CMS - Dashboard Service editor

To enable the option, place a check mark in the Credentials tick box and then enter an appropriate username and password. You can test the connection using the Test Connection option.

Notes

• This option is NOT available when editing a Dashboard Service installed on a CAST Storage Service.
• The Trusted option, if selected, flags the connection as trusted - there is then no need to enter a user or password (these fields will be disabled).
• Please see CAST Management Studio - Rights for more information about how server access rights and permissions are handled in the CAST Management Studio.

Select the Applications you wish to cleanup and click Finish to completely remove them.

For example, if the connection between the client and server is lost for whatever reason during the snapshot generation process, then a lock will be set by the server preventing any further snapshot processing (you will see the error message: "Compute Metrics REJECTED: A snapshot is already being processed - the operation requested can not be completed now.").

The option is indented to reset this type of lock so that you can continue processing your snapshots.

Notes

• Before using the option, make sure that no connection is currently running a snapshot generation - running two concurrent computations on the same database will produce erratic results.
• In most circumstances, locks will be removed from the server automatically (indeed this is the recommended action), but this process can take a long time. This option is designed to override this automatic unlocking process.

• When clicking the Open Url option (see below), the URL you enter into the field will be opened in your default browser (useful if you want to define access to a specific dashboard easily.
• When clicking the Add URL to Measurement Service option (see below), the URL you enter into the field will be uploaded to the Measurement Service and will be used when you click the "microscope" button in the CAST Health Dashboard in order to drill down either in to the CAST Engineering Dashboard or the legacy CAST Engineering Dashboard. Enter the URL of you wish to upload (see the option Add URL to Measurement Service below for more information about the required format of the URL).

Notes

• When a snapshot is generated, the contents of this URL field are taken into account for the automatic PDF report generation feature in the legacy CAST Engineering Dashboard. You must therefore ensure that before a snapshot is generated:
  • The field is blank and does not contain any URL
  • Or that it contains a URL to your live legacy CAST Engineering Dashboard
• If you have entered a URL to your live legacy CAST Engineering Dashboard using the secure http protocol (https) then you need to ensure that the CAST Management Studio can use your SSL certificate (whether self-signed or trusted) otherwise the snapshot will fail. To do so:
  • Obtain your legacy CAST Engineering Dashboard SSL certificate in .cer format - this is beyond the scope of this documentation, however, all modern browsers offer the possibility of exporting an SSL certificate to .cer file). Ensure the .cer file is named "server_host_name.cer".
  • When you have the certificate in .cer format, you need to import it into the truststore of JRE used by the CAST Management Studio (this is shipped with CAST AIP) using the keytool command. To do so, open a cmd prompt and navigate to <CAST AIP installation folder>\jre\bin
  • Then use the following command to import the .cer file:

keytool -importcert -alias [server_host_name] -keystore ..\lib\security\cacerts -file [path to your server_host_name.cer]

• The snapshot will fail:
  • if the field is not blank and contains a URL other than your live legacy CAST Engineering Dashboard (i.e. for example to the CAST Health Dashboard or the CAST Engineering Dashboard).
  • if the URL to the live legacy CAST Engineering Dashboard uses the secure http protocol (https) and you have not imported your SSL cerrtificate as outlined above.

Note you may need a specific license that enables drill down into the CAST Engineering Dashboard or the legacy CAST Engineering Dashboard. Please do NOT configure this URL unless you specifically have this license.

The CAST Health Dashboard enables users (via the "microscope" icon) to access directly the underlying data in the CAST Dashboard Service database via the CAST Engineering Dashboard or the legacy CAST Engineering Dashboard. Both dashboards provide detailed information about the top level data displayed in the CAST Health Dashboard.

Access to the underlying data is provided via a URL (pointing to the required dashboard) that is stored in the Measurement Service.

Deployment considerations

• If you have deployed the combined "HD-ED" WAR file then the URL is configured automatically to point to the CAST Engineering Dashboard and cannot be overridden to point to a separate CAST Engineering Dashboard deplyoyment.
• However, if you have separate standalone deployments using the standalone CAST-Health.war / CAST-Engineering.war / CAST-CED.war files, then access to the CAST Engineering Dashboard (ED) or legacy CAST Engineering Dashboard (CED) is not implemented automatically and you will need to manually upload a URL as decribed below.

Uploading a URL

Although you can activate a Measurement Service to store all snapshot data for the current Management Service (see Measurement Service editor), users will not be able to drill down into the underlying CAST Engineering Dashboard unless you specifically add the URL of your CAST Engineering Dashboard or legacy CAST Engineering Dashboard into the Measurement Service.

This option allows you to do so:

• Uploading a URL for the legacy CAST Engineering Dashboard
  • Simply enter the URL in the field URL above, in the format http://<server>:[<port>]/CAST-CED
    • you should tailor the <server> and <port> entries to your environment
• Uploading a URL for the CAST Engineering Dashboard
  • For each CAST Dashboard Service that you want to drill down into, you must first determine the context "name" of the Dashboard Service as defined in the context.xml file for the CAST Engineering Dashboard (ED).
  • First locate and open the following file in a text editor:

    %CATALINA_HOME%\webapps\CAST-Engineering\WEB-INF\context.xml

  • Then take the following example which shows three CAST Dashboard Services each with different context "names" (the context "name" is the value defined after the second forward slash in (for example) name="jdbc/domains/APP1" (i.e. APP1)). We will use the APP1 name defined for the V80_CENTRAL_APP1 Dashboard Service:

    <Resource name="jdbc/domains/APP1" url="jdbc:postgresql://NEFYN:2280/postgres"           initConnectionSqls="SET search_path TO V80_CENTRAL_APP1;"           username="operator" password="CastAIP"            auth="Container" type="javax.sql.DataSource" driverClassName="org.postgresql.Driver"           validationQuery="select 1"           initialSize="5" maxActive="20" maxIdle="10" maxWait="-1"/><Resource name="jdbc/domains/APP2" url="jdbc:postgresql://NEFYN:2280/postgres"           initConnectionSqls="SET search_path TO V80_CENTRAL_APP2;"           username="operator" password="CastAIP"            auth="Container" type="javax.sql.DataSource" driverClassName="org.postgresql.Driver"           validationQuery="select 1"           initialSize="5" maxActive="20" maxIdle="10" maxWait="-1"/><Resource name="jdbc/domains/APP3" url="jdbc:postgresql://NEFYN:2280/postgres"           initConnectionSqls="SET search_path TO V80_CENTRAL_APP3;"           username="operator" password="CastAIP"            auth="Container" type="javax.sql.DataSource" driverClassName="org.postgresql.Driver"           validationQuery="select 1"           initialSize="5" maxActive="20" maxIdle="10" maxWait="-1"/>

  • Enter the URL of the CAST Engineering Dashboard that runs from the current Dashboard Service into the URL field. This will take the following form http://<server>:<port>/CAST-Engineering/engineering/index.html#<context-name>
    • you should tailor the <server> and <port> entries to your environment.
    • The <context-name> value refers the value we determined earlier, in this example APP1. So we will add the following URL: http://server:8080/CAST-Engineering/engineering/index.html#APP1
      
      
  • Click the Add URL to Measurement Service option.
  • A progress dialog box will then display the results:

Notes

• When using the option you will be prompted for login credentials > admin/cast (case-sensitive): note that this user has the ADMIN role only.
• CAST AIP schemas hosted in Microsoft SQL Server environment - please be aware that the CAST Engineering / Security Dashboard will fail to load if you carried out a combined installation in CAST Server Manager using a Trusted connection (i.e. using Windows authentication) and are still using the automatically configured connection profile in the CAST Management Studio.
• This functionality has been withdrawn in AIP Core ≥ 8.3.50. Please use CAST Console and the integrated dashboard instead.

Changes will not be visible in the CAST Engineering Dashboard until you generate a Snapshot.

A hidden section under the list of Systems will be displayed enabling you to rename the System if you require (you will need to generate a Snapshot before any changes are taken into account).

This hidden section also lists the Applications that are associated to the System (see Assign Applications to Systems for more information about this).

This process will re-generate all existing information for the snapshot. Consolidating an existing Snapshot will cause all metrics/quality rule information associated to the Snapshot to be removed from the Dashboard Service and replaced with the new information created during the new consolidation.

Notes

• Note that this operation can sometimes cause data discrepancies with results computed when the quality model was different. To minimise this, the following items are taken into account when using the Consolidate option:
  • changes in aggregation weights
  • changes in the tree structure (new contributions between a Quality Rule and a Technical Criteria, new aggregations, new Technical Criteria etc.)
  • changes in the module weight
  • changes in the thresholds used to compute grades based on rule compliance ratios and distributions
  • changes in critical contributions
• Note that computations executed on the Analysis Service are not taken into account by the Consolidate option:
  • it does not re-analyze the source code
  • it does not re-compute metrics
  • it does not re-run procedures associated with metrics
• Note that the above options are executed immediately. A delete and a consolidation cannot be reversed.

Choose the Assessment Model you require and click Finish to proceed. The selected Assessment Model will now be assigned to the current Dashboard Service.

Notes

• If you are using the Change option to select <None> then a warning will be displayed as follows:

Notes

• CAST recommends that you do not import more than five Assessment Models into the Assessment Models view. The performance of the CAST Management Studio can be adversely affected if you import more than this.

• After upgrading AIP, or installing/upgrading an extension, the Assessment Model is installed on both the Dashboard Service schema and on the Management Service schema. The Management Service schema is the only "repository" that preserves user customizations (rule activations, contribution, weights, rule parameters etc.), and MUST therefore be considered as the PRIMARY repository for the Assessment Model. As a consequence, it is STRONGLY advised to ensure that the Assessment Model in the Dashboard Service schema is aligned with the Management Service schema by generating a Snapshot or using the Synchronize Assessment Model action (see below) before transferring metrics with the "Import assessment model" from a Dashboard Service schema to a Management Service schema.