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Meta Integration® Repository Web (MIRWeb) Toolset
"Metadata Management" Solution

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README

Table of Contents

  1. Copyright Notice
  2. Release Changes
  3. Software Download and Install
    1. Sun Java Developement Kit (JDK)
    2. Web Server
      1. Apache Tomcat Java Server Page
      2. IBM WebShpere
  4. Minimum Setup
  5. Advanced Setup
    1. Repository Performance Tuning
    2. Look and Feel (Java Server Page) Customization
  6. SecurityConsiderations
  7. Customization of Meta Integration Repository (MIR) Profiles for ModelBrowser's Views
  8. Frequently Asked Questions
  9. Technical Support

1. Copyright Notice

Copyright © Meta Integration Technology, Inc. 1997-2005
All Rights Reserved.
Meta Integration® Model Bridge (MIMB), Works (MIW), Repository (MIR), Repository SDK (MIRSDK), and Database SDK (MIDBSDK) are trademarks of Meta Integration Technology, Inc.
Other product and company names (or logos) mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
http://www.metaintegration.com

2. Release Changes

For a full list of changes on this release, you should also have a look at:
   the MIR Readme file for repository server's improvements,
   the MIMB Readme file for model bridges improvements,

3. Software Download and Install

3.1 Sun Java Developement Kit (JDK)

    Note: The JDK is now embedded in the Meta Integration Install and this information is provided only if one wishes to use a different installation.
    1. Download http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/download.jsp in section "J2SE 5.0 JDK includes the JVM technology"
      WARNING #1: Make sure you download and install the full JDK, not just the Java Runtime Environment (JRE).
    2. Install with default values (Next on all InstallShield windows)

3.2 Web Server

MIRWeb is certified for deployment using a .war file in the following environments:

3.2.1 Apache Tomcat Java Server Page

    Note: Tomcat is now embedded in the Meta Integration Install and this download information is provided only if one wishes to use a different installation. If you decide to use your own installation of Apache Tomcat, please note the instructions in this document must be adjusted accordingly.
    1. Download http://jakarta.apache.org/site/binindex.cgi
      in section: "Release Builds"
      sub-section: "Tomcat 5.0.28 KEYS"
      click: "5.0.28 exe PGP MD5"
      or go directly to href="http://apache.xtelli.net/jakarta/tomcat-5/v5.0.28/bin/jakarta-tomcat-5.0.28.exe
    2. WARNING #2: Make sure your system environment variable JAVA_HOME is properly set to C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.5.0 before installing Tomcat (You may have to reboot if you change that system variable)
    3. Install with default values (Next on all InstallShield windows)
    4. Copy the MIRWeb.war file from C:\Program Files\Meta Integration\web\ to the webapps directory in your Tomcat installation.

3.2.2 IBM WebSphere

These instructions are based upon WebSphere version 5 on Solaris.
  1. The deployment files for WebSphere are the MIMBWeb.war, MIMBWebServices.war, MIRWeb.war and MetaIntegrationConfiguration.war files located at (Meta Integration Install Directory)\web\. Deploy these as Enterprise Applications (generally in WebShpere at Applications / Enterprise Applications in the WebShpere Admin Tool) Follow the deployment instructions for a .war file in the WebSphere documentation. As they are .war files (not .ear), you must specify the context root for each of these applications. For the context root, simply use the file name of each .war file without the ".war".
  2. Also, it is necessary to set four environment variables within the WebSphere environment:
    1. LD_LIBRARY_PATH
    2. DISPLAY
    3. ODBCSYSINI
    4. TNS_ADMIN
    The appropriate values of these variable may be found in (Meta Integration Install Directory)\bin\MIRWEnvironment.sh. One generally sets these in WebSphere at: Application Servers / server1 / Process Definition / Environment Entries.
  3. If re-installing, be sure to restart the server to ensure that .so files are reloaded properly

4. Minimum Setup

  1. Database Setup:
    Update "C:\Program Files\Meta Integration\conf\MIRSetup.xml" to properly access the MIR repository database and configure the MIRWeb interface. Please refer to MIRReadMe.html for the layout of this file. The file itself contains much of the documentation required to update. Pay particular attention to the taf, or the "Meta Integration Web Server Configuration".

    For Oracle DB: Copy the jdbc driver class (e.g., Oracle\jdbc\lib\Classes12.jar) to the tomcat\common\lib directory of the tomcat instance that you are running.
    For IBM DB2: Copy the jdbc driver class (e.g., db2jcc.jar and db2jcc_license_c.jar) to the tomcat\common\lib directory of the tomcat instance that you are running.

  2. Windows Specific Settings
    Go to Start / Control Panel / Administratiive Tools / Services / Meta Integration Model Bridge Web Services
    Go to the "Log On" tab
    Selct the checkbox for "Allow service to interact with desktop"

  3. Speical instructions if you are using your own installation of Apache Tomcat and had a previous version of MIRWeb, you will need to reload the application:
    1. Right click on the Tomcat icon and select "stop service"
    2. Delete the temporary MIRWeb and MIMBWeb directories at C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 5.0\work\Catalina\localhost\MIRWeb.
    3. Delete the MIRWeb and MIMBWeb directory at C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 5.0\webapps.
    4. Copy the MIRWeb.war and MIMBWeb.war files in Meta Integration\tomcat\ directory to C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 5.0\webapps\
    5. Right click on the Tomcat icon and select "start service"

  4. Otherwise, simply start the service: go to Start / Meta Integration / Repository and Model Bridge Web Services Start

  5. Be sure to populate the repository with something before trying to access MIRWeb, as it will fail with the default empty repository. There are several options that you may use to do so:
    1. Copy the completed Metadata Management Tutorial sample repository at MetaIntegration\Models\Tutorials\MetadataManagement\Repository\MIR.mdb into the main repository directory at MetaIntegration\Repsotiory\Database
    2. Copy the completed Data Movement Tutorial sample repository at MetaIntegration\Models\Tutorials\DataMovement\Repository\MIR.mdb into the main repository directory at MetaIntegration\Repsotiory\Database
    3. Run one or more of the batch repository population scripts located in MetaIntegration\bin, which include:
      1. MIRCreateTutorialMetadataManagement.bat - Create the basic structure for the Metadata Management Tutorial
      2. MIRCreateTutorialDataMovement.bat - Create the basic structure for the Data Movement Tutorial
      3. MIRCreateModelSamples.bat - Create the basic structure and populate the repository with models from all of the model sample directories
      4. MIRCreateModelManagementStructure.bat - Create a basic, generic model and metadata organization structure within the repository

  6. Go to Start / Meta Integration / Metadata Management Web Access.

5. Advanced Setup

  1. By default Tomcat 5 will associate the mime-type "text/plain" to files with an unrecognized file extension. This means that the generated files with an unrecognized file extension will be opened in the browser instead of the specified application on the machine. It is possible to change this behaviour on a per file extension basis by adding entries in the web.xml configuration file located at
       C:\Program Files\Meta Integration\Tomcat\MIRWeb\WEB-INF\web.xml
    The following file extensions have already been defined: cdm,dat,erx,mdl,mim,pdm.
    You may also have to configure your web browser as most modern browsers check both the file extension and the mime-type returned by the server instead of just the mime-type.

5.1. Repository Performance Tuning

MIRWeb is delivered and initially configured for minimal footprint in installation and memory requirements. In order to maximize performance and availablity of the server there are several ways to adjust the systems. In particular, it is important to ensure proper database configuration, proper repository web server memory allocation and utilization, and proper connectivity between the repository server and database server (if they are separate).

Database Performance Tuning

In order to understand how to properly configure the database for efficient access by the repository, it is important to understand that the MIRWeb does NOT behave like most applications that databases are tuned for. Specifically, MIRWeb is NOT A TRANSACTION HEAVY application. It is QUITE DIFFERENT from an OLTP, Data Warehouse, or other transaction based system. Except for the web metadata search query, it is QUITE DIFFERENT from OLAP applications as well. This fact must be clearly communicated to the Database Administration staff.

Instead, MIR mostly reads ENTIRE MODELS or CONFIGURATIONS (collections of model and mapping formats) at a time, then does nothing in terms of database access. Thus, in order to maximize performance, it is necessary to maximize buffer, cashing, cursor, etc., sizes, since the are used intensively in a short period of time. For specific tuning suggestions, please refer to the documentation of the specific database being deployed, and tune the parameters for bulk SQL reads.

Repository Server Performance Tuning

Given a fixed clock speed for the web server, the greatest impact on performance is based upon memory availablilty and utilization. MIRWeb uses the memory allocations defined by the web server startup parameters, which varies by server. For Tomcat, the setting is defined by the Java tab in the Configure Tomcat dialog accessible via the Tomact Monitor. As MIR is a Java application, the memory settings are defined by the Java startup parameters -Xms(size) and -Xmx(size), defining the initial and maximum memory allocation, e.g.:-Xms512m -Xmx1024m, when doing so form the command line.

If you are also running the MIR server on this same machine, be sure not to make the memory requirements so large that MIRWeb is competing with the repository server for resources.

Connectivity Between Servers

While it should go without saying, the connectivity, expecially of large, bulk, quantities of data (an entire model at a time), between the database server and the repository server machine is a very critical factor in performance. Your systems administration staff should be able to diagnose such problems.

5.2. Java Server Page (JSP) Customization

MIRWeb

MIRWeb is delivered with JSPs that define web page appearance. In the initial configuration is delivered and installed with pre-compiled JSPs to improve start-up performance.

However, many customers find it valuable to update more than just icons and images in the pages as displayed, expecially for the header text and images. In order to do this, you must update the JSP files in the webapps\MIRWeb directory in the the web server deployment folder. Then you must reconfigure MIRWeb to complie and use these JSPs by performing the following (this step is NOT necessary with WebSphere on Solaris as the Solaris installer already updates the web.xml file to not use pre-compiled JSPs):

  1. Stop the web server service
  2. Edit the JSPs with your customized changes
  3. Edit the web.xml file in the WEB-INF folder
  4. Delete everything between the two lines:
  5. Save the web.xml file
  6. Restart the web server

With this configuration the JSPs will be compiled on demand.

Examples:

MIMBWeb

MIMBWeb is delivered with the MIMB.html file that may be edited to customize the look of the tool.

Examples:

6. Security Considerations

6.1 HTML encryption with SSL (https)

Follow the instructions in the Tomcat documentation on upgrading to ssl if you wish to do so (it doesn't affect anything else)

7. Customization of Meta Integration Repository (MIR) Profiles for ModelBrowser's Views

The Meta Integration Repository (MIR) stores metadata under the powerful MIR metamodel which is fairly large and complex as it implements and integrates many standard metamodels like the OMG UML and CWM, IDEF1X, W3C, as well as metamodels from tool vendors like IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, etc. The MIR metamodel vocabulary is therefore primarily driven by the OMG UML & CWM metamodels with notions of Classifier, Feature, ClassifierMap, FeatureMap. If not experienced with the OMG UML and CWM vocabulary, the Meta Integration tool users may not be knowledgeable of the MIR vocabulary when browsing models in Meta Integration Works (MIW) or in MIR Web. However, users can define views on the MIR Metamodel known as "Profiles" in order to:

  • filter out metadata they are not interested to see,
  • rename metadata to their own terminology (e.g. Classifier, Class, Entity, Table),
  • associate metadata with the icons of their usual tools,
  • filter out or rename properties (attributes).

    • Meta Integration Repository (MIR) Profiles corresponds to the concepts of OMG UML Profiles. Note that the MIR Profiles are not only used by the Model Browser, but also the Model Comparator in order to generate custom comparison filters.

    When using the Model Browser of MIW or MIR Web, a default (mandatory) view called "Meta Integration (UML, CWM, IDEF1X)" shows all available metadata in the MIR repository. Other customizable profiles are available in the Meta Integration install directory, for example: 

    C:\Program Files\MetaIntegration\Profiles\*.profile
    These files can be customized to produce business vs. technical views, or tool oriented views like ERwin, Informatica, BO. You can start from the most appropriate profile templates: MyMIR.profile, MyIDEF1X.profile, MyRDBMS.profile, MyUML.profile or MyXML.profile

    The profile file is organized by order of inheritance since some child object views can override some properties of their parent. The overall syntax is defined as follows: 

    # Comments

%label="ProfileName"
[%iconPath="C:\\Program Files\\MetaIntegration\\MIRWeb\\images"]

MetaClassName[="NewMetaClassName"] {
Attributes
	[!][-]MetaAttributeName[="NewMetaAttributeName"];
Links
	[!][-|+]MetaLinkName[="NewMetaLinkName"];
Icons
	icon="Icons/ProfileName/MetaClassName.gif";
}
    Here are a few customization tips on the syntax of .profile files:

    8. Frequently Asked Questions

    1. When attempting to visualize lineage using the Web version of the Meta Integration Lineage Analyzer (MILA), the MILA diagram fails to load after an inordinate amount of time and finally displays the following: "Service unavailable".

    This problem is often caused by a memory management issue. The memory used by MILA is controlled by the same settings as those for MIR and MIW, i.e., in the Meta Integration\conf\MIRSetup.xml file. If you have already specified a large amount of memory for Tomcat and the MIR Server on the Web Server machine (oftentimes the same), there may not be enough memory for the web version of MILA to start. After attempting to find that memory, Tomcat eventually responds with this error. Try reducing the amount of memory to be used by MILA (and thus MIR Server) by reducing the amount specified in MIRSetup.xml, or reduce the amount taken by Tomcat. Then tune for optimum performance.

    2. Integrating with "wrapper" or authentication mechanisms utilizing other web servers.

    Often when implementing such a wrapper or hand-off arrangement, it is necessary to make an API call into Tomcat. The ISAPI mechanism is available for this purpose when using Tomcat. We have limited understanding of this function, but do know that it provides insufficient information for proper MIRWeb execution.

    In generally, one needs to update specific elements :

    3. When attempting to visualize lineage using MILAWeb I receive the message "Unable to obtain MITI license".

    This problem is caused by the installation\bin directory not being in the System PATH in Windows. Inspect the PATH to ensure that the appropriate reference to the bin directory is there and reboot, as the system PATH does not update for services like Tomcat until you reboot.

    9. Technical Support

    The best way to get support is to send an email to with a detailed description of your problem, the MIMB version that you use and your platform.

    You can also get more information about our products by going to our Web Site, http://www.metaintegration.com or sending an email to .

    Finally you can also contact us by regular mail or phone at:

    650 Castro Street (Suite 210)
    Mountain View, CA 94041

    Phone: (650)960-9000
    Fax: (650)960-9003

    < Description | Readme | Functionalities | Architecture width=17 height=22>