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The Cernunnos Project
Andrew WillsJA-SIG 2007 Summer Conference, Denver
Monday June 25th, 2007
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1. Introduction
2. Motivation, Goals, & Strategy
3. Using Cernunnos
4. Cernunnos & uPortal
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Introducing Cernunnos
• Cernunnos is an open source Java technology for
implementing, instrumenting, and combining valuable
software behavior
• Project Home Page (Google Code): http://
code.google.com/p/cernunnos/
• Community (Google Groups):
http://groups.google.com/group/cernunnos-discussion/
• Presently, there is one contributor (guess who?)
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The Cernunnos Platform
• Cernunnos provides a medley of components out-of-the-box (just like Java):
– A contract for Tasks & Phrases (Java API)
– A basic container implementation for running Tasks & Phrases
– An assortment of useful Task & Phrase implementations
– A core syntax for instrumenting these implementations (XML-based)
– Useful tools (e.g. Grammardoc, Command Line Scripts)
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But Isn’t That Just Like …
• Cernunnos has some similarities with popular
technologies like Ant, Jelly, Groovy, etc.
• But there are meaningful differences in the details,
some of which are discussed here:
http://code.google.com/p/cernunnos/wiki/Comparison_with_Jelly
• The creator of Cernunnos sees the project not as a
tool written in Java, but as an innovative way to
practice Java
• From that perspective, it appears more similar to
Servlets or Spring than the items above
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Motivation, Goals, & Strategy
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Notable Quote
“Java’s not worth building in. Nobody uses
Java anymore. It’s this big heavyweight ball
and chain.”
- Steve Jobs
Taken from a recent New York Times interview
about Apple’s new iPhone
http://www.theserverside.com/blogs/thread.tss?thread_id=45781
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Goals of Cernunnos
• Cernunnos was created to address software
professional effectiveness
• Professionals who use Cernunnos should be
able to deliver a higher ratio of software value
(outputs) to effort (inputs) compared with
“industry normal” practices
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Goals of Cernunnos (Cont.)
Cenunnos is not about:
• Security
• Scalability
• Usability
Cernunnos is about:
• Getting more business
value from your
investment in custom
software
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Strategy in a Nutshell
• Mature disciplines are good at creating high-
level solutions from standardized, low-level
components
• But in software we reinvent low-level
behaviors constantly: JDBC calls, file system
I/O, XML parsing, XSL Transformations, etc.
• Cernunnos provides a standard form factor
for behavior, allowing behaviors (old & new)
to be combined in innovative, flexible ways
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Short Backstory
Your client is moving to PeopleSoft
Your Assignment:
1. An existing work study app must be changed
to pull data from a new database
2. The work must be done in Java
3. You must do the work
4. The source database isn’t ready, and won’t
be ready before your contract is up
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Tasks & Phrases
• In Cernunnos, meaningful work is handled by
Tasks & Phrases
• A Task is a unit of behavior
• A Phrase is an expression that calculates a
value at runtime
<copy-file location="http://www.google.com" to-file="google_home.html"/>
<echo-ln>${valueOf(.)}</echo-ln>
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Tasks & Phrases (Cont.)
<!--Examine the contents of all JAR files in the present directory and all subdirectories. Print the name(s) of all entries that match the specifiedpattern.-->
<file-iterator includes="**/*.jar"> <echo-ln>${req(Attributes.LOCATION)}:</echo-ln> <archive-iterator> <if test="${jexl(Attributes.LOCATION.contains('${req($1)}'))}"> <echo-ln prefix="	">${req(Attributes.LOCATION)}</echo-ln> </if> </archive-iterator> <echo-ln/></file-iterator>
> crn find-in-jar.crn DocumentFactory
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Tasks & Phrases (Cont.)
• Call standard (out-of-the-box) Tasks & Phrases by
names from a standard grammar file
• Use the <add-grammar> Task to register a custom
grammar file; or
• Refer to Task & Phrase implementations directly (viz.
fully-qualified class name)
<parameter value="${org.jasig.portal.groups.GetMemberKeyPhrase(${singleNode(child/*)})}“/>
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Cernunnos Grammardoc
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Installing Cernunnos
Running Cernunnos from the command line:
1. Install the following tools
– Subversion
– Ant
2. Download Cernunnos source
> svn checkout http://cernunnos.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/
3. Compile Cernunnos
> ant build
4. Add the Cernunnos bin/ directory to your path
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Embedding Cernunnos
Using Cernunnos in other applications:
1. Add the following JARs to the classpath:
• cernunnos.jar
• commons-jexl-1.1.jar
• dom4j.jar
• jaxen.jar
2. Use the ScriptRunner classScriptRunner runner = new ScriptRunner();
runner.run(location)
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Invoking Cernunnos
• You can specify a Cernunnos script using
either a file system path, a URL, or a location
in the classpath
• This is not only true for scripts – you can
reference pretty much any resource pretty
much anywhere in any of these ways
> crn grammardoc.crn
> crn http://cernunnos-discussion.googlegroups.com/web/find-class-in-jar.crn Document
> crn classpath://org.jasig.portal.container.deploy.deploy-portlet-app.crn myApp.war
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Cernunnos & uPortal
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New or Improved Features
Cernunnos has been used with uPortal in
several ways:
• Execute arbitrary SQL from the console
• Convert a new uPortal 2.5.x to DLM
• Improved “deployPortletApp” target
• Core data Import/Export (XML-based)
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Execute Arbitrary SQL
• Cernunnos picks up JDBC connection information
from rdbm.properties (viz. where it lives)
• Invoke with
> crn sql.crn “INSERT INTO up_user…”
<properties location="build/WEB-INF/classes/properties/rdbm.properties"> <sql-connection
driver="${req(jdbcDriver)}" url="${req(jdbcUrl)}" username="${req(jdbcUser)}“password="${req(jdbcPassword)}">
<sql-statement sql="${req($1)}"/> </sql-connection></properties>
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Convert to DLM
• Automates the process described on the uPortal wiki:
http://www.ja-sig.org/wiki/display/UPM/DLM+Administration+Guide
• Summary:
1. Set UserLayoutStoreFactory.implementation to RDBMDistributedLayoutStore
2. Set UserLayoutManagerFactory.coreImplementation to DistributedLayoutManager
3. Update the UP_USER_PROFILE table to match the theme and style values for DLM
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Convert to DLM (Cont.)
<properties location="build/WEB-INF/classes/properties/rdbm.properties">
<!-- First change portal.properties... --> <string-replace string="${url(properties/portal.properties)}" regex="...UserLayoutStoreFactory.impl=..." replacement="...RDBMDistributedLayoutStore"> <string-replace regex="...UserLayoutManagerFactory.impl=..." replacement="...DistributedLayoutManager"> <write-file file="properties/portal.properties"/> </string-replace> </string-replace>
<!-- Next update the database... --> <sql-connection ...> <sql-statement sql="UPDATE up_user_profile
SET structure_ss_id=4, theme_ss_id=3 WHERE theme_ss_id=11"/>
</sql-connection>
</properties>
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New “deployPortletApp” Target
• Current deployPortletApp implementation creates a
new web.xml file using some values from the existing
one, which causes problems
– Hard-coded use of the 2.3 servlet spec (UP-1241)
– //description becomes /web-app/description
• New implementation merely adjusts the web.xml that is
provided
• New implementation also makes it more natural to
invoke this behavior within the web application itself
classpath://org/jasig/portal/container/deploy/deploy-portlet-app.crn
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New “deployPortletApp” Target (Cont.)
Summary of deployPortletApp behavior:
1. Extract the specified portlet WAR file to the appropriate location within Tomcat (deploy.home in Ant)
2. Add <servlet> elements for each portlet definition in portlet.xml using XSLT
3. Add <servlet-mapping> elements for each <servlet> element using XSLT
4. Add a <taglib> element for portlet JSP tags
5. Add the portlet.tld file to the webapp in Tomcat
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XML Import/Export
• XML Import & Export using Cernunnos was
presented at the uPortal Developers’ Meeting at
Johns Hopkins University in April
• This portion of the session contains updated
material from that meeting
• Much more detailed information -- and a working
prototype -- are available onlinehttp://www.ja-sig.org/wiki/display/UPC/uP2+XML+Import+Export+with+Cernunnos
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XML Import/Export (Cont.)
• Although every uPortal release comes with a
working data set, every institution needs to
customize this data extensively to meet their
individual needs
• Editing this data where it lives (i.e. data.xml)
is confusing, tedious, and risky!
• Using uPortal’s UI to edit the data isn’t
reproducible by automated means
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XML Import/Export (Cont.)
It would be nice if…
• The data set were more approachable
(readable and editable)
• Entities were described in individual files
instead of a single, monolithic document
• Entities didn’t reference each other using
database IDs, so they could be imported (or
shared) in any order
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Example XML Document
<layout username="student" script="classpath://org/jasig/portal/layout/simple/import-
layout.crn"> <root name="Root folder" immutable="N" unremovable="Y"> <header name="Header folder" immutable="Y" unremovable="Y"> <channel fname="header"/> <channel fname="portal/login/general"/> </header> <tab name="Main Student Tab" immutable="N" unremovable="N"> <column name="Column 2" immutable="N" unremovable="N"> <channel fname="salon.com"/> </column> <column name="Column 1" immutable="N" unremovable="N"> <channel fname="minesweeper"/> <channel fname="word-of-the-day"/> <channel fname="number-guessing-game"/> </column> </tab> <footer name="Footer folder" immutable="N" unremovable="N"> <channel fname="footer"/> </footer> </root></layout>
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Using the Prototype
• A Cernunnos-based import/export tool is available that handles the following data:
– Users
– Groups
– Channels
– Group Memberships
– Permissions
– Layouts
• The prototype tool is attached as a ZIP to the wiki page about this technology
• To use it, extract the contents into the root of a uPortal 2.5 (or later) distribution
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Using the Prototype (Cont.)
• Invoke it from the command line using Ant
> ant –f import-export.xml export –Ddir={dir} –Dtype={type} [–Dsysid={sysid}]
> ant –f import-export.xml import [-Ddir={dir}] [-Dpattern={pattern}]
dir = a file system directory
type = all | layout | all-layouts | channel | all-channels | all-permissions | all-memberships | group | all-groups
sysid = user_name | fname |group_name
pattern = a regex expression
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Andrew [email protected]
code.google.com/p/cernunnos/
Questions?
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Custom Software is Expensive
• Developing new software using "industry
standard" technologies and practices is very
effort intensive
• Qualified professionals ("knowledge workers")
are expensive
• And don’t forget…
– Software project failure rates are daunting
– So are time-to-market considerations
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Whose Problem Is It?
• If you're not thinking about these issues every day, you really should... your employers are
• Offshoring is a popular practice, and growing in use
• Many valuable software projects are never undertaken
• There is a high threshold of expected business value that a proposed software project must meet
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Choosing Project Scope
One common approach to planning the scope of a
software project and its iterations:
1. Create a list of proposed features
2. Assign each feature a number for Business Value
3. Assign each feature a number for Effort
4. Sort the list by the ratio of Business Value to Effort
5. Plan to implement the features with the best ratio first
6. Stop when the incremental value no longer justifies the
effort
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Choosing Project Scope (Cont.)
Feature BV/LOE LOE BV
A 1.33 3 4
B 1.25 4 5
C 1.20 5 6
D 0.78 9 7
E 0.75 8 6
F 0.71 7 5
G 0.67 6 4
H 0.57 14 8
I 0.54 13 7
J 0.50 12 6
K 0.45 11 5
L 0.45 20 9
M 0.42 19 8
N 0.40 10 4
O 0.39 18 7
P 0.35 17 6
Q 0.31 16 5
R 0.27 15 4
S 0.23 22 5
T 0.19 21 4
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Relationship Between Business Value & Effort
0.00
0.20
0.40
0.60
0.80
1.00
1.20
1.40
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T
Proposed Features
BV/LOE
Choosing Project Scope (Cont.)
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It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way
• Among human endeavors, software is
exceedingly young
• Software industry technologies and practices
are at an early evolutionary stage
• Innovations that unlock tremendous gains in
effectiveness are out there to be invented
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Relationship Between Business Value & Effort
0.00
0.20
0.40
0.60
0.80
1.00
1.20
1.40
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T
Proposed Features
BV/LOE
Choosing Project Scope (Revisited)
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Goal of This Session
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Buzzword Compliance
• Cernunnos leverages forward thinking both
from within the software industry and
elsewhere
– Composite Pattern
– Transparent Enclosure/Decorator Pattern
– Behavior Injection
– Intelligent Defaults
– Form Follows Function
– Platform Independence
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Solution
• Storing the data in XML is great because
tools like Subversion can manage it smoothly
• But the XML format used by data.xml is
unapproachable to human beings
• It would be better to store this data in a
collection of smaller XML documents with
domain-specific schemas
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Solution (Cont.)
• These documents can be more succinct and
manageable by conveying information
structurally that data.xml must convey
explicitly (e.g parent-child relationships, entity
types)
• Also these documents can avoid referencing
database IDs, allowing entities to be imported
and exported ad hoc – even from one portal
database to another!
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Data in uPortal
• Information in the portal database represents the following classes of entities:
– Minor Items (version info., sequences, etc.)
– Users
– Groups
– Channels
– Group Memberships
– Permissions
– Layouts
• Items that appear lower on this list often depend on items that appear higher (viz. foreign keys)
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Status of the Prototype
• Work on the prototype started with Layouts (DLM) and proceeded “backwards”
• The prototype currently includes both import and export through Groups Users
• Which leaves:
– Minor Items
– Users
• It works in uPortal 2.5.3 (AFAIK)
• It hasn’t been tried in any other version