Teamcenter SOA : Introduction

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) framework is offered by many enterprise product vendor due to its advantage of interoperability as well reusability.  Also due to service based framework based on buisness use case maje SOA API are easy to use as it hide all complexity to Application Developer. Teamcenter also offer SOA framework for customization as well for integration with other Application. In series of Blog's I will provide detail concept of Teamcenter SOA framework and creating your own SOA based on Tc SOA Framework.

Teamcenter UA SOA :
Teamcenter provide SOA framework as well set of out of box SOA service for direct consumption. Teamcenter SOA can be basically used in two ways.

1. Using OOTB SOA service as SOA client.
2. Creating your own SOA which can consume by others.

Teamcenter SOA support following language presently C#, C++ and Java. Development can be done in any of above language either using OOTB SOA service for Application Development or developing your own SOA for other developer usage. The list of SOA service can be seen in BMIDE under extension -> Code Generation->Services. It provides all the list of Service available for given Teamcenter environment. Also you can get all detail of Data Type and Operation corresponding to SOA services in the BMIDE as shown in below image.

Teamcenter SOA Framework:

Teamcenter SOA service Framework provide set of connection protocol like HTTP, Corba and auto generated stub in the  server  as well Data Model to support client application. SOA server architecture resides above Business Object layer (AOM layer). SOA server code can call ITK API to perform business logic as shown in below diagram.

Teamcenter SOA is set of API or programming interface used for application developer. The API libraries are present  in soa_client.zip file on the Teamcenter software distribution image. The libraries are present inside soa_client for respective supported programming language Java, C++ and C#. This ZIP required to be extracted preferably in TC_ROOT folder for linking Application code which usage SOA service. soa_client.zip also contain some sample SAO code in all supported language.We will see in my next blog how to use SOA API , establish connection through SOA and use OOTB SOA services.

Source: http://teamcenterplm.blogspot.in

Teamcenter Dispatcher Framework

Presently I am working Translation Service of Teamcenter. Though to share my learning experience with you people. Translation service comes as a Dispatcher Service under teamcenter installation. Translation service is nothing but to translate one file format to other. For example Doc to PDF. The broader task any translation are as follows.

a) Extract Data from Teamcenter.
b) Execute Translation.
c) Load translated result to teamcenter.

Hence the Dispatcher Service of teamcenter has three main components.
1) Scheduler
2) Module
3) Dispatcher Client

There is one more component called Dispatcher Admin which is basically used for Admin activity and it is optional component. Each of the above three component run independently and can be run as service or in console. Each component can be run in different server. As name suggests scheduler manage the whole framework by interacting between Module and Dispatcher client. Dispatcher Client component basically manage extract and loading of data. Module does actual translation. The below diagram depict the Translation Frame work.

Dispatcher Client is the front end of Dispatcher Framework which basically interacts with Teamcenter through SOA for translation request. Teamcenter required to be configuring through ETS preferences for new translation services and object type on which this service is valid. Once the request is received to Dispatcher Client, it processes the request and put all extracted files required to be translated in to directory called staging directory. Staging directory is required to be configured during Dispatcher Service Installation. In staging directory a unique subfolder is created for each request by Dispatcher client based on Task ID generated during user request in Teamcenter. Once Dispatcher client completes the extract, it inform scheduler for translation processing. Scheduler in turn informs Module to start processing the task. Module translate the file and put the output in staging directory. Once completed schedule ping the Dispacher client which load translated file back to Teamcenter. Siemens PLM provide lot of out of box translation service which required to be make active.

Source: http://teamcenterplm.blogspot.in/

Introduction to Teamcenter Customization

 Teamcenter provides variety of mechanism for customization of teamcenter based on business requirement. The customization is based on base framework of API provide by teamcenter. In this blog I will discuss all customization options and its architecture.
Customization Architecture
Teamcenter customization architecture can be broadly distinguished based on Teamcenter technical architecture. It can be categorized in to three layers.

• Server or Enterprise Layer
• Web Layer
• Client Layer

Client Layer is basically portal or thin client customization which usually deals with UI and data handling of the result of server request.  SOA client is SOA API for calling SOA services. You can see in detail of Teamcenter SOA service in my SOA blogs. Web Layer is nothing Teamcenter based J2EE deployment layer which basically communicate between Server and client.  Server customization is core of all customization as most of the Business logic is written in this layer. It mainly deals with all business transaction as it interacts with data base through Persistence Object Layer (POM) API.  FMS is resource layer which support actual file transfer between client and server through FMS framework. For more detail in FMS you can visit my blog on Teamcenter FMS. Server customization is done through C based API provided by Teamcenter. This API is also called Integration Toolkit (ITK). Apart from above discussed customization there is SOA customization and BMIDE extension which are basically either server and client\web customization or both.  Below diagram depict Customization Architecture diagram for Teamcenter. As shown in diagram, all BMIDE extension is in server side. This is because most of BMIDE extension overrides or changes object behavior based on business requirement. This can be only accomplished in server layer; hence all extension is implemented by using core ITK API provide in server layer. Below diagram shows the Customization Architect of Teamcenter.

Based on above Customization Architect, Teamcenter customization can be categorized in to following area.

1.     Server Customization
2.      Portal Customization
3.     Web or Thin client customization
4.     SOA based customization
5.     BMIDE extension customization

Server Customization: Server side customization is a most frequently used customization, as all business logic are written in this layer. Basically all requests pass through through server layer for all teamcenter transaction. Hence it is core of teamcenter customization. As discuss in Customization Architecture, Teamcenter provide C based API called Integration Toolkit (ITK) for server side customization. This toolkit provides hundred of API for processing various business process based on Teamcenter functionality. The ITK is categorized by various modules and functionality of Teamcenter. Also various extension mechanisms are provided by ITK toolkit to plug in custom code based on various Teamcenter events and object status. The detail discussion of ITK customization is out of scope of this blog and I will cover it another blog.

Portal Customization: Teamcenter Client is layer is written on Java JFC and eclipse SWT. The core client API are written in Java JFC framework and slowly it will ported to eclipse SWT framework. Presently Teamceter support both JFC and SWT customization, but it is recommended to do customization in SWT looking at Teamcenter future vision. The Portal Customization can be done extending OOTB Plug-in or developing your own plug-in. Apart from JFC/SWT UI api, the Teamcenter client API also provides object interface component which is an encapsulation of Teamceter Data model through Client object model. This Object Interface component also form interface layer between client and server.

Web or Thin Client Customization: This customization is for Teamcenter Web client. Teamcenter provides standard web interface for viewing and editing Teamcenter object in web browser. Web client is builds on asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) to allow dynamic loading of data in the browser. The HTML pages are renders by java script on XML data. Most of the thin client customization is carried through JavaScript which allow the rendering as well managing request\response from web server. Both client-to-server requests and server-to-client responses in Teamcenter thin client are standard HTTP responses.

SOA Customization: It is also called Teamcenter services. It is a standard SOA based services provided by Teamcenter for integrating with third party as well custom client. Also Teamcenter provides framework to create your own custom SOA services. I covered Teamcenter SOA services in detail in my SOA blogs.

BMIDE Extension Customization: This is mainly a server customization using Teamcenter BMIDE. BMIDE provide various extension customization mechanisms for implementing desired behavior in Teamcenter. Some of example of BMIDE extension is pre-action or post-action operation for Business object, Runtime property etc. This extensions are implemented in BMIDE environment by writing C\C++ server code mainly using ITK API. BMIDE framework create stub code and other require classes for extension implementation. Developer only required implementing base logic of the extension.  I will try to cover extension implementation in one of my future blog.

Apart from the above customization; Teamcenter Dispatcher module can also be customized for required translation behavior. Most of time Dispatcher client required to be implemented for extracting and loading translated file from Teamcenter. The Dispatcher Client Framework is based on Teamcenter SOA service and most OOTB SOA API is used apart from Dispatcher API which encapsulates most of complex Teamcenter SOA API calls.

Source: http://teamcenterplm.blogspot.in/