Administration Center - Settings - Extensions Strategy

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Info

Summary: documentation for the Extensions Strategy panel in the Console Administration Center.

Options available here are global to ALL Applications managed in Console. Note that this page describes settings available only in CAST Console ≤ 2.7. For newer releases, please see Administration Center - Extensions Strategy instead.

Introduction

The Extensions Strategy setting provides various options for managing at a global level (i.e. for all Applications managed in the Console) the extensions that are used in each Application analysis. The main objective of these options is to ensure that the extensions that are available for use in an analysis by an Application owner or Analysis Manager can be controlled - for example, admins can choose to do any of the following:

Administration Center - Settings - Assessment Model Strategy

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Settings

Info

Available in ≥ 1.23.

This feature allows you to apply the same Assessment Model customization to all applications managed in Console:

Disabled

Default position: Assessment Model customization is managed on a per Application basis in the Application - Config - Assessment Model page. All users that have permission to interact with a given application will be able to make changes to the Assessment Model settings for that application.

Enabled

When enabled:

Administration Center - Settings - Analysis Results Indicators

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Info

Available in Console ≥ 1.25.
Previously know as Snapshot Indicators.

This panel enables you to enable or disable individualAnalysis Results/Snapshot Indicators which are processed by default when a new analysis/ snapshot is actioned. Indicators can be viewed in the Application - Overview panel:

Info

Note that you can disable the snapshot indicator feature entirely using a properties file as described in Configuring Indicators.

Available options

ACTIVATE / DEACTIVATE

These options are enabled when one or multiple snapshot indicators are selected in the list. Use the options to activate or deactivate the selected indicators as required:

Administration Center - Settings - Default Dynamic Links Rules

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

When an analysis is run, the authenticity of some links that have been identified between objects cannot be absolutely determined - these links are known as “dynamic links”. Often these “unverified links” systematically occur in every analysis or have no meaning for the specific technology you are working with. To counter this, filter rules (DLM.XML files) can be configured to either validate (i.e. retain) or ignore (delete) these recurring dynamic links automatically when an analysis is run.

Administration Center - Settings - Exclusion templates

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This panel provides settings for managing exclusion templates. These templates can be used as follows:


When delivering code	Onboarding with Fast Scan When using the Application - Overview with Fast Scan panel after having delivered source code and before starting an analysis:
Legacy onboarding When delivering a new source code version in the Manage Exclusions step of the wizard, see:Application onboarding without Fast Scan - Standard onboarding - perform all actions - manage exclusions orApplication onboarding without Fast Scan - Step-by-step onboarding - Add a new version and deliver source code:
When editing an existing version	When editing an existing version in the Version Management screen in Application - Versions:

Creating a template allows you to define the folders or files types that should always be excluded (any excluded items will be ignored during the source code analysis). You can then re-use a template each time you deliver source code. One template will be provided out of the box called “default” as shown below (this cannot be edited nor deleted). This template will exclude the following items:

Administration Center - Settings - Alert Settings

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Info

This panel is available in Console ≥ 2.10. In previous release, alert patterns are configured in a properties file.
The separate Log Service is required in order for any patterns to be matched.

See Log Service installation.

Patterns section

This section governs patterns that are used to match specific log messages (or parts of log messages) that the log service should watch for while processing the logs. These log messages are then highlighted in CAST Console as alerts whenever the Log Service “sees” them in any log files it is parsing. A set of default alerts are provided for you, these are the most common log messages that indicate some sort of issue that needs further investigation.

Administration Center - Settings - Source Folder Location

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This panel provides options to configure a specific folder that can be used to deliver source code from. When configured, this method of delivery is in addition to the existing method to deliver source code as a ZIP file. The path should be a folder path, and should contain folders.

Note

Note that the source folder location should contain “raw” source code rather than a ZIP file. Providing a ZIP file in the source folder location will result in a failed source code delivery since Console is expecting “raw” unzipped source code files.

Administration Center - Settings - CSS and Measurement settings

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Note

This panel is only visible in Console ≥ 2.x.

Settings

This panel governs the PostgreSQL instances that are made available to your Node instances for Analysis/snapshot schema and Measurement schema storage requirements.

Database connection list

This table lists all the PostgreSQL instances that are available to your Node instances:

Database connection

The PostgreSQL instance displayed in the format: HOSTNAME:port/database_name.

CSS

When ticked, the PostgreSQL instance is made available for Application Analysis/snapshot schema storage. You can tick any number of instances, but you must always keep at least one instance ticked so that when new Applications are added, a PostgreSQL instance can be assigned to that Application. Making any changes requires that you use the Save button to save the changes.

Administration Center - Settings - CSS Optimization

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Note

This panel is only visible in Console 1.x. In more recent releases, the panel has been merged with CAST Storage Service/Measurement settings. See Administration Center - Settings - CSS and Measurement settings.

Over time and through continued use, the efficiency of your Application’s schemas may well start to degrade (“gaps” in table data, inefficient indexes etc.) - this degradation can significantly impact performance with the most visible impact seen in the performance of the CAST Dashboards. To counter this, CAST provides a feature (known as CssOptimize) that can be run to optimize the schemas stored in your PostgreSQL instance - i.e. to clean up defects that have appeared over time.

Administration Center - Settings - Measurement

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Note

Settings

This panel provides the settings for controlling the Measurement schema - this schema is required for consolidating snapshot data from all Nodes for display in the CAST Health Dashboard - only one schema is required. When the start-up wizard is run post installation of Console as part of the Initial configuration steps, settings must be provided for a PostgreSQL instance to host the Measurement schema. These settings are displayed in this panel. The Measurement schema will be created on the target PostgreSQL instance the first time a snapshot is run and the same schema will be used for all future snapshots run on all Nodes:

Administration Center - Settings - Job History Strategy

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This option governs the number of completed jobs (and their logs) that are retained by Console: a job is any action that has been completed on any Node instance. The jobs are retained as a historic record. Over time, and especially where there are multiple Applications/Node instances managed in Console, the number of jobs (and their logs) stored by Console can become very large. When this occurs, you may find that it takes a long time for a given Node instance to be fully recognised in Console if the Node instance is restarted for whatever reason - this performance issue is caused by the large number of jobs (and their logs) that are stored by Console and which need to be looped through whenever a Node instance is restarted.

Administration Center - Settings - Backup Strategy

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

These options govern Application backups and will automatically manage backup retention (these settings are not applicable to Measurement backups - see Administration Center - Settings - Measurement). Application backups are stored on the relevant Node and can be managed in Administration Center - Applications - Application Details. They can be run manually, or automatically as part of the add version or run analysis/snapshot options:

Delete the backups if they are older than X day(s)

Option is not enabled by default. When the chosen number of days has elapsed, all older backups available in the Application backup storage location will be removed from disk the next time a new backup retention job is run. Disabling the option will disable the backup removal entirely - in this case, no backups are removed.

Keep X backup(s) per application

Option is not enabled by default. When the chosen number of backups are available in the Application backup storage location, the oldest backup will be removed from disk the next time a new backup retention job is run. In other words, the backup retention job will retain no more than the chosen number of backups for restoration at any one time. Disabling the option will disable the backup retention entirely - in this case, no backups are removed.

Backup retention jobs for the above options are run on the following schedule and cannot be changed:

Administration Center - Settings - Snapshot Strategy

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

These options allow you to configure a snapshot retention policy for all applications managed by Console.

Info

All options are disabled out of the box.
If you are using embedded Dashboards, the dashboard data will be cleaned up when a snapshot is deleted.

≥ 2.6

Info

It is only possible to choose one of the two strategies available, either Control the number of snapshots OR Filter on snapshot name. Choosing one will disable the settings made in the other.

Administration Center - Settings - Version Strategy

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Available options

These options allow you to configure a version retention policy for all applications managed by Console:

to retain versions for a specific number of days.
or to retain a min or max number of versions per Application
optionally delete associated snapshots

Delete the versions if they are older than X day(s)	Disabled by default. This option allows you to configure a retention policy that will delete any version for any Application that is older than X number of days.
Keep minimum X version(s) per application	Disabled by default. This option allows you to configure a minimum number of versions to retain for any given Application.
Keep maximum X version(s) per application	Disabled by default. This option allows you to configure a maximum number of versions to retain for any given Application.
Delete associated snapshots	Not visible and disabled by default: Administration Center - Settings - Delivery Strategy Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 These options are aimed at preventing a new analysis or snapshot from being run if the delivered source code: has changed by X% - for example, this option can be used to detect a very large change in source code which could indicate a problem that has not been identified prior to delivery has not changed at all - i.e. this can avoid a wasteful re-analysis process if the source code has not changed. Info The option is only effective where a version has already been delivered. Options will be ignored for the first version delivered for an Application. Administration Center - Settings - PDS Dump Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Info These options are global, i.e. they are valid for ALL applications managed in Console. Introduction The PDS dumpoption provides the means to configure Console to recognise Mainframe source code (Cobol, JCL etc.) and other source code such as Perl or ColdFusion that may be provided as a PDS (Partitioned Data Set) dump. A PDS is a type of “library” containing elements known as “members” exported from az/OS system (eg. Cobol programs, copybooks, JCL and other technologies such as Perl or ColdFusion etc.) Each member in the PDS is preceded by a banner containing the member’s name (among other information) and is concatenated with other elements in text format. Administration Center - Settings - Maven Repositories Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Introduction When analyzing an Application that includes Maven basedsource code, Console (i.e. the Nodes) need to know where to find any required Maven local or remote HTTP/S repositories. The location of the repositories is crucial to ensure that any associated JAR files can be automatically discovered and that POM dependencies can also be located during the analysis. See Configuring source code delivery for Maven for more information. To tell Console (and your configured Nodes) where any required repositories are located, use this panel. Out of the box several public repositorieswill be predefined - https://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2 is marked as the primary repository (i.e. the most complete repository) which will always be search first: Administration Center - Settings - .NET Assemblies Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Info Available in Console ≥ 1.26. This option is global to all Nodes managed in Console. It enables to you specify where your Application’s external .NET assemblies (provided by third parties or your own custom assemblies) are located. This is particularly useful if you do not deliver external .NET Assemblies with the Application source code, i.e. in the ZIP file or via a source code located in a folder and instead deliver the assemblies separately. See .NET - Prepare and deliver the source code for more information. Administration Center - Settings - Application Onboarding Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 Note that legacy onboarding mode is deprecated and you should use Fast Scan mode wherever possible. Introduction This option toggles the onboarding with Fast Scan workflow (see also Application - Overview with Fast Scan). This onboarding mode includes the “fast scan” phase and result validation before progressing to an analysis: Note that you can permanently switch applications from legacy to Fast Scan workflow - see: Switch from legacy to fast scan onboarding mode.

Administration Center - Global Configurations on Documentation - V2

Administration Center - Settings - Extensions Strategy

Introduction

Administration Center - Settings - Assessment Model Strategy

Settings

Share Assessment Model Settings

Administration Center - Settings - Analysis Results Indicators

Introduction

Available options

Administration Center - Settings - Default Dynamic Links Rules

Introduction

Administration Center - Settings - Exclusion templates

Administration Center - Settings - Alert Settings

Patterns section

Administration Center - Settings - Source Folder Location

Administration Center - Settings - CSS and Measurement settings

Settings

Database connection list

Administration Center - Settings - CSS Optimization

Administration Center - Settings - Measurement

Settings

Administration Center - Settings - Job History Strategy

Administration Center - Settings - Backup Strategy

Administration Center - Settings - Snapshot Strategy

Introduction

≥ 2.6

Administration Center - Settings - Version Strategy

Available options

Administration Center - Settings - Delivery Strategy

Administration Center - Settings - PDS Dump

Introduction

Administration Center - Settings - Maven Repositories

Introduction

Administration Center - Settings - .NET Assemblies

Administration Center - Settings - Application Onboarding

Introduction