Advanced onboarding for CAST Imaging - run and validate the initial analysis

Introduction

You are now ready to run the analysis (and save the results) but not quite ready to publish the results in your CAST Imaging instance. Running the analysis and saving the results for the first time still requires you to validate the analysis log to ensure the configuration is accurate. We will focus here on the options available and best practices to follow when executing an initial application analysis.

Run the Analysis

To run an analysis only (excluding publishing in CAST Imaging), move to the AIP Console screen if you are not already there:

Locate the Application and click the Run analysis option as highlighted below:

In the subsequent popup, before clicking Run, ensure:

  • that the Application Version is set to the version you need. By default, the accepted Version will be set as the version to analyze
  • that you enable Run analysis
  • that you disable Publish to CAST Imaging - this will be done separately
  • that you decide if you need to backup the application before you run the analysis - this will add on additional processing time (backups are stored on the relevant AIP Node and can be managed in Administration Center - Applications - Application Details):

The analysis process will then start - the Progress window will indicate that the analysis is in progress:

The analysis is complete when the Progress window indicates a successful completion:

Analysis validation

This step should always be executed as part of the initial analysis of an application performed during the on-boarding. When the analysis is complete, the following needs to be checked:

  • the generated log files need to be reviewed to verify that no errors or warnings which may impact the quality of the results have been produced. For each of the technologies supported by CAST AIP, the log manager will produce a set of statistics to verify the analysis and compare this to the previous analysis.
  • the Analysis boundary to ensure that what has been analyzed and saved into the Analysis Services as objects and links is consistent with the intent and scope of the analysis configuration.
  • the quality of the analysis.
  • the configuration of Modules.

Validate analysis based on log messages

To check the logs, you can click the View log option in the Progress window:

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Alternatively, you can move to the AIP Console screen if you are not already there:

Locate the Application and click it to access the Application - Overview page:

Then click the Logs option:

Choose the Run analysis log and click View log:

Investigate each log in Content mode:

Review the more common technology level warnings / errors as described in the table below.


  • Warning messages will be flagged with a yellow triangle - these require further investigation:

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  • GUID duplicate found - this message in the logs indicates that duplicate objects have been found during the analysis (perhaps two identical source code files have been delivered and only one is used). If this message is seen, analysis results may be inaccurate for the objects in question and you should therefore check for any duplicate files and if any are found, remove them, re-deliver the source code an action a new analysis.

Validate Modules and content

To validate the configuration of Modules in your Application (Modules are used as a means to configure analysis results for a given Application into meaningful groups or sets for display purposes and CAST Imaging has a dedicated Module view mode), move to the AIP Console screen if you are not already there:

Locate the Application and click it to access the Application - Details - Overview page:

Then access the Application - Config - Modules screen to view all the Modules that have been created for the Application during the analysis. First check that all Modules you require are present (by default a Per Technology strategy is in place unless you have modified it):

Then, to check the content of the Modules, click the Edit button next to the Module you want to inspect:

Click the Apply Filters button to load the content of the Module direct from the Analysis schema:

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Objects matched by the Module and filters will be displayed in two panels to the right:

Summary

Displays a list of objects matched by the filter (by object type and number of objects matched).

Details

Displays a detailed list of each object matched by the filter, including Name, Full Name and Path.

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See Advanced onboarding for CAST Imaging - validate Dynamic Links for more information about this.