All releases

Console is designed to support one customer only

It is not possible to manage multiple customers in the same console for now. If you need to deploy multiple Consoles, you will need to adapt the strategy of your infrastructure. Console supports multiple Console Front Ends on the same machine. Console supports multiple analysis nodes (the analysis node is an "image" that runs the Node (Back End server) and contains the AIP Core installation and its running environment (runtimes, program/log/temp folders….etc). There is no feature to monitor the performance of multiple Consoles (parallel analysis, jobs...) on the same machine. This task will need to be supported by the customer. 

Compatibility with AIP Core

• Console is currently compatible with AIP Core ≥ 8.3.6. If you want to use Console and you are using an unsupported release of AIP Core you will need to either upgrade to a compatible release of AIP Core, or install a compatible release of AIP Core from scratch.
• CAST recommends the most recent release of AIP Core to take full advantage of all available features.

Console doesn't support scheduler feature

To plan scans automatically on a set of applications, this feature needs to be implemented outside of the Console.

Console doesn't support source code extraction automation

Console's current role is limited to receiving source code and then starting the scanning process. There is no feature to automate source code extraction.

No equivalent of CAST Management Studio Content Enrichment tools

CAST Management Studio contains various "content enrichment tools" such as tools to run SQL queries during an Analysis, Universal Importer mechanism, Reference Pattern tools etc. and these tools are not available in Console. The workaround is to use extensions wherever possible. For example, there is no Reference Pattern feature in Console, but you can manage it with an extension.

No ability to manage Dynamic Links in the GUI

Note that it is currently not possible to manage DLM in the GUI and DLM.XML files can be uploaded to bulk manage Dynamic Links.

Console does not support all technologies already supported by legacy deployments

The following technologies cannot currently be analyzed with Console:

• Visual Basic (supported from v. ≥ 1.23)
• RPG (supported from v. ≥ 1.22 - see RPG 3.1 for more information)
• Extensions using Universal Importer technology, including PeopleSoft Analyzer and Siebel Analyzer (PeopleSoft and Siebel supported from v. ≥ 1.27)
• Custom/User community extensions using Universal Analyzer technology, except the following:
  
  • CA Ideal
  • ColdFusion
  • DataStage
  • INGRES
  • Natural-Adabas
  • Pacbase
  • Perl
  • RDL
  • SQR
  • XPDL

No central user rights between Console and Dashboards

Even though it is possible to configure SSO (Single Sign On) for the Console and for the CAST dashboards, there is no configuration GUI available in the Console to manage roles and authorization for the Dashboards. This is something that must be done manually for the dashboards.

No certification for Secure deployment

Console will need to evolve after GA to support a fully secure architecture.

No Transaction viewer like in Transaction Configuration Center

There is no way to display the call graph of a transaction to get an overview.

Application backups do not include Objectives (legacy onboarding)

When an Application backup is run, the resulting backup does not record any selections made in the Objectives step of the delivery wizard. This means that any customizations made in this step will not be backed up and will not be restored. As a direct consequence, for example, enabling the Security Assessment objective will also enable Security Dataflow. When an application is restored, since the Objectives are not backed up, the Security Dataflow options will return to their default position - disabled (in Console v. ≥ 1.22 this feature has been implemented - see Administration Center - Applications - Application Details).

ZIP files containing files with non-standard characters in the file name

If your source code contains files with non-standard characters in the file name, such as é à ä etc. you must ensure that the the ZIP file has been created with a packaging tool that enforces the use of UTF-8 encoding for the names of the files within the ZIP. For example, the file names within ZIPs created with 7zip are encoded (by default) using Code page 437, and this will cause an exception when the ZIP file is uploaded to Console during the source code delivery process. One workaround is to force the packaging tool to use UTF-8 encoding - for example this can be achieved using 7zip by adding the parameters "cu" to the parameters field:

SAP BusinessObjects and Prepare analysis data step

When using Console with AIP Core ≤ 8.3.38 and when running an analysis ONLY, the step Prepare analysis data will fail if the Application contains ONLY SAP BusinessObjects source code. The analysis itself will have completed successfully. The failure of this step will mean that:

• sets will not be computed for Transaction/Function Point configuration and for Architecture/Quality Rule models where no existing snapshot exists.
• no information will be prepared for CAST Imaging where synchronization is enabled.

To avoid this issue, you can generate a full snapshot and include the analysis.

2.x specific constraints

Deployment constraints

No in place upgrade from Console v. 1.x (same for Node instances).

Report Generator with embedded Dashboards

It is not currently possible to use CAST Report Generator with embedded Dashboards. If you need to use CAST Report Generator, you will need to deploy a standalone Dashboard to interface with the required schemas. Embedded and standalone Dashboards can co-exist.

1.x specific constraints

No interface for integrated Dashboard configuration

Some manual steps are still required to deploy dashboards.

Nodes and Applications

When an Application is onboarded with a specific Node (and therefore a specific CAST Storage Service/PostgreSQL instance) it is not possible to change the Node which is responsible for the Application. In other words, the initial Node chosen will always be responsible for the Application.