4742: Interconnectivity and Colleague

David Lane – Oakland CCJeff Butera – Hampshire College

Interconnectivity and Colleague

Main Entry: in·ter·con·nect Pronunciation: \in-tər-kə-nekt\ Function: verb Date: 1865 transitive verb : to connect with

one another intransitive verb : to be or become mutually

connected

Interconnectivity and Colleague

• We all have Colleague.• We all have other stuff.• How does other stuff interface with

Colleague?

• Quite nicely, thank you.

Interconnectivity and Colleague – NOT Realtime

• Flat file transfer using scheduled batch jobs to import/export date

• Works well for low-need applications– Bookstore charges– Public Safety charges– Anything where periodic batch process is OK– Daily, weekly, etc.

Interconnectivity and Colleague – Almost Realtime

• Flat file transfer, just as previous.

• Use ssh/rsh to execute batch process remotely.

• Works well with things you want relatively quickly, but don’t truly need to be realtime.

• Overhead of ssh connection, starting udt won’t fly with realtime.

Interconnectivity and Colleague – Realtime! (RTFM)

• ODBC - requires normalization of data, performance poor

• UCI - C (somewhat ODBC, somewhat not)• InterCall - C/C++• Unibasic Sockets – anything!• Uniobjects for Java – Java• UniOLEDB - MS OLEDB• Uniobjects for .NET - .NET

Interconnectivity and Colleague – Hampshire Examples

• Most Hampshire connections are via web pages/sites.

• Some command line.

• Used a homegrown web service for two years.

Interconnectivity and Colleague – InterCall Example

• InterCall has commands to do various tasks:– Select records– Read records– Write records– Call subroutines– Call programs (batch processes)

• KISS– Wrote one subroutine which does all of above!

Interconnectivity and Colleague – InterCall Example

• C program/InterCall• Unidata connection (unirpc)• Master subroutine invoked• Master subroutine calls other subrs for work• Master subroutine returns data• C program passes data back

Interconnectivity and Colleague – InterCall Example

Open a session:session_id=ic_opensession(server, username, password, account, &code, NULL);

Call a subroutine:ic_subcall(subname,&subname_len, &code, &numargs, &arg[0], &arg[1], ...);

Close the session: ic_quitall(&code);

Interconnectivity and Colleague – Hampshire Websites

Wrote Perl API using a lightweight C program with InterCall.

1. Perl calls C program.2. C program connects to Unidata

subroutine.3. Unidata subroutine does work.4. Returns data to C program.5. C program passes back to Perl.

Interconnectivity and Colleague – Hampshire Examples

• NERDug (www.NERDug.org)• HR Job Application (in progress)• Student Application• IT Helpdesk (Ticket/Bug) Tracking• Course Evaluations• Survey for Environmental Committee• Admin Portal (adsys.hampshire.edu)• Employment Check (command line)

Interconnectivity and Colleague – Summary

• You CAN interconnect other stuff!• You CAN interface with Unidata!• If the shoe fits – wear it!• Find the tool(s) that match your talent.• Newton's First Law of Motion• I’ve been riding InterCall for 7+ years!