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Overview of the XML-based Data Format

Enterprise environments can require policy store data to be moved from one environment to another, such as from a development environment to a staging environment. In releases prior to r12, policy objects are represented using the proprietary SiteMinder Data Interchange Format (SMDIF), using smobjimport and smobjexport for migrating the data. This export format and these tools have been replaced by an XML-based export format, using XPSExport and XPSImport to migrate the data.

The XML-based export format uses the following fundamental schemas:

• XPSDeployment.xsd

  Describes the top-level schema, which includes the other schemas. It defines the root element and sub-elements. An XML file conforming to this schema can contain an instance of Data Dictionary, Policy, and Security Data.

• XPSDataDictionary.xsd

  Describes meta-data information about object types and their properties.

• XPSPolicyData.xsd

  Describes the meta-data information about objects stored in the policy store, such as domains, policies, rules, applications, and the relationships between them.

• XPSSecurityData.xsd

  Describes meta-data used for representing policy store administrators and their access rights.

• XPSGeneric.xsd

  Contains definitions of the generic data types used in the other schema files.

This format supports not only exporting and importing policy data in its entirety, but also exporting and importing a subset of the policy data. A granular export presupposes knowledge of how the data will be imported. On export, you can specify the entire policy data, or a portion of the data using an object identifier and optionally one of these three export types:

• Add—specifies that only additions can be done during import.
• Replace—specifies an overwrite of existing policy data during import.
• Overlay—specifies that updates to policy data are done during import.

Note: The XPSExport and XPSImport tools encrypt sensitive data based on the FIPS mode the Policy Server is operating in. There are no additional parameters in these tools to set for data encryption.