services by closing the dialog or clicking on the "Service" icon in the registry view. The service will now appear in the overview. You then can click on the icon with the right mouse button and select the "Show Details" command from the context menu to edit the details for the service.
The service will now appear in the overview. You then can click on the icon with the right mouse button and select the "Show Details" command from the context menu to edit the details for the service.
In the "Details of Service" dialog, select the "General" tab and enter a new description in the "Description" field. Then click "Save" to apply changes.
In the same way you can import more services into CentraSite, like the ones shown in the last dialog.
8. Retrieving services
Since the registry can contain a very large number of entries, it is important to have a method of finding registry objects conveniently. For this purpose, you can use the "Search Registry" dialog.
In order to open the "Search Registry" dialog, click on the "Search Registry" icon in the toolbar.
Since the registry can contain a very large number of entries, it is important to have a method of finding registry objects conveniently. For this purpose, you can use the Search Registry dialog. This dialog allows you to search for stored objects, using various filter criteria.
The first condition is preset to a value that depends on how the search dialog was invoked. If the dialog was invoked from the quick start menu, the first condition is preset to "Type is Service". This means that the object type of the required registry objects is "Service". If the dialog was invoked from a position other than the global toolbar, the first condition can be preset to another value.
In most cases you can modify the condition if you wish, but in some cases the preset value is required for a particular context and cannot be changed.
In the cases where you can change the condition, double-click anywhere in the row of this condition. This opens the Modify Condition dialog, which allows you to specify the object type that you wish to search for. If you wish to search for all objects types, select the entry all types from the drop down list of the Type field. Note, however, that if the registry is very large, a search across the whole registry can take a lot of time to run.
The procedure for modifying any other condition the condition table is the same. Additional criteria can be added by choosing the plus icon in the quick start menu.
When you choose this icon, the Add Condition dialog is displayed, which allows you to specify an additional filter criterion.
The available criteria are listed in the column Type of Condition. The criteria Service by Provider, Service by Interface and Service by Operation are only available for searches on the object type Service.
When you choose one of these criteria, a corresponding sub-dialog opens in the Details area. For example, if you choose Name, the sub-dialog shown in the associated screenshot here is displayed.
Enter the name of the service you want to search (in this case "CustomerService"), and click "OK" to add the new criterion.
If you like, you can save the settings made as customized search. To do this, enter a name in the "Query" combo box an click "Save". Later you ca retrieve this search, including all defined criteria", by simply selecting the name in the "Query" combo box.
If the customized query is saved you will get a notification at bottom of the dialog.
The previous selected category will now appear in the "Category" field of the search dialog. Click now on the search button to start the search.
As in the services overview, you can now right click on the service and select the "Show Details" command to view or edit the details of the service.
9. Creating dependencies between services
Between different web services there may sometimes be dependencies. A service that you call may sometimes use another service. This is completely transparent for the user, but may have a great impact when a service, which exists within a complex network of interdependencies, is modified. Thats why CentraSite offers impact analysis.
Objects in the registry can be linked via associations, and CentraSite offers the possibility of checking what would happen if a user wishes to modify or delete an object. This is called impact analysis. When you make changes in the registry, CentraSite checks that existing associations between objects are not violated. Also, external links from registry objects to repository objects are checked. You can also visualize the current associations defined for any given object in the registry.
To demonstrate this for our example, we will create a dependency between the "InboxService" and the "EmployeeService". We assume that the InboxService, which has a call "getInboxForEmployee", has first to use the EmployeeService when this call is used, to check if the customer for which the inbox is requested really exists. To realize this dependency, follow the instructions below.
Go to the overview of your services by clicking on the "Service" icon in the registry view. Click with the right mouse button on the EmployeeService and from the context menu choose the command "Show Details".
In the details dialog of the service go to the "Associations" tab. In this tab you have two vertically separated areas. On the upper area labeled "References Object(s) via Association Type" click on the plus sign. A wizard will be opened.
In the first dialog of the wizard just choose "Uses" as association type and click "Next".
The second dialog of the wizard just corresponds to the search dialog described in the section "Retrieving services" above. In the dropdown list "Type" just select "Service" as type. Since we have only four services in our example, it's not necessary to provide the name of the service as search criterion, but if you have a lot of services it is recommended. For further information, see the section "Retrieving services" above. Click on "Search" start the search. Select EmployeeService and click "Finish" to apply changes.
Start the impact analysis by clicking the "Impact Analysis" button in the quick start menu.
The dependency between the two services is now created. You can see a graphical view when you click on the "Graphical Impact Analysis" button.
