Building Block View

5.1 MaMa Whitebox Level 1

Rationale: The structure of building blocks within MaMa is based upon functional decomposition and the concept of generated persistence (see section 8.1).

Contained Blackboxes:

Element	Description
Import Handler	Imports data from Partners or Mandator via external interfaces
Export Handler	Exports data to Partners or Mandator via external interfaces
Configuration	Maintains configuration of all import- and export activity types, import- and export filters and campaign business rules. Includes syntax driven editors for configuration.
Reporting	Reports campaign state to Mandator and Partners, as configured.
Process Control	Responsible for management and execution processes within a campaign, especially for execution of campaign specific business rules.
Campaign Data Management	Completely generated. Stores all client- and campaign data.
Operations Monitoring	Monitors (and reports) all import and export processes plus database and application state.
Code Generator	Generates the (complete) CampaignDataManagement from a campaign specific UML model. See persistence concept for details.

Import Handler (Blackbox)

Intent/Responsibility: Import Handler contains the core functions to imports data from Partners or Mandator via external interfaces. It handles csv, fix-format or xml input, either or both encrypted and compressed of configurable structure.

Interfaces:

Interface (From-To)	Description
getImportConfig	Read all required configuration information to perform imports, especially details about data structures (like csv formats) and filter chains.
storeClient	Sends an imported instance of Client to CampaignDataManagement to be either updated or inserted.
tryImport(from ProcessControl)	ProcessControl either calls or schedules a specific imports activity.
ImportHandler -> external port	ImportHandler needs to access various external entities, like ftp server, file system or even remote access to Mandator or Partner hosts.

Quality of Service:

ImportHandler implements extensive failure handling mechanisms and can therefore deal with a large number of error categories (e.g. communication errors, data format errors, compression and encryption issues and so forth.)

Details:

For details see the Import Handler (Whitebox).

Configuration (Blackbox)

Intent/Responsibility: Configuration is responsible to provide deploy-time flexibility to all MaMa subsystems. It handles the following kinds of configuration information:

• Data import and export configuration
  • csv, fix-format and xml formats
  • transmission and routing information, endpoints, network configuration
  • configuration for compression, encryption and similar filter operations
  • account and security information required to communicate with the campaign-specific external systems.
• Campaign configuration
  • validation rules
  • activities: what kind of imports, exports and maintenance activities are required for this campaign?
• Configuration for archiving of imported data

Interfaces:

• For all configuration methods, the campaignID and mandatorID need always be input parameters.
• Configuration information is always subclass of the (abstract) superclass Configuration.

Interface (From-To)	Description
getImportConfig	Methods to get import configurations for a specific campaign.
getExportConfig	Methods to get export configurations for a specific campaign.
getCampaignConfig
store/retrieveConfig	Calls DataManagement to store/retrieve configuration data.

Quality of Service: (not documented)

MaMa Level 2

Import Handler (Whitebox)

Rationale: This is (again) based upon functional decomposition of the generic import process. Section 6.1 describes the runtime behavior of this component.

Contained Blackboxes:

Element	Description
Receiver	Receives data from partners or mandators via the ImportData port.
ImportErrorHandler	Handles the various possible errors during import. With severe errors, import is stopped. Many (especially record or object level) errors are recoverable - these will be logged, eventually the administrator is notified.
ImportData (Port)	Connection to the outside world - via ftp and http, usually transmitted via VPN.
FileArchiver	Non-erasable archive where all imported files are kept for auditability.
FileFilter	Various filter operations, like decrypt, unzip etc. Explained in the filter concept in section 8
Validator	Checks files, records (collections of strings) and client objects for validity.
UnMarshaller	Creates Java objects from collections of strings by using reflection magic. You don’t want to know all the dirty details of this component.

Important Interfaces:

Not documented.

MaMa Level 3

Receiver (Whitebox)

Rationale: We have to admit that this structure just evolved out of a number of prototypes. A more functional oriented design would most likely improve understandability, but we never refactored the code into that direction due to different priorities.

Contained Blackboxes:

Element	Description
Directory or WebService or Message - Listener	Components that listen for input of specific kinds, e.g. the DirectoryListener watches for new files to appear in certain directories, (configurable) either in a local or remote file system.
FileProcessor	Completely handles input files, calls all required operations to be performed on the file (archive, unzip, decrypt etc.). A big mess of spaghetti code - you don’t want to look at it…
FileToRecordSplitter	Depending on configuration, creates a collection of records from the imported file. Most often a record is represented by a single row/line within the file, but sometimes several lines from the file have to be combined.