1 Overview

Cartridges can contain specifications, characteristics, rulesets, and extended code. You can create cartridges to meet specific business needs in Oracle Communications Design Studio. For example, if your equipment requires specific logic not provided by the EquipmentManager class, you can create your own class, inherited from the EquipmentManager class, and write a new method to address the specific equipment logic. The new method can then be called from within a ruleset.

The extensions defined within a cartridge may be static or dynamic. Cartridges are further explored in "Using Design Studio to Extend UIM".

You can statically extend the data model by adding new columns to existing tables, or by adding new tables. For example, your business requirements may dictate that you save particular information regarding a telephone number that the existing UIM data model does not save. You can extend the UIM data model to include this piece of information. Your business requirements may dictate that you save information unrelated to any data that the existing UIM data model saves. You can extend the UIM data model to include a new table to retain this information.

This is done through additions to the metadata. The UIM installation provides tools that enable you to automatically regenerate the data model based on the metadata, and to update the application (inventory.ear) to reflect the additions. This topic is further explored in "Extending the Data Model".

You can dynamically extend the data model through characteristics. For example, you can define a specification for a telephone number and add characteristics that further describe the telephone number. When you create entities in UIM based on a specification that includes characteristics, the characteristics are automatically included in the entities. This topic is further explored in UIM Concepts. For instructions on how to define characteristics in Design Studio, see the Design Studio Help.

An entity is a Java representation of UIM data, and an entity can be defined as life-cycle-managed in the metadata. Life cycle refers to an entity having a start to its life, an end to its life, and a defined state at any given point during its life. Life-cycle transition definitions are part of the UIM metadata, and you can extend these definitions to solve specific business requirements.

An entity can also be defined as topology-managed in the metadata. Topology is a graphical representation of the spatial relationships and connectivity among your inventory entities. Topology-managed entities map to topology entities, which are used in the graphical representation. UIM defines several entities as topology-managed, and you can extend topology by defining additional entities to be topology-managed.

Information on security is provided in UIM System Administrator's Guide. However, this guide (UIM Developer's Guide) provides additional security information specific to securing UIM APIs and UIM entities.

These topics are further explored in:

• Extending Life Cycles

• Extending the Topology

• Extending Security

For information specific to securing web services, see UIM Web Services Developer's Guide.

A ruleset is custom code that extends existing logic at a specified point. You can dynamically extend UIM by creating rulesets to meet specific business needs. For example, if the default telephone number format does not match the telephone number format used by the country in which you are implementing UIM, you can use a ruleset to reformat the telephone number.

This topic is further explored in "Extending UIM Through Rulesets".

Web services are APIs that can be accessed over a network, such as the Internet, and run on a remote system hosting the requested services. UIM provides web services that are used for service fulfillment and for cartridge management. You can statically extend UIM by creating custom web services. For example, you can write a web service that performs a search for a specified entity, such as a pipe, a party, or a telephone number.

This topic is further explored in UIM Web Services Developer's Guide.

You can customize the user interface by adding fields or functionality to existing pages, or by adding new pages. For example, you may want to add a field named Type to the Equipment Maintenance page and populate it with your equipment type. Customizing the user interface statically extends UIM.

This topic is further explored in "Customizing the User Interface".

Localizing UIM is the process of changing the user interface and the online Help from the language in which it was written to another language. This process involves modifying files that contain text that displays in the user interface and the online Help.

This topic is further explored in "Localizing UIM".

You can optimize UIM performance by extending entity types that are heavily used in your UIM environment to implement the rowLock pattern.

This topic is further explored in "Optimizing Concurrent Resource Allocation".

You can extend UIM to interface with other external systems through federation, leasing in data, leasing out data, viewing data, or sharing data. UIM provides sample cartridges that you can configure and use, or extend and use as a starting point in creating a custom federation solution.

This topic is further explored in "Using the Federation Framework", "Federation Data Domain Cartridges" and "Federation Protocol Cartridges".

Extending UIM requires the installation of Design Studio, Oracle WebLogic Server, and UIM. Extensions are developed in Design Studio, but you also need access to a UIM development environment into which you can deploy cartridges and run unit tests.

Design Studio is an Eclipse-based integrated development environment. Design Studio is not part of UIM, but it does come with features specific to UIM that enable you to extend UIM. Information on using Design Studio to extend UIM is in "Using Design Studio to Extend UIM".

Additional tools such as Ant, Drools, and Groovy are available to you when extending UIM. The UIM installation includes a collection of Apache Ant executable targets that are used to extend the data model. These targets automate entity regeneration, entity recompilation, and repackaging the application EAR file to include the recompiled entities. The Drools and Groovy plug-ins can be used to edit ruleset syntax within Design Studio. Information on these tools, how to install them, and how to use them is in "Using Design Studio to Extend UIM".

Entities are Java representations of UIM data. The entities that comprise UIM are detailed in Oracle Communications Information Model Reference and UIM Information Model Reference. The documents describe each entity, lists the entity attributes, provides examples, and includes information on patterns that are common across all entities.

Oracle Communications Information Model Reference and UIM Information Model Reference are located under “Oracle Communications Unified Inventory Management Developer Documentation" on the Oracle Software Delivery Cloud.

Information on UIM APIs is detailed in UIM API Overview. The document provides detailed information and code examples of numerous APIs presented within the context of a generic service fulfillment scenario, and within the context of a channelized connectivity enablement scenario. The document also provides information about transactions, exceptions, and logging when working the APIs. It also provides a complete listing of the UIM entity manager classes and common utility code examples.

The classes that comprise UIM, and the Platform classes upon which UIM is built, contain Javadoc. The Javadoc that comes with the UIM installation includes both UIM and Platform Javadoc.

To access the Javadoc:

1. Start the application server.

   For instructions on how to start the application server, see UIM System Administrator's Guide.

2. From the application server console, deploy the UIM_Home/app/inventory.ear file, which automatically deploys the UIM_Home/doc/ora_uim_javadoc.war file.

   For instructions on how to deploy a file from the application server console, see UIM System Administrator's Guide.

3. In your Web browser, do one of the following:

   • If UIM was installed with SSL, enter:

     https://server:port/ora_uim_javadoc
     

   • If UIM was installed without SSL, enter:

     http://server:port/ora_uim_javadoc
     

   where server is the specific server on which the application is deployed and port is the port on which the application listens.

Before you extend UIM, understand the implications of backward compatibility and the effects on future upgrades.

UIM maintains backward compatibility for one release for all published external interfaces:

• Manager interfaces and method signatures

• Published extension points

• Web service interfaces

UIM does not maintain backward compatibility for:

• Metadata and physical data model

• User interface

• Localization