Introduction to Software AG Designer
Software AG Designer is the main tool for implementing Apama applications. It contains a set of Eclipse plug-ins that provides a number of Eclipse perspectives:
Use the Apama Workbench perspective when you are new to Apama. This perspective provides a simplified view of Apama features that makes it easy to get started developing Apama applications.
Use the Query Designer to define a query.
You can use Event Modeler to develop scenarios in either the Workbench or Developer perspective.
Use the Apama Developer perspective when you are comfortable using the Apama Workbench perspective. The Developer perspective gives you far more control over your Apama project than the Apama Workbench perspective. For example, you can view more than one Apama project at one time, and you can specify launch configuration parameters.
Use the Apama Runtime perspective for monitoring and debugging the execution of Apama applications.
Use the Apama Debug perspective to debug your Apama application. The Debug perspective allows you to set break points, examine variable values, and control execution.
Use the Apama Profiler perspective to profile your Apama application. The Profiler perspective allows you to see which components of your application are consuming the most CPU time or to see if there are other bottlenecks in the application.
When developing an Apama application, the first step is to create an Apama project to contain your application files. An Apama project is a convenient way to manage the various files that make up your application. For example, an Apama application can include the following types of files:
EPL files (
.mon extension)
Query files (
.qry extension)
Scenario definition files (
.sdf extension)
Block definition files (
.bdf extension)
Java files
Dashboard files (
.rtv extension)
Files that contain sample events (
.evt extensions)
C, C++, Java and .NET files that contain Apama client applications or correlator plug-ins
Adapters that provide the interface between your event sources and Apama
Image files for your dashboards
Text, HTML or XML files
You can add and manage all of these files from your Apama project in Software AG Designer. In addition, Software AG Designer provides an EPL editor and a Java editor whose features include content assistance, auto-bracketing, templates for frequently entered constructs, and problem detection. After you build an Apama project, Software AG Designer flags any line that contains an error.
If your project contains dashboards and scenarios, Software AG Designer opens the Dashboard Builder or Event Modeler when you double-click .rtv or .sdf files, respectively. You can also use Software AG Designer to test your application. Software AG Designer provides Apama features that inject your application into the correlator, send test event streams to the correlator, launch adapters, and configure and monitor the operation of your application in a test environment.
Finally, Software AG Designer provides tools for packaging your application so that you can deploy it. See
Overview of Developing Apama Applications.
