2.0

Release renumbering

Please note that release 1.12 has been renumbered as 2.0. Therefore, the 1.12 beta releases continue in 2.0.

2.0.0

Resolved issues

Updates

Updating to 2.0.0-funcrel

Updating to 2.0.0-funcrel requires some specific actions. See the relevant documentation for more information:

• Update an existing installation - Microsoft Windows traditional installer
• Update an existing installation - Docker

Configuration Updates

Some fields in the neo4j.conf file have been updated:

Audit trail enabled out of the box

The audit trail (to log actions such as login, logout, import/update, delete of applications etc.) is now enabled “out of the box”. Log files are located here:

Windows: %PROGRAMFILES%\CAST\ImagingSystem\logs\audit-trail.log
Linux: /opt/CAST/container-support/logs/audit-trail.log

If the audit trail is not required, it can be disabled - see Configuring the audit trail.

Helper minor improvements

• Each layer now gives an option to move to next layer using the next button.

• In full screen mode, we also show the respective description for the gif/image.

• Minor improvements in the content of helper.

Source code for a link between caller and callee in sub-objects view

Source code can now be viewed for a link between a caller and callee by double clicking on the link:

It is not possible to view the source code if it is a grouped link.

Source code alias improvements

Now we have a separate tab to manage the source code alias (data source) - see Admin Center - Managing application aliases:

When we have single data source configured in the source code configuration it will display the data source alias as default alias:

When we have no data source configured in the source code configuration it will display default as default alias:

Admin UI improvements

Import applications and Remove applications screens are updated with new tables having pagination.

Other improvements

• Right-click options on Level 5 and vignette options have been renamed:

• The following option from the right-click(drill mode)  and vignette option modal window has been removed for level5 node
  • Expand children with their callers
  • Expand children with there callees
• Notification about the current drill mode is shown when the user navigates to the object view from level5.

• The ETL version is displayed in the app info. Note: If you have upgraded to 2.0.0-funcrel, this information will not be displayer - instead you need to re-export and import your Application data first.

• New icons have been added to Input and output point on transactions and Data call graph.

• Start/End Points on legends is renamed to Input/Output

2.0.0-beta8

Resolved issues

Updates

Upgrading to 2.0.0-beta8

The Neo4j version shipped with CAST Imaging 2.0.0-beta8 has been upgraded to 4.0.7 from 3.5.12. This brings about a change in the storage format of the transaction and data files, and therefore the existing 3.5.x database needs to be upgraded to the 4.0.x format. Please follow the instructions below to upgrade to 2.0.0-beta8. CAST highly recommends that you take a backup of the Neo4j database before starting the upgrade process.

Microsoft Windows

• Before the upgrade, take a backup of your Neo4j database. This process is explained here.
• You can now proceed with the upgrade process using ImagingSystemUpdate.exe. The database upgrade will be actioned automatically by the installer. Check the debug.log file in the logsdirectory of your CAST Imaging installation to check for any issues that may have been logged.

Linux

• Before the upgrade, take a backup of your Neo4j database. This process is explained here.

• CAST Imaging 2.0.0-beta8 for Linux requires the installation of a new release (beta3) of the Linux Docker Installer available on CAST Extend. You now have two choices:

  • You can run the Linux Docker Installer (as described in CAST Imaging installation for Docker on Linux or Microsoft Windows) and install the files to the existing installation path. In this scenario, the database migration will occur automatically when you start CAST Imaging.
    • Before starting CAST Imaging (using imaging -s start), ensure that the field dbms.allow_upgrade is uncommented and set to true in your /neo4j/configration/neo4j.conf file.
  • You can run the Linux Docker Installer (as described in CAST Imaging installation for Docker on Linux or Microsoft Windows) and install the files to a new installation path. In this scenario, you will need to copy over your backed up Neo4j database to the new installation:
    • Before starting CAST Imaging (using imaging -s start), you need to copy over your backed up Neo4j database. Ensure your Neo4j container is stopped, for example using imaging -s stop neo4j.
    • Make sure there is no **/neo4j/data/**directory in your new installation. If present, you need to deletethe datadirectory, for example using rm -rf /opt/CAST/container-support/neo4j/data.
    • Copy over your backed up data directory to /neo4j/, for example using cp -R /backup/data /opt/CAST/container-support/neo4j
    • Start CAST Imaging (using imaging -s start) - the database upgrade will occur automatically.
  • Check the debug.log file in the logsdirectory of your CAST Imaging installation to monitor the migration. The container logs can also be monitored, for example using docker logs neo4j

• If you encounter any errors during the data upgrade, you can restore the backup as follows:

  • Stop the Neo4j container, for example using imaging -s stop neo4j.
  • Delete your datadirectory, since it could be corrupted, for example using rm -rf /opt/CAST/container-support/neo4j/data
  • Copy over your backed up data directory to /neo4j/, for example using cp -R /backup/data /opt/CAST/container-support/neo4j
  • Start CAST Imaging (using imaging -s start)
  • Contact CAST if the upgrade repeatedly fails

Configuration updates

Some fields in the neo4j.conf file have been updated:

Grouping in Modules/Architecture Model View

• Objects in Module/Architecture Model views are now grouped based on the selected module/subset when navigating from their respective views.
• Default drill down behaviour is now the same as that used in the default Application layer view, i.e expand children with callers and callees, where the callers and callees are grouped.

Document-It feature improvements

• Documentation can now be added to Level nodes just like objects in previous beta releases. Note that documentation added to Level nodes cannot currently be searched:

• Documents added to Views are now editable in both object and sub-object levels. In addition, View documents are now represented using a green “chip icon” in the bottom left corner of the view:

• If any node in a group node is linked, then on opening of the document the group node is highlighted. (Warning: on updating the document if a group node is selected, all the child nodes are linked):

• The view can be used at the same time as when a document dialog is open. Previously this was not possible.
• New nodes/objects/group of objects can now be added to an existing Documentation simply opening the Document, holding the CTRL key down selecting the items that need to be added and then clicking Update:

View options

The View options Document, Export and Save are enabled when the source code dialog is open:

Save Communities drill down view

It is now possible to save a Communities drill down view (see here for more information about this drill down):

When looking at a Saved view created from a Communities drill down, it is now possible to drill down to the packages, change the drill mode and update the saved view. However, it is not currently possible to use the Create view option if the current view is a saved Communities drill down view.

Drill down using vignette options

Various drill-down options that were previously available via the right click of the level node can be accessed through a new option provided in the vignette as highlighted below:

Clicking this option opens up a modal window with a list of available Expand drill modes - expand is actioned when a mode is selected and the Visualize button is clicked:

Highlight active options on left-hand menu

Options available in the left-hand menu will be highlighted if the option is enabled for use?. In addition, the active sub-option will also be highlighted:

Level navigation on double click for transactions and data call graph

• Double clicking on the canvas in transactions and data call graph views will navigate to the next level of the view:

• Holding the shift button and double clicking will navigate to the previous level:

Preferences GUI layout

The layout of the preferences section in the admin panel have been changed:

Source code alias option

A new option has been added to the Configuring display preferences to enable you to switch between different PostgreSQL instances containing the source code for a given application. The dropdown contains the list of PostgreSQL aliases configured and therefore when switching to an alternative PostgreSQL instance, that chosen instance must contain the Application’s source code.

Pagination for search

Now the search results for global search is paginated for both objects search and document search. Now user will be able to see only limited search results based on the selected limit. And the limit input from the search input section has been removed.

The selected page will be highlighted and user can change the page and select the results from the respective pages. The selection however will persist through pages.

User can change the limit to change the results displayed per page

Pagination for documents search is also implemented and user will be able to limited results per page.

Also now user will see the all the object documents(default) as it switch to the documents tab.

View critical path

An option to view critical path between any two objects has been added to the left-hand menu. Select any two objects in the view and then click the option:

The critical path between the two objects is displayed (any nodes/objects not involved in the path will be temporarily hidden).

Clicking on the option ‘critical path’ again will deselect it and view will be back to original state (all objects will be visible back).

On DCG/transactions objects level, the critical path will be loaded by default. User can view all objects by deselecting critical path option.

Note: By default this option is unavailable on the left menu. User can configure by modifying criticalPath to true in app-config.js

Windows: %PROGRAMFILES%\CAST\ImagingSystem\nginx\html\app-config.js

Linux: /opt/CAST/container-support/nginx/html/app-config.js )

Other improvements

• If an object does not have either callers/callees, the Expand children with callers/callees options will be disabled:

• GUI styling improvements
• Icons Update, the icons for the select options and the custom tags option have been updated.

2.0.0-beta7

Resolved issues

Updates

CAST Imaging health status indicators

Now we can view the health status of all the services in CAST Imaging. It is displayed in the header of the admin page. 

Configurable comments

Comments can now be configured with a background color for each comment which will persist in a saved view. The color can be selected from the top-left icon next to the delete icon.

Search linked objects

Now the user will be able to search and add selected linked objects (caller/callee) from the list. On right click of a selected node/nodes, the user will get one more option for adding linked objects along with the count.

On click of Add linked objects, the user will be able to see a pop up where it can provide the input to search for caller/callers only or both callers and callees.

User can select among Caller, Callee and Caller and callee from the dropdown options

Users can type for a text to search in the text box and see the results in the results section, based on the input text.

There will be pagination at the bottom if there are many results:

Users can also change the limit to display the number of results per page:

If the user selects some options on one page and selects few other options on some other page the selection will persist:

Users can select a few linked objects and click the ADD button to add the selected objects to the graph:

Improvements

Filter UI Improvements

Filter options have been changed from switches to checkboxes:

Helper improvements

Images can now be viewed in higher resolution. It can be maximized and minimized by clicking the and options:

Application layer is divided into 2 steps. Step-1 explains level1-levelX and object level usage. Step-2 explains types of drill down available from levelX to object level:

Each layer is now linked with its documentation for detailed information. It can be viewed by clicking on the information icon next to the header:

Other improvements

• Ogma version is updated from 3.0.2 to 3.0.5.
• Package icon has been updated in communities view to help distinguish between caller and callees:

• In the subObjects level, user cannot view subobjects associated to packaged/grouped nodes directly by clicking on vignette. A notification will pop with the message “You cannot drill into package or grouped nodes” whenever user clicks on any package/grouped node on vignette at subObjects level:

• A loading icon is shown while navigating to the object and other views.

Known Issues

• When updating a saved view with grouped nodes(pentagon shaped nodes), these nodes are lost and do not exist in the saved view anymore.
• When removing linked object by deselecting a node from the list, the node is not removed from the graph if it’s connected to a grouped/transformed node.

2.0.0-beta6

Resolved issues

Updates

Default front-end port change

The port used for the front-end service (Nginx) has been changed from 80 to 8083 for both Linux and Windows. As a direct result of this, after installation CAST Imaging will now be available on http://:8083.

Create View - new workflow

A new workflow for creating a view has been implemented:

1. Select a group of nodes which is important/required for further investigation and click on create view icon in the bottom left.
2. This will move the main view to a smaller view and let the user work on the selected nodes on the main view.
3. The user can continue to further work on the selected nodes with callers/callees and also continue to create views.
4. At any point in time, the user can switch back to previous views by clicking on the view. The views are always swapped with the view clicked and the main view.
5. The user can also delete the current view by clicking on the cross icon at top right.

LDAP password encryption

The LDAP account password in the /login/application.propertiesfile can now be provided in an encrypted format instead of passing it in clear text. See Encrypting the LDAP account password for more information.

Communities improvements

• Users will now be able to drill down on caller/callee in communities view which was not possible in the older versions.

• Expanding a particular package is now possible by right-clicking on the package and select “Expand All”. Multiple packages can also be expanded at the same time.

• The new back button  has been added at the bottom right of community view to take you back to the previous state. It behaves the same as ‘shift + double click’.
• Communities node color is changed to their respective object color and the same is reflected on the legend.

Documentation

Add documents on sub-objects view

It is now possible to add documentation on subobjects view.

1. To add a document, select node(s).
2. Click on create document icon on left panel and select ‘Add new document’.
3. Add title, tags and description for your document
4. Save

Document will be saved and will be listed with other documents on the view’s bottom.

Delete View/Object document

To delete view document,  open document by clicking the view document icon at top right of the view of where user wich to delete the document. Clicking on delete icon button will delete the document.

 To delete object/subObjects document, open the document from the list available at the bottom of objects/subobjects level and click the delete icon button.

Helper

Imaging helper is a new feature that guides the user through different types of available drill-downs. This can be viewed by clicking on the help icon in the bottom left of the left sidebar.

The user can click on any type to view to understand in detail an explanation about the usage.

The user can hover on each step to view the step in animation.

Notifying Application status to user

User will be notified if the application accessed is in Importing, Updating or Error status.

Hide/Show isolated nodes

The hide or show external object types icon on Level 5 has been updated. The new option also allows users to toggle the hide or show for isolated nodes for all the views.

Latest version notification

Logged in Admin user will be notified if the latest version of Imaging is available, Latest version details along with the link to download latest version is shown in the admin section.

User configurations

This section is renamed to ‘Preferences’. An option to stop level animation on application or layer switch is added to preferences. By default, the application walkthrough (animation) will be active. If the user wishes to avoid animation, user can disable ‘Application walkthrough (animation)’ option in preferences.

Other Improvements

1. Level X right click options to expand children with callers/callees and callers or callees will be disabled if there are no callers or callees associated to selected node.

      2. Option to hide nodes is removed from the left panel. A better approach to hide nodes is introduced. User can now hide node(s) by selecting ‘Hide node(s)’ option on right click.

      3. Object search is now sorted.

exporter.exe updates

The exporter.exe tool (used in Two step export and import process, see also Export the CSV data) has been updated as follows:

• a new option –mngt has been added - this is optional. This should be used in place of –schema. –schema is now optional and will be phased out in future releases of CAST Imaging, therefore CAST highly recommends updating any batch scripts that you may have.
• the –log option is now mandatory.

API implementation

An API has been implemented allow you to query CAST Imaging using Rest calls. You can access the API Swagger documentation using the following URL:

http://<your_server>:8083/imaging/docs/

Known Issues

• User will fail to hide a node if selected node was connected to any node which was previously grouped.

2.0.0-beta5

Resolved issues

Updates

Configurable import batch size

During the application data import process (see Export and import the Application data), CAST Imaging is configured to import data in a batch of 1000 rows and then perform a commit. If you have allocated additional memory to Neo4j (see Optimize Neo4j memory allocation) it is possible to increase the default import batch size so that data commits are performed less, therefore increasing overall import performance. See Configuring import batch size for more information.

Application Layer - Level 5

• User can filter on External objects in Application Layer Level 5 by clicking on the “externals” icon located in the top right corner of the page
• By default, the icon will be active (blue in color) which means both internal and external objects are displayed. If you wish to see only internal objects, click the icon to activate the filter and remove the external objects

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

Ability to access methods view on node click

You can now access the Methods view by double-clicking on a node. In previous betas, it was only possible to access the Methods view by clicking an edge.

Ability to drill down with callers/callees in Modules and Architecture views

It is now possible to drill down based on:

• Children with callers
• Children with callees
• Children with callers and callees

The normal double click node would (by default) drill down with children and their callers and callees:

Click to enlarge

Object documentation

With the new documentation feature, the user can now document a view or a set of objects. Each document can have a title, tags, and description. The document is draggable (using the header section) and resizable for more flexibility.

Document search

Document search is available using the title, description, and tags:

When a view document is searched and selected, you will be redirected to that specific view:

When an object document is searched and selected, all the linked objects will be plotted in the search view:

View documents

For this option:

• Application layer: level 1 <-> level X will have a single document
• Transaction views: each transaction can have a document in level (X -4) <-> level X
• Module views will have a single document
• Architecture and Saved views can have a document in each model or view respectively

To save the document in a view, click the Documentation icon in the top right corner:

To view the document for the current view, click on the same icon to see the saved document:

Object documents

It is possible to select a group of nodes and document them as a group by selecting the Document option available on the left sidebar menu. If a grouped node is selected, all the children of that node will be linked to that Document:

All the documents linked to the objects available on the graph are listed below. If the document is selected, the objects linked and available are highlighted on the graph:

Audit Trail

The ability to activate audit logs has been implemented. Actions including but not limited to login, logout, import/update, delete of applications are logged in the file audit-trail.log. See Configuring the audit trail for more information.

Other improvements

Communities legends now display object types instead of package names:

Known Issues

• On subObjects view, on selection of few objects on vignette, the associated subObjects fails to load.