Creating a Plug-In: Process Overview

Developing a plug-in solution can be simple or complex, depending on the needs of your environment and the application or platform to which the solution applies. A plug-in solution can involve any of the following segments of the N1 Grid Service Provisioning System environment:

• Working with variables and configuration templates

• Enabling users to browse through files and export those files to the master server

• Executing Java applications through the execJava feature

• Creating and modifying components and plans

• Packaging the plug-in and defining an interface for it through the plug-in XML

The general process that you follow includes the following steps:

1. Develop a general model for the platform or application.

2. Create plans and components to implement the model.

3. Define specific host types, host sets, and host searches to easily constrain the plug-in.

4. Define an interface for the application within N1 Grid Service Provisioning System.

5. Package the plans, components, resources, and interface definition into a Java Archive (JAR) file.

6. Test the plug-in.