7 Design Center administration

This chapter introduces some Design Center internals and explains how to configure new Design Center users.

Design Center node & engines

The Design Center is an ObjectSwitch application, running on a dedicated ObjectSwitch node. Figure 27 shows how Design Center engines run together on the node. There are actually more engines than this, as discussed below.

Figure 27: Parts of the Design Center

Each user has his or her own Design Center. The shared memory file used by the Design Center has a different name from the shared memory name used by the coordinator when it runs, so users testing applications don't interfere with the Design Center.

The following table lists the engines in the Design Center.

Engine	Executable	Description
Design Center controller	dcplugin	Manages the other engines and communicates with the user interface client (GUI).
System coordinator	swcoord	An instance of the coordinator is dedicated to the Design Center node, just like any other node.
ORB	orbixd cbdcplugin	A minimal run-time CORBA server that provides communication to the client.
Build system	swmakeplugin	Generates makefiles from model and adapter compiler information and generates an executable.
Model compiler	swmcplugin	Uses models and projects to generate intermediate source code that gets built into executables.
Exporter	swexptplugin	Externalizes projects as SWALscript files or exports IDLos from the repository.
Repository	swrepository	Contains models so they can be accessed by other Design Center engines.
IDLos importer	socleplugin	Imports models into the repository.
SWAL audit	swalaudit	Audits SWAL contained in models in the repository.
SWALscript	swsplugin	Executes SWALscripts.
CORBA	swionaplugin	Generates code and interface files for CORBA adapter.
Persistence	psplugin	Generates code and interface files for Informix, Oracle, and Sybase adapters.
SNMP	swsnmpaplugin	Generates code and interface files for SNMP adapter.

System Monitor for DC admin node

You can run the System Monitor on a Design Center node. This can help if you need to see what plugins are running and what objects they have created, or if you need another way to examine the contents of the repository. Use the command:

 swdc -c startmon

This starts the new System Monitor (see Chapter 4) on the Design Center node.

Setting up users

Each user runs a separate Design Center. When multiple developers work together on a project, they typically collaborate by exchanging models (either in IDLos or in a third-party modeling tool) and importing them into their individual Design Centers. A user may also use more than one Design Center.

There are essentially two steps to configuring a new Design Center user:

1. set up the user's environment
2. configure the Design Center

These two steps are described in the following sections.

Setting up the user environment

Each user must have the following two environment variables set, typically in their .profile:

SW_HOME

This must be the directory where ObjectSwitch was installed.

PATH

The user's path should include $SW_HOME/distrib/platform/scripts and $SW_HOME/distrib/platform/bin, where platform is sol for Solaris, ntmsc for Windows NT, or hpux for HP-UX.

Configuring and running a new design center

Each ObjectSwitch developer needs his or her own Design Center. To configure a new Design Center:

1. go to the directory where the Design Center is to run

It is best not to run the Design Center in a directory in the ObjectSwitch installation. Instead, use a directory that is not under $SW_HOME. But make sure to run the Design Center on the same machine where ObjectSwitch is installed-don't run it in a remotely mounted filesystem!

2. type swdc -c configure -P port -n name
   where port is a unique port on the Unix machine, and name is an arbitrary name that the Design Center will be known by, for example "KathysDC"

This creates a new ObjectSwitch registry in the directory and initializes it with reasonable values for the Design Center. If the configure command executed successfully, you can test the Design Center server by starting it:

3. type swdc -c start

This starts a Design Center in the current directory. If it's a new Design Center, then the System Coordinator also creates shared memory. If the Design Center starts correctly, then the user can start the GUI:

4. type swdc -c startgui

This starts the user interface client (GUI) connected to the Design Center in the current directory.

Typically, a user leaves the Design Center server running and just starts and exits the GUI as needed. But the swdc -c stop command is available to stop the Design Center server if necessary.

Erasing repository contents

There are two ways to erase the contents of the Design Center repository. Use swdc -c forcestop if the server is running, or swdc -c clobber if the server is stopped.

There is no warning before deleting the repository contents. Don't use these commands unless you really want to delete everything in the Design Center!

Kabira Technologies, Inc. http://www.kabira.com Voice: (415) 446 5000 Fax: (415) 446 5199