Introduction to Reports
Note: Beginning with version 9.9, CentraSite does not support the Generate Reports functionality in CentraSite Control. Instead, you can use the enhanced interface of CentraSite Business UI which supports generating, downloading, and scheduling reports.
Whether you need to document or present information about your objects, you can use predefined or custom reports to do so. Reports provide a way for you to view and share information derived from the objects you have created.
You can schedule, generate, update, list, and delete reports in CentraSite in the following ways:
CentraSite Business UI Command Line Interface
About Report Templates and Reports
Report template contains instructions for gathering object metadata from CentraSite registry repository, and formatting it into an object-specific report. A report template could either be used as a stand-alone or associated with one or more objects for generating specific reports.
Reports mainly use
CentraSite registry repository as data source. In addition to using
CentraSite as data source,
CentraSite supports the relational database management systems, such as, DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and Sybase. The reporting framework has extended support that enables some reports to communicate with these SQL databases using the Java Database Connectivity (JDBC), and report data. The JDBC-compliant reports are designed to access and retrieve data from the JDBC-compliant databases. For more information about JDBC-compliant reports, see
Configuring JDBC Support for BIRT Reports.
CentraSite includes a set of predefined reports that provide frequently used information about assets, API invocations, and events. These reports can be saved, shared with other users, and reused to monitor and track the API specific usage information and consumer specific usage information of required APIs. For information about reports that are provided with
CentraSite, see
Predefined Reports.
In addition to using the predefined reports, you can create and design your own custom reports that will contain a specific content and format. Such reports can be created, for example, using the Eclipse plug-ins delivered with
CentraSite. The BIRT Report Designer creates a
.rptdesign file, referred to as the
Template File, and describes a predefined
rptdesign layout for creating the custom report templates. Documentation describing how to create BIRT (Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools) reports is contained in the Eclipse online help that is delivered with the plug-ins. For general information about the
BIRT technology, see the description of the BIRT project in the
Projects section of the Eclipse site at
http://www.eclipse.org/birt/.
You can create a custom report in
CentraSite using the command tool
add Report. For information on the usage of
CentraSite command tool, see
Adding Custom Report.
Sharing Reports with API Portal
You can share dynamic, read-only reports with your API Portal users without giving them access to all of your data.
API Portal users will be able to see the latest version of your report when they use the shareable link.
You can share a report with an instance of
API Portal registered in
CentraSite using the command tool
share Report. For information on the usage of
CentraSite command tool, see
Sharing Report with
API Portal.
You can stop sharing the report at any time. To stop sharing the report, you must modify the property line com.centrasite.report.Classifications, and remove the value shared in the customization file, centrasite.xml.
After you make changes to the report configuration, you must execute the command tool
update Report. For information on the usage of
CentraSite command tool, see
Modifying Report Details.
Building Reports with Indexing and Aggregated Data
CentraSite's data store supports the use of indexing and aggregate tables that can query large databases and provide faster access to frequently-accessed data and any query. The aggregate tables reduce the amount of data that must be aggregated and sorted at runtime, and help generate reports at a much faster speed.
Note: Consumer index and aggregation only work with the flat storage mode. Flat storage indicates an enhanced mode of data storage.
CentraSite includes the following reports that are designed to use indexing and aggregated data:
Runtime Asset Usage (Aggregation-based)
Runtime Consumer Usage (Aggregation-based)
For information about these reports, see
Predefined Reports.