PeopleSoft Search Framework Architecture

The server topology uses the essential elements of the PeopleSoft Internet Architecture, with the addition of a search engine server and PeopleSoft Insights.

PeopleSoft server architecture with Search Engine, PeopleSoft Insights, and Logstash

The web server and application server (the PeopleSoft Internet Architecture) provide the interface for the design, administration, and end user access. The PeopleSoft database stores the PeopleSoft queries that define the search data as well as the search definition meta data. PeopleSoft uses the Process Scheduler and Integration Broker’s publishing and subscription functionality to push application data to the search engine server. In Full Direct Transfer mode, PeopleSoft Search Framework pushes the documents with attachments and documents without attachments to the search engine and bypasses Integration Broker. The search engine stores the deployed search definitions and performs the typical search engine tasks, such as building indexes, crawling for updates, maintaining indexes, and servicing end-user search requests. A cluster can have multiple nodes that assist in providing high availability and fail-over mechanism. Within the cluster, the search engine internally maintains indexes among the nodes. PeopleSoft Insights is an analytics and visualizations platform, which enables users to create visualizations based on application indexes in the search engine. It is also a monitoring tool that provides real-time information on the health of the system and search engine metrics.

The following diagram depicts the relationships between all of the separate elements that are involved with the PeopleSoft Search Framework.

PeopleTools

The following table describes the PeopleTools elements.

PeopleTools Element	Description
PeopleSoft Internet Architecture	Enables access to all aspects of the PeopleSoft Search Framework, including development, administrative, and end user interfaces.
Search Framework Designer	Enables application developers and implementation teams to perform design-time tasks, such as map query fields to search metadata, define search attributes, create search definitions, and create search categories.
Search Metadata	The metadata defined with both PeopleSoft Query and the Search Designer to describe the data that end users will run searches against.
PeopleSoft Query Connected Query	Provides familiar interface for creating SQL queries that declare exactly the data against which end users will run searches, and takes advantage of Query security.
Process Scheduler Integration Broker Publishing and Subscription	Facilitates the transfer of application data from PeopleSoft to the search engine server.
Search Framework Administration	Provides the interface for system administrators to perform tasks, such as creating a search instance, deploying search objects, scheduling search index builds, and administering PeopleSoft Insights.
SFTP/HTTP Repository Server	Facilitates storing of attachments, which are associated with search definitions.
Search Framework User Interface	Provides the PeopleSoft application end user with the appropriate prompts and fields by which they can submit a search request and review results.
Search Query API	A PeopleCode API that enables application developers to form a valid search request from user input.
PeopleSoft Integration Broker	Facilitates the integration between PeopleTools elements and the search engine.
Direct Transfer	Facilitates the transfer of application data to the search engine directly; bypassing the Integration Broker.

Search Engine

The following table describes the search engine elements.

Search Engine Element	Description
Indexing Process	The indexing process indexes document search attributes such as Title, Summary, search fields (fields to index), and so on. It can also index document-level security attributes if document-level security is being used. The search engine uses the Ingest attachment plug-in to process attachments, both from the database and from the repository (FTP, SFTP, HTTP).
Security Plug-in	This module gets invoked from the search engine for a user who initiates a search from an application. The search security framework is responsible for authentication, search user validation, and authorization of the search query request. The search engine does a callback with the call back user credentials and passes the search user ID to the PeopleSoft Security Service (Web service) which authorizes the users and gets security attributes for that user. Search results are filtered based on this security attribute. The security plug-in (orcl-security-plugin) is built on top of the search engine.
Administrative REST APIs	The administrative tasks include various processes, such as, deploying, undeploying, report synchronization, and updating. The http methods of GET, PUT, POST, and DELETE are used while sending the REST API requests to the search engine.
AddSynonyms Plug-in	The AddSynonyms plug-in updates the synonyms file. The Copy to Search Instance action in PIA calls the AddSynonyms plug-in in the search engine to update the synonyms file.

PeopleSoft Insights

The following table describes the PeopleSoft Insights elements.

PeopleSoft Insights Element	Description
Analytics and Visualizations platform	PeopleSoft Insights is an analytics and visualizations platform that uses indexes in the search engine to display data in dashboards and visualizations.
Security Plug-in	The security plug-in module gets invoked from PeopleSoft Insights for a user who attempts to view a dashboard or visualization. PeopleSoft Insights does a callback with user credentials to the search engine, which in turn does a callback with the call back user credentials and passes the search user ID to the PeopleSoft Security Service (Web service) which authorizes the users and gets security attributes for that user. Data in visualizations and dashboards are filtered based on this security attribute. The search security framework is responsible for authentication, search user validation, and authorization of the request.

PeopleSoft Insights Element

Description

Analytics and Visualizations platform

PeopleSoft Insights is an analytics and visualizations platform that uses indexes in the search engine to display data in dashboards and visualizations.

Security Plug-in

The security plug-in module gets invoked from PeopleSoft Insights for a user who attempts to view a dashboard or visualization. PeopleSoft Insights does a callback with user credentials to the search engine, which in turn does a callback with the call back user credentials and passes the search user ID to the PeopleSoft Security Service (Web service) which authorizes the users and gets security attributes for that user. Data in visualizations and dashboards are filtered based on this security attribute. The search security framework is responsible for authentication, search user validation, and authorization of the request.

Logstash

The following table describes the Logstash elements.

Logstash Element	Description
External Data Integration	External Data Integration enables to integrate external data with PeopleSoft. It uses Logstash to ingest the data from external sources to the search engine.
PeopleSoft Health Center	PeopleSoft Health Center monitors the health of your PeopleSoft applications. It uses Logstash to collect data.