Enterprise Communication Interface (ECI)

Java Client (Windows and Unix-Platforms) Configuration:

To contact the Java Client via ECI, the ECI Server Plug-in must be loaded (Standard). This plug-in enables the connection between the ECI client or an integration with the Java Client. An ECI command can then be sent. This information is set in the configuration file "jacc.defaults". Settings in the configuration file can be replaced by the option "-D" on command line when starting the Java Client. ("-D EciServer.Port=<value> ).

If the value for the the EciServer.Port=0, the Java Client identifies a free socket number.

The standard parameters for the ECI Client are:

Type of transport: 1
PC: localhost
Resource: 44444

The port number and list of authorized and unauthorized computers can be modified in the section "ECI server plugin":

EciServer.Port=44444
EciServer.allowHost.1=localhost
EciServer.allowHost.2=another.good.host
EciServer.denyHost.1=first.bad.host
EciServer.denyHost.2=second.bad.host

All computers named in the section "EciServer.allowHost." are allowed to establish a connection, whereas, all computers named in the section "EciServer.denyHost. " are rejected.

If no entries exist for "allowHost" and "denyHost", the check procedure is not executed. Due to security reasons only contacts from "localhost" are accepted by default.

The value for the ECI-TOPIC is read from the server and set automatically for the Java Client. By default, the ECI-TOPIC has the value ":t:1:h:localhost:r:44444". In the section "EciServer.Secure", each ECI-Client (or each integration) is configured to log-in with a successful call of the ECI function "eci_chk_pwd" either securely ("EciServer.Secure= true") or not (Default: "EciServer.Secure= false").

Example call of the ECI test program after starting the Java Clients:

eci_test 1 localhost 44444

Server Configuration:

Agile e6 Server (Windows and Unix platform) Configuration:

Communication with Agile e6 can also be started as a server process, access to the ECI Client (or Integration) is possible in the following way:

Start Agile e6 process:

axalant F:<environment_file> <plm_user> -t 1 -k <hostname> -r <resource> &

Start ECI_test program:

eci_test 1 <hostname> <resource> 

hostname = Computer name where Agile e6 process is running
resource = socket port number

Example:

axalant F:c:\Agile_e6\init\myTestEnvironment.edb demoep -t 1 -k localhost -r 12349
eci_test 1 localhost 12349

Access to the Agile e6 process is controlled in the configuration file for the application ".edb" in the section "[IPC]" with the parameter "SecurityLevel" . Possible values are:

• unrestricted: access for anyone
• process: first IPC connection must authenticate
• connection: each IPC connection must authenticate

  [IPC]
  # Protocol = 1
  # Node = localhost
  SecurityLevel=unrestricte

Compression

To improve the data transfer performance when loading data via WAN, the Java Client Advanced IPC settings compression option 'jacc.ipc.compressSize' can be set. The performance improvement depends highly on the specific customer data (e.g. text data with recurring standard texts will result in a high compression while BLOBs will show low or no improvements) and customer environment (e.g. local CPU). When activating the compression option, compression is applied to all data types independent if it is useful or not. Thus you should identify the data types you mainly use and then decide if compression is useful.

We recommend to use the compression option for text data only to see a significant performance improvement. The data compression for e.g. BLOBs is minimal and can lead to higher CPU load

jacc.ipc.useCompression
This option enables the compression on the IPC layer (for WAN only!)

• true - Compression is on
• false - Compression is off (Default)

jacc.ipc.compressMethod
This option sets the compression method

• BEST_COMPRESSION
• DEFAULT_COMPRESSION
• BEST_SPEED (recommended)

jacc.ipc.compressSize
This option sets the minimal packet size for the compression.

• jacc.ipc.compressSize = 1500 (default)