Catalog and Vending Managers

C H A P T E R 2

This chapter describes the processes of the Catalog and Vending Managers use to manage content, devices, accounts, and plans. The synchronization between the Catalog Manager and Vending Managers is also described.

This chapter includes the following topics:

Catalog Manager Processes

Vending Manager Processes

Synchronization

Catalog Manager Processes

The Catalog Manager manages content submitted by developers and controls which Vending Managers access which content. The Catalog Manager is responsible for the following functions:

Automated Content Validation

Content Management

Device Management

Account Management

Plan Management

Automated Content Validation

Content Delivery Server performs an automated validation of content. If an application fails at any stage of validation, it is not submitted to the Catalog Manager.

Note - The default implementation of content validation performs automated validation on MIDlets only. You can customize the validation process to validate other types of content.

Content validation includes the following tasks:

API Filtering. The API Filter checks that the APIs used in the MIDlet application are allowed. Developer Plans define the set of APIs allowed. When a developer submits content, the API Filter checks the APIs used by the submitted application. If any API is not allowed by the Developer Plans associated with the developer, the content fails.

Instrumentation. The instrumentation process inserts code into the MIDlet application to interpret the pricing model assigned. For example, the inserted code interprets whether the application is priced per download, on first download only, by subscription, or any combination of these.

The instrumented code maintains licensing information on the device and periodically communicates with Content Delivery Server to verify that the subscriber is authorized to run the application. If a license is expired, the subscriber is given the opportunity to renew the license.

Customized Steps. You can customize the validation process to meet the needs of your organization. You can disable selected processes or add processes as needed. For example, you might want to add a step to obfuscate an application. Obfuscation makes the code difficult to understand when it is decompiled and can reduce the size of the Java Archive (JAR) file.

Content Management

Once content passes the automated validation process, it goes to the submitted content section for review by the Catalog Manager administrator. This section describes the content and categories managed by the Catalog Manager:

Submitted Content. The administrator reviews submitted content and, if required, edits the content and modifies the pricing and category assignments. The administrator can accept or reject the content.

Published Content. After accepting the content, the administrator publishes the content to make it available to the Vending Manager.

Categories. Content categories are central to content management. They are logical containers or buckets that hold the content managed by the Sun Java System Content Delivery Server. The Catalog Manager uses content categories to control Vending Manager access.

See “Managing Content” in the Catalog Manager online help for more information.

Device Management

The Catalog Manager defines the devices and the device capabilities supported by the Content Delivery Server. As a Catalog Manager administrator, you can add new devices, delete devices no longer supported, and edit the characteristics and capabilities of any device model.

“Managing Devices” in the Catalog Manager online help describes how to manage the devices supported for your network.

Account Management

Accounts define access to the Catalog Manager. The Catalog Manager has three types of accounts:

Vending Manager Server. A Vending Manager Server Account is for a specifically-branded Vending Manager that stocks content from the Catalog Manager. It is associated with one or more Vending Plans.

Developer. Developer Accounts are for corporations or individuals that submit content to the Catalog Manager. Developer Accounts are associated with one or more Developer Plans.

Administrator. Administrator Accounts are for individuals who administer the Catalog Manager.

See “Managing Accounts” in the Catalog Manager online help for more information.

Plan Management

The Catalog Manager uses vending plans to define content access rights to Vending Manager administrators. Specific content categories can be defined per plan and each Vending Manager server accounts can be associated with one or multiple vending plans.

Developer plans define the API set that content providers can use in the content they submit to the Catalog Manager. Each developer plan includes one or more profiles that specifies the libraries used for content development.

Vending Manager Processes

The previous figure illustrates the Vending Manager processes. The Vending Manager is responsible for the following practices:

Content Management

Plan Management

Account Management

Reporting

Content Management

The Catalog Manager publishes content to the Vending Manager. The Vending Manager is responsible for stocking this content to make it available to the subscriber. The Vending Manager administrator can change the subscriber pricing of the content, allow trial usage, and assign the content to a new category. The administrator can also change the category assignments and add new categories to control subscriber access to content.

See “Setting Up Content” in the Vending Manager online help for more information.

Account Management

Accounts define access to the Vending Manager. The Vending Manager is responsible for two types of accounts:

Subscriber. Subscriber Accounts are for individuals who subscribe to a service plan that provides them with the download service. Each Subscriber Account is associated with one or more Subscriber Plans.

See “Managing Subscriber Accounts” in the Vending Manager online help for more information.

Administrator. Administrator Accounts are for individuals who administer the Vending Manager. There are two administrator roles: Administrator for administrators with full privileges for administering the Vending Manager, and Customer Care Agent for administrators with privileges for viewing content and managing subscribers. Administrator Accounts can be disabled when you do not want an individual accessing the Vending Manager.

See “Managing Vending Manager Accounts” in the Vending Manager online help for more information.

Plan Management

The Vending Manager uses Subscriber Plans to control subscriber access to content. Each Subscriber Account is assigned to one or more Subscriber Plans. Subscriber Plans determine what content a subscriber can access and download.

A Subscriber Plan is mapped to selected categories in the Vending Manager. The content in the selected categories is made available to plan members. If content is in a category that is not supported by the Subscriber Plan, the subscriber cannot access it for download.

See “Managing Subscriber Plans” in the Vending Manager online help for more information.

Reporting

The Vending Manager provides daily statistical reports that enable you to view and track application download information and usage statistics downloads. See “Viewing Reports” in the Vending Manager online help for more information.

Synchronization

The Catalog Manager and each Vending Manager has its own database. Information such as the status of content or the types of devices supported must be maintained across databases. The Catalog Manager database is considered the master and Vending Manager databases are synchronized with Catalog Manager database.

As changes are made in the Catalog Manager, notifications are sent to the Vending Managers identified by the Vending Manager Server accounts. A Vending Manager synchronizes with the Catalog Manager in the following situations:

The Vending Manager Server account is created in the Catalog Manager.

The status of the Vending Manager Server account is changed to Active.

The Vending Manager receives notification of a change in the Catalog Manager.

The Catalog Manager must be able to communicate with the Vending Manager. If the Vending Manager is down, the Catalog Manager holds the notifications until the Vending Manager is brought back up. The Catalog Manager then sends any pending notifications.

If a Vending Manager Server account is deleted or inactivated, the Catalog Manager stops sending notifications of changes to that Vending Manager. If the Vending Manager Server account is later recreated or reactivated, the Vending Manager must be restarted to initiate synchronization. Content that was published by the Catalog Manager while the Vending Manager was inactive must be manually stocked by the Vending Manager administrator.

When the Vending Manager receives a notification of change from the Catalog Manager, the Vending Manager attempts to synchronize with the Catalog Manager. If synchronization fails, the Vending Manager retries the operation. The number of times and how often the operation is retried is based on properties in the $CDS_HOME/deployment/deployment-name/conf/RemoteVending.properties file. See Section 1.3, “Configuring Synchronization,” in the Sun Java System Content Delivery Server Integration and Configuration Guide for information on these properties.

Notifications of change from the Catalog Manager are expected to be processed in the order in which they are issued. This requires that there be only one instance of the Catalog Manager that issues notifications. Multiple instances of the Catalog Manager that use the same Catalog Manager database is not a supported configuration.

However, multiple instances of a Vending Manager that use the same Vending Manager database is a supported configuration as long as only one instance listens for and processes the notifications. Updates to the database by that instance of the Vending Manager are available to all other instances.