2 Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services Architecture and Concepts

This chapter discusses the following concepts that are essential to understanding and using Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services:

• Architecture

• Sites

• Users

• Security and Authentication

• Invoking Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services

• Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services SOAP Operations

• Steps to Integrate Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services

See Also: See the following Web site for more information about the architecture of Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services: http://hostname:port/imtapp/ws Contact your administrator for the hostname and port of Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services. This Web site also includes the following additional resources: Sample applications, including demonstration programs that call Web services through HTTP POST operations and sample Java code. Links to service URLs, WSDL files, proxy JAR files, and endpoints for each Web service. Sample input and output XML Additional details about specific concepts and services

Architecture

Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services is a suite of SOAP-based Web services and direct URL-based services that allow you to extend any enterprise or desktop application with the capabilities of Oracle Real-Time Collaboration.

The use of SOAP allows for the consumption of the services by clients from multiple platforms. As a result, the only requirement is the ability to compose and parse XML. At the same time, the SOAP standard allows rapid productivity gains in common developmental platforms, such as Java and C#, through the use of standard SOAP libraries. Proxies for Java are provided for each service with the Oracle Real-Time Collaboration deployment. The use of the HTTP(S) protocol allows the most common network architectures to use Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services.

Sites

An application that uses Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services is called a site. An identifier for such an integrating application is called a site ID.

Oracle Real-Time Collaboration uses this concept of sites to provide an integrating application specific customization of an Oracle Real-Time Collaboration deployment. The site ID is used for authenticating a site when it invokes Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services.

Creating Sites

A site can be created through the Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Web application Sites tab. After creating a site, you can set up site-specific properties and authorizations to control the interaction of the site with Oracle Real-Time Collaboration.

See Also: Chapter 8, "Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Sites" in Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Administrator's Guide and Oracle Real-Time Collaboration online help for information about creating and configuring sites.

Users

Oracle Real-Time Collaboration uses a standards-based LDAP store (Oracle Internet Directory) as the source of users. When Oracle Real-Time Collaboration is deployed, it is configured with a particular instance of an LDAP store. This directory determines the Oracle Real-Time Collaboration user community.

Users of integrating applications fall into the following two categories:

• Same user address space as Oracle Real-Time Collaboration

• Different user address space from Oracle Real-Time Collaboration

Applications that share the same user address space can maintain their users' identity in Oracle Real-Time Collaboration.

Guest (or proxy) users can be provided access to a certain limited set of features through Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services including the following:

• Viewing presence of regular users

• Participating in chat sessions with regular users

Security and Authentication

When any integrating application invokes a Web service, the integrating application (or site) needs to be authenticated as a valid site that is authorized to invoke Oracle Real-Time Collaboration's functionality.

Using Site Credentials

A site may call Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services in the following ways:

• Tight integration: In response to a user action, a site can call Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services as a Web service. The results from the Web Service calls are then presented to the user.

• Loose integration: In some cases, such as when an application has a browser-based interface, a site can provide URLs that point directly to the Oracle Real-Time Collaboration server. An example of this is a presence URL in which the site generates and includes an URL that fetches presence information directly from the Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Server. See Chapter 4, "Presence and Live Help Integration" for more information.)

In either case, the site has to communicate with Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services using its site ID and site authorization token as initial credentials. Once a session is established, the session credentials are used for subsequent requests.

Using User Credentials

Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services can also be used to also create end-user authenticated applications. These applications are authenticated with end-user credentials or proxy credentials obtained by the site on behalf of the user, which are then submitted for authentication.

Applications that submit user credentials when using the SOAP services are limited to functionality that is relevant only to that user. For example, they cannot schedule or manage conferences for others or obtain presence information of other users.

Invoking Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services

Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services can be invoked from any of the following:

• Application server

• Native client

• Browser

Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services SOAP Operations

The following services are available:

• Authentication Services: Provide a secure authentication and authorization mechanism for users and sites to access all other Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services. The authentication mechanism involves the issuing and validation of Authentication services tokens.

• Configuration Services: Allow clients to query and update configuration information from an Oracle Real-Time Collaboration deployment.

• Pre-Conference Management Services: Schedule, update, and list conferences

• Post-Conference Management Services: Retrieve and specify conference publishing options, and retrieve playback-related information for a particular conference.

• Presence Services: Allow clients to obtain the presence of an entity.

• Reporting Services: Provide a mechanism for clients to generate reports based on finished conferences. Clients can retrieve conference attendees, lists of finished conferences based on their date and conference ID, as well as more specific conference details.

Steps to Integrate Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services

This section describes the steps you would typically perform to build applications with Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services.

Step 1: Review Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services Web Services

Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services provides SOAP-based Web services that enable you to integrate Oracle Real-Time Collaboration with any application. Select the Web services you would like to integrate into your application.

See Chapter 3, "Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services SOAP Methods" for a list of these Web services.

Step 2: Download Service Definitions

Determine which Web services you will be using and download the corresponding service definition, defined in a WSDL. The WSDL file allows for the auto generation of client stubs in most development languages.

See Chapter 3, "Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services SOAP Methods" for URLs to the service definitions of the Web services.

Step 3: Obtain Host Name, Site ID and Authentication Token

Obtain the host name of the Oracle Real-Time Collaboration deployment from your administrator.

Ask your administrator to create an Oracle Real-Time Collaboration site for you. You will need the site ID and the authentication token for this site.

See Chapter 8, "Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Sites" in Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Administrator's Guide for information about creating sites, site IDs, and authentication tokens.

Step 4: Integrate Oracle Real-Time Collaboration into Your Application

Call the appropriate Web services from your application. You may do this through an HTTP POST operation or a Java client.

Call Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services through HTTP POST Operations

You may do this from your application by submitting the required parameters through an HTTP POST operation. Each request sent must be accompanied with the initial site or user credentials, or appropriate tokens obtained through Authentication Services.

Call Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services from Java Client

You may also call Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services from a Java client by using the appropriate proxy JAR file. To obtain the URL of this proxy JAR file, see the Web service's endpoint URL.

See Chapter 3, "Oracle Real-Time Collaboration Integration Services SOAP Methods" for endpoint URLs of a particular Web service.