The CentraSite Application Framework (CSAF) provides a programming model for developing custom extensions on top of CentraSite. It supports JAXR (Java API for XML Registries) and extends the CentraSite JAXR-based API and the Pluggable UI - the framework on which the CentraSite UI is built.

It contains two independent parts: the persistence framework and the validation framework.

The persistence framework provides the ability to operate on registry data using JavaBeans instead of the JAXR-based API. This is done in a fashion similar to object-relational mapping tools such as Hibernate or Java Persistence API. It this case, Java Beans are mapped to registry objects. All this is done declaratively using Java5 Annotations.

This framework was created with the intention of making it easier to work with registries that support the JAXR-based interface, such as CentraSite. Its usage does not require in general any specific or deep knowledge of this API.

A direct benefit of this is shortened application development time.

The validation framework provides an extensible mechanism for validating Java beans. Multiple numbers of constraints can be attached to each bean. The notion of scopes is also supported, that is, constraints apply only when specific conditions about the bean are met.

This figure above shows the architecture of a common CentraSite application extension developed using CSAF.

There are two major points that have to be clear in order to understand how the persistence framework works, namely how the bean model is built based on the RegistryBean interface and the BeanPool.

The following topics are discussed in this topic: