Integration Procedures

Introduction to Procedures

Here you will find the explanation of all integration touchpoints (or simply integration points) exposed by the platform. For every integration point, the document provides a scenario and a procedure that walks you step-by-step through the design-development-deployment-provisioning process of implementing that kind of integration.

Every development step of a procedure contains two main parts:

• Explanation of the step - its design goal and the way to achieve it
• A part of a demo project - practical implementation of the design goal

At the end of every procedure, you will have a functional APS application as a completion of the demo project.

Platform for Testing

Options

During the deployment and provisioning steps, you will need a test platform. Consider the following options for it:

• OSS management node and a separate endpoint host used to install APS connectors at your private premises.
• APS Sandbox that you can order for free. Generally, it contains the fully functional platform containing the Operations Support System (OSS) ond Business Support System (BSS). However, in most cases for testing your demo application there is no need to have BSS since a sandbox with the minimal lin-mn configuration is sufficient.

Note

All of the above options present a case, when APS connectors are functioning at the provider’s premises. For the full overview and details about other options refer to the Deployment Schemas document.

APS Sandbox Specifics

A sandbox provides you with the following components:

• OSS management node, for example, a.isv1.apsdemo.org, with the admin user to access the control panels and the root user to get the SSH connection. The OSS allows you to get access to the following types of control panels:
  • PCP - provider control panel
  • CCP - customer control panel
  • MyCP - service user control panel
  • UX1 - unified user panel for customers and resellers
• Endpoint host, for example, endpoint.a.isv1.apsdemo.org, with CentOS and the APS PHP framework on it. You will use it to deploy the APS connectors for your demo applications. SSH access to the host is available by using the root credentials.

If a scenario requires the business part of the platform, order a sandbox with the lin-pba configuration that contains both OSS and BSS. This will allow you to switch your provider control panel from OSS to BSS and backward.

Integration Points

All the platform integration points are split into the following groups.

Service Offering

Depending on the sales model, an APS application should use a respective resource model. The following list presents different ways of providing application services to customer.

Integration Point	Description	Scenario
Service for companies	Provide resources of a certain type to the whole company without assignment to users.	Generic Services
Parameterized service	Provide resources configured in accordance with the selected offer. For example, a provider can sell virtual servers based on “platinum”, “gold”, or another configuration.	Offer Management
Service for end users	Assign a service to end users (service users) of a customer.	User Management
Countable resources	Count actual resource usage, for example, disk space or CPU power. Respond to periodical polls of resource usage in the platform. The BSS can use it to charge subscribers for the actual resource usage.	Resource Counters

Presentation in Control Panels

The platform provides various ways to use custom UI in control panels.

Integration Point	Description	Scenario
Static navigation tree	Create and plug custom UI navigation tree into the navigation tree of the platform user panel.	Generic Services
Home dashboard	Show an application UI view in the home dashbaord of the platform user panel. The view shows the main data about application services and resource usage as well as it allows a user to start a management operation by directing to another custom UI view.	Home Dashboard
User list and user profile	Add a column to the list of users to present the status of the application service for every user. Add the application service data to the profile tile presenting a user.	User Management
Mobile UI	Customize application UI for mobile devices.	Mobile UI
Internationalization and localization	Translate custom UI strings to needed languages and localize presentation of some data, such as date, time, and currency.	Internationalization and Localization
Application icon	Design an application icon to present the application in CPs.	Application Icon Design

In addition to the above-mentioned ways, you can also plug your views into the platform built-in wizards.

Asynchronous Activities

Make your application more intelligent by processing the required events, doing some operations asynchronously, and notifying users about some activities. An application service can require a user to configure the assigned resource to activate it.

Integration Point	Description	Scenario
Notifications from backend to UI	A service can send notifications to UI to inform users about some events, for example, about resource creation, update, or removal.	Notification Management
Async service processing	If operations with resources require substantial time on the cloud application side, the asynchronous execution of the standard and custom operations in most cases is the best solution.	Asynchronous Operations
Service activation	In some cases, a service assigned to a user must be configured by the user to make this service active. For example, the user must set a login, password, and mail address to be used by the service.	Service Activation

Plugging to Wizards

Integration with platform built-in wizards makes an APS application simpler and reliably integrated with the platform services, such as user management or service template management.

Integration Point	Description	Scenario
User creation	To assign a service to users, the best way is to create a custom UI view and plug it to the platform built-in user creation wizard.	User Management
Product deployment	It is possible to assist the providers in creation and modification of service templates and service plans that must offer the application resources to customers. It is especially helpful, when there are some specific restrictions or dependency between resources.	Offer Management
Custom wizard	If an operation in UI requires multiple steps performed by the same or by other applications, the application can define its own custom wizard. The latter allows plugging UI views to the list of wizard steps.	Generic Services

Business Management

Enhance the application availability by using ads in the home dashboard to attract new customers and call high-level biz API when provisioning and updating application resources in subscriptions.

Integration Point	Description	Scenario
Service announcement in Home Dashboard	If a customer is not a subscriber of an application, the latter is able to announce its services in the home dashboard and provide a link to the subscription procedure.	Home Dashboard
Using high level biz API	Applications can provision or update resources only if the corresponding limits in the customer subscription allow it. The high level biz API allows the application UI to get a confirmation on such operations at an early stage and then run the operations.	User Management

Scenarios

The following table presents the list of scenarios and respective sample packages covering the integration touchpoints exposed by the platform.

SCENARIO	DESCRIPTION	SAMPLE PACKAGE
Generic Services	Basic implementation of create-read-update-delete (CRUD) operations for customers. Basic UI views and basic custom operations.	Basic sample application
Home Dashboard	Quick access to the application services from the Home page in UX1.	Basic sample application
Resource Counters	Make the platform poll application for resource usage periodically.	Basic sample application
Notification Management	Make an application service to send notifications to the control panel.	Basic sample application
DNS Management	Bind application resources to DNS resources.	DNS management
Bind-to-Domain Event	Integrate an application service to the bind-to-domain event. This helps to upsell domain registration when selling the application service.	DNS management
Offer Management	Parameterize the resources provisioned for customers and users by means of offers.	Offering sample application
New Users	Create and assign resources for users via the platform built-in wizard. Resource management in MyCP.	Offering sample application
Service Activation	Require users to activate the services (resources) assigned to them.	Offering sample application
Event Processing	Subscribe services to events generated on the specified cases. Process the events.	Offering sample application

Demonstration Tracks

Almost every scenario contains a demo project. Usually, a demo project updates a package created in another demo project.

For example, to exercise in the Service Activation integration touchpoint, your demo track must contain the following demo projects:

Generic Services > Offering > Users > Service Activation.

The following diagram presents the demo tracks.

In the diagram, a pictogram presents the resource model of the respective demo project:

• A dark box presents a custom application resource
• A light box presents a standard resource of the platform

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