SDK Web Service

Using the CA Configuration Automation SDK › SDK Web Service

SDK Web Service

The CA Configuration Automation Server is configured during installation to export a web service called SDKService. The service is defined in the services.xml file as follows:

<serviceGroup>
    <service name="SDKService">
        <messageReceivers>
            <messageReceiver mep="http://www.w3.org/ns/wsdl/in-out"class="com.ca.cca.sdk.websvc.SDKServiceMessageReceiverInOut"/>
        </messageReceivers>
        <parameter name="ServiceClass">com.ca.cca.sdk.websvc.SDKServiceImpl</parameter>
        ---------------------------
        //more parameters and operations can be defined here.
        ---------------------------
</serviceGroup>

The services.xml file is located on the CA Configuration Automation Server host in the following location:

<CA Configuration Automation Server_Install_Directory>\tomcat\webapps\cca\WEB-INF\services\SDKService\META-INF\

The SDKService can be enabled and disabled by editing the sdk.enabled property in the Properties table on the Configuration tab page in the CA Configuration Automation Server UI. The property is enabled by default.

The SDKService provides services for authentication and subsequent access to CA Configuration Automation data and management functions. The data and functions available include the following:

Access to services, servers, their attributes, custom attributes, and parameters
Refresh and Snapshot operations
Running Discovery and Management Profiles
Change Detection, Comparison, and Rule Compliance operations
Execution of customized reports
Assignment of custom attributes

All methods available through the SDKService are subject to access control policies as defined by the CCA Administrator.

The SDK distribution media includes a WSDL definition for the service called sdk.wsdl that can be viewed using the CA Configuration Automation Server user interface at the following URL: http://<CA Configuration Automation Server>:port /services/SDKService?wsdl

The WSDL interface implements an XML level exchange, where input parameters other than primitive types (for example, strings and integers) are formatted as XML, and values returned from the web service are similarly formatted as XML.

For example, the getServerByName method is defined by the following WSDL:

<wsdl: message name="getServerByNameRequest">
    <wsdl:part name="credential" type="xsd:string" /> 
    <wsdl:part name="name" type="xsd:string" /> 
    <wsdl:part name="getComponents" type="xsd:boolean" /> 
</wsdl:message>

<wsdl:message name="getServerByNameResponse">
    <wsdl:part name="getServerByNameReturn" type="xsd:string" /> 
</wsdl:message>

To request the data for a server by name, the web service method takes a string credential, the string name of the server, and a Boolean specifying whether software component details should be returned. The return value is an XML formatted string, similar to the following example:

<Server>
    <uuid>930ce95b-9c4a-4358-bb14-0777be7dc866</uuid>
    <type>cca_srvr</type>
    <name>mv0090.ca.com</name>
    <snapshot>false</snapshot>
    <attributes>
        <entry>
            <string>agent_protocol</string>
            <string></string>
        </entry>
        <entry>
            <string>os_ver</string>
            <string>5.2 (Build 3790)</string>
        </entry>
    ...
</Server>

The XML format of returned data is simple and self-documenting. The SDK, as described in the next section, takes these XML representations of objects and de-serializes them into actual Java objects, allowing programmatic access to data and functions. The web service is intentionally data- and XML-oriented, allowing language neutral utilization of the web service. XML is the standard of interchange, so that any program or scripting language that is capable of SOAP and XML processing (which should be most, including PERL and Python) can immediately gain access to the web service interface by compilation of the WSDL into client stubs, and processing of the resulting XML.