CentraSite has a set of importers for importing various kinds of objects. They are used by the Import function of CentraSite Control, but they can also be invoked from Java programs, through the SOAP API, from batch commands (for example, shell scripts) or directly from the command-line prompt. Import APIs are available for importing:

All the importers have a few characteristics in common. Each import function is called with an appropriate XML file (for example, the web service importer expects a WSDL file as input). The XML file can be located in the file system, or, for some importers, it can alternatively be specified by a URL (HTTP). The file is incorporated into the CentraSite repository and there will be a registry object (an ExternalLink) that will point to it. Each importer typically creates one or more JAXR-based registry objects. The following picture illustrates the relationship: