Kuali Rice: Cross Project MiddlewareNovember ???, 2007

Nate Johnson - Indiana University

What is Kuali Rice? Kuali: a humble kitchen wok; Malaysian

origins Rice: it is what it is

Sits on the bottom of a dish Not a very tasty meal by itself Better with some substance on top

• KFS - Beef• KRA - Chicken• KS - Seafood

Rice is the foundation to a hearty software product

The Goals The board vision for Kuali is a plug and play

module by module approach to software Kuali started as financials, but has evolved into

a suite of administrative software (KFS, KRA, KS)

A lot of functionality in Kuali systems Keeping the Kuali code base as small as possible

without impacting quality is key Highly productive development environment

For Kuali projects For non-Kuali projects

Goals Continued A common and consistent architecture

Allow developers to understand other rice enabled projects

Infrastructure would not need to be reinvented on each project - focus on functionality!

Rice team can focus on IT standards, like SOA, that will benefit the entire Kuali software suite

Adoption of other Kuali modules feasible Generic enough for non-Kuali applications

Rice is Middleware Made up of several, possibly

standalone and swappable, middleware components

Applications become a “Rice Client Application” by easily integrating with this middleware

Interaction with other Rice enabled applications becomes seamless

How We Got Here Kuali Enterprise Workflow (KEW) existed in

production at Indiana University Kuali Finanical System (KFS) started

development and had an architecture team Morphed into the Kuali Nervous System (KNS)

team Achieve technical consistency across all aspects

of KFS KFS --> KNS --> KEW

Along Came KRA Kuali Research Administration (KRA) needed

to integrate with KFS Align our core to support sharing services

across Kuali apps in a loosely coupled fashion

All Kuali products should be technically consistent under the hood For end user functionality For different development methodologies

Thinking Outside of the Wok Most administrative applications have

a common need for middleware services Workflow ESB Notification

Avoid design and code duplication Consolidate configuration

Rice Components KEW Kuali Enterprise Workflow KNS Kuali Nervous System KSB Kuali Service Bus KEN Kuali Enterprise Notification KIM Kuali Identity Management

We should take a look at the history of each of these products before talking in more detail how they apply to Rice

The History of KEW Kuali Enterprise Workflow existed at Indiana

University as a stand alone integration project before Kuali began

Provided common engine to drive business processes electronically

Provided relatively simple API allowing choices on how to create workflows

When Kuali came along, the IU workflow engine became Kuali Enterprise Workflow (KEW)

The History of KNS KFS spent a large amount of

development time up front, using the best talent from each of the partner institutions

Came up with a foundation on which to build KFS - the Kuali Nervous System

This History of KNS Cont. It focused on a unified approach to

development of functionality A standard way to use workflow A standard way to maintain support

tables using CRUD operations A standard way of creating business

transactions• KFS financial transactions

The History of the KSB Other Kuali projects came along: i.e. KRA They needed to be able to seamlessly

“talk” to other Kuali services/applications in real time Reducing the need for offline batch Increasing business process agility

The KSB was born to satisfy simple needs

The History of KEN Cornell University recognized the need for a

more general notification system that could work alongside of a workflow “to-do” list Started development of the notification system at

Cornell Recognized the synergy in leveraging KEW

Realized that Kuali applications also wanted an advanced model for end user communication

The concept of Kuali Enterprise Notification was born

The (short) History of KIM KFS has its own user tables that are specific

to financial data Also has groups, roles, permissions

KEW has its own users, groups, roles, permissions

When KEN was built, it piggy-backed on KEW’s users, groups, and roles

The (short) History of KIM Cont. KRA came along with similar needs as KFS KS is also gearing up and shows similar

needs with additional requirements Recognized the potential for re-use and the

need for context specific IdM data Most importantly, we recognized the need

for consistent service interfaces across projects

The concept of Kuali Identity Management was born

Why Does a Project Need Rice? KNS and KEW enhance developer

productivity and enforce standards KSB provides an SOA approach for cross

project interoperability KEN enhances the user experience while

fulfilling a general need for notification across all rice enabled applications

Let’s take a closer look at these components

The Rice Interactive Diagram

Available at http://rice.kuali.org Click anywhere on the diagram to

begin Click on any component for details

Kuali Rice - Current Status Public beta version 0.9.0.3 available at

http://rice.kuali.org --> Download KRA is using 0.9.2 KFS is using 0.9.0.4 Well tested

Rice is being used in KFS; soon to be released with KFS 2.0

Both unit and functionally tested with JUnit/HtmlUnit Continuous Integration: https://test.kuali.org/bamboo

Let's take a closer look at each of these pieces in more detail

KSB Overview - The Goals1. Enable applications and services

deployed on the bus to interact with other applications and services

2. Provide (a)synchronous communication

3. Provide flexible security4. Provide Quality of Service (QoS)5. Keep it simple (light weight)

Goal 1 - General Bus Mechanics A common registry of services

Lists all services on the bus and how they can be connected

Through simple Spring configuration, Java based services can be “exported” from a rice enabled application, which is then ready to be consumed by another application

Goal 1 - General Bus Mechanics Cont. A common resource loading layer that

provides access to services (bus or local) Services can be local to the application, in

which case the bus is short circuited and services are loaded directly and efficiently from inside the application

Services can be remote, in which case the service registry is queried for a service endpoint

Goal 1 - General Bus Mechanics Cont. Most java services inside a rice-

enabled application can be exported to a variety of endpoints Java serialization, SOAP, JMS, etc.

A rice-enabled application can easily connect to any service on the bus

Let’s take a closer look - http://ksb.kuali.org

Goal 2 - Communication Models Synchronous communication = point to

point : a method call that waits for a response

Asynchronous communication = usually messaging : fire and forget : possible callback KSB has a proprietary messaging model out of

the box that needs minimal configuration JMS can be used : Good if you have IBM or Tibco Could plug in open source JMS

Goal 2 - Communication Models Cont. Queue and Topic style messaging

Queues are a model where a single service is retrieved from a (possibly) redundant set of services and only that one is invoked

Topics are a model where all services with a given name are retrieved from a (possibly) redundant set of services and invoked

Goal 3 - Security Bus Security : Option to digitally sign

internal bus communication Service level security : done with open

source standard project, Acegi Can be protected at the service level Can be protected at the individual method

level Can be protected by many of the standard

security models such as CAS or Kerberos Can act as the user performing the activity

Goal 3 - Security Cont. A “Security Context” is passed along with

service invocations This context holds

The logged in user The authentication token (from CAS or Kerberos) The user’s roles (for Authorization)

Services can then call an authentication authority to validate the user and optionally authorize the user with the roles

An application gets all of this "for free" by using the KSB via standard Acegi configuration

Goal 4 - Quality of Service (QoS) Failover - the ability to automatically switch to

another service w/o the calling service noticing Reliability - guaranteed delivery of messages Availability - services on the bus are available

real time -- if service is down, reliability ensures messages are delivered when service is available again

Time to live and retry counts - ensure that an institution can set their own QoS settings. If QoS is not met messages enter exception status

Goal 5 - Simple and Light Weight Evaluated ServiceMix, ActiveMQ, Mule a year

and a half ago Reliability issues then, better now though

For simple needs (SOAP and Spring HttpRemoting), the messaging components of KEW sufficed in combination with XFire and Spring

Kuali Student has greater needs from an ESB (WSDL first, process orchestration, etc)

Are looking to replace the core of KSB with an OS ESB and JMS solution

KNS Overview Provides reusable code, shared

services, integration layer, and a development strategy

Provides a common look and feel through screen drawing framework

A document (business process) centric model with workflow as a core concept

KNS Overview Cont. More Core Concepts / Features

Transactional documents Maintenance documents Inquires Lookups Rules Questions Data dictionary

Understanding the KNS Paradigm

CHART_TChart

(POJO)

ORMMappin

g

Data Dictionary

Lookups and

Inquiries

MaintenanceDocuments

TransactionalDocuments

Workflow(KEW)

Transactional Documents These are data-entry centric documents or

“transactions” that model the business processes Examples include: Proposal Development, Journal

Entry, Payment Reimbursement Built on a case by case basis using the Kuali Rice

tag libraries (encompass snippets of UI behavior): Notes and attachments Workflow route log (audit log)

Integrated with workflow

Maintenance Documents They do not need to be built case by case - just

one JSP that draws them all These are the CRUD documents - an easy way

to maintain support tables in a Kuali database C: Create new table records R: Read or query table records U: Update existing table records D: Delete existing table records

Examples include: Budget rates Project codes

Inquiries A way to drill down and get more

read-only information about a table record

Inquiry Screenshot

Inquiry Example Configuration<inquiry> <title>Travel Account Inquiry</title> <inquirySections> <inquirySection title="Travel Account"> <inquiryFields> <field attributeName="number" forceInquiry="true" /> <field attributeName="name" /> <field attributeName="accountType" /> <field attributeName="foId" forceInquiry="true" /> </inquiryFields> </inquirySection> </inquirySections></inquiry>

Lookups A way to search for data by a set of

criteria Results of lookups can be returned to

other lookups or documents

Lookup Screenshot

Lookup Example<lookup> <title>Travel Account Lookup</title> <menubar> <a href="/SampleRiceClient/index.html">Main</a> </menubar> <instructions>Look up Inst.</instructions>

<defaultSort sortAscending="true"> <sortAttributes> <sortAttribute attributeName="number" /> </sortAttributes> </defaultSort>

Lookup Example Cont. <lookupFields> <lookupField attributeName="number" required="false" /> <lookupField attributeName="name" required="false" /> <lookupField attributeName="accountType" required="false" /> <lookupField attributeName="foId" required="false" forceLookup="true" /> </lookupFields>

<resultFields> <field attributeName="number" forceInquiry="true" /> <field attributeName="name" forceInquiry="true" /> <field attributeName="accountType" forceInquiry="true" /> <field attributeName="foId" forceInquiry="true" /> </resultFields></lookup>

Rules These are programmatic events defined in

Java Another way to think of them are as hooks

in a business process’s lifecycle They can return errors and stop the lifecycle

until user input is corrected A lot have to do with the workflow lifecycle

processSaveDocument(…) processRouteDocument(…)

Questions A configurable way to ask a question

of the person using the Kuali application

Example: “Are you sure you want to cancel this operation? Yes or No”

Questions Screenshot

Data Dictionary Configure all of the above concepts

into a “usable document” XML based configuration Three types of dictionaries

Business Object Maintenance Document Transactional Document

Data Dictionary Cont. Business Object Data Dictionary

Defines how to draw an inquiry (which fields to show the user)

Defines how do draw lookup and the result fields returned from a lookup as well as the default sort order of the lookup

Defines the business object’s attributes as well as how they are drawn and validated

Data Dictionary Cont. Maintenance Document Data Dictionary

References the BO DD file that is being maintained

Defines the business rules for the document Defines the authorizations (initiator group) Defines the maintainable sections (tabs) and

layout of the attributes And various metadata (descriptions,

summaries, titles, etc.)

Data Dictionary Cont. Transactional Document Data Dictionary

References the document POJO Defines the pluggable business rules Defines the document type (business

process) Defines the document’s attributes as well as

how they are drawn and validated Defines the pluggable authorizations And various metadata (descriptions,

summaries, titles, etc.)

KEW Overview Facilitates routing and approval of business

processes throughout an organization Provides re-usable routing rule creation

which defines how business processes should be routed Bind business data to users/groups that must

approve Provides hooks for client applications to

handle workflow lifecycle events of business processes

KEW Overview Cont. End users interact with central

workflow GUIs for all client applications Document Search: Allows users to search

for documents (business process transactions)

Action List: One place to go to find all documents that you must take action on

Document Search Screenshot

Action List Screenshot

KEW Overview cont. Route log : document history, audit

trail

KEW Architecture Stand-alone: a central hub and spoke model

Good if you just want to support one workflow server Centralize Action List and Doc Search Possibly easier to connect non-Java client

Embedded: a decentralized, federated approach Fast for developers because workflow is local Distributes workflow across the university

Provides distributed transactions so that workflow and client applications stay in synch with each other (embedded uses JTA)

Services reachable via the KSB

KEN Overview Works with the action list to provide a single

place for all university related communications Workflow items come from KEW Non-workflow items from KEN

Non-workflow example items Overdue library book A concert on campus Graduation checklists for seniors

KEN Overview Cont. Provides a secure and controlled

environment for notifying the masses Eliminate sifting through email Communication broker which provides

any combination of action list, text messages, email, etc...

Audit trail just as in KEW

KEN Overview cont. User preferences for notification types End user interfaces

Viewing notification details Maintaining the system (admin) Sending messages (admin)

KEN: Sending Notifications A developer can send notifications by:

Calling the sendNotification() service on the KSB

Invoking the service via a SOAP WS (exposed by the KSB)

Future: integration with KNS’s document frameworks

A user can send notifications using a provided workflow enabled form

KEN Screenshot: My Notifications

KEN Screenshot: Notification Details

KEN Screenshot: Notification Approval

KEN Screenshot: Delivery Type

KIM Overview Just gearing up Keep it simple to start Goals:

Clean and consistent service interfaces used by all Kuali apps; generic enough for non-Kuali apps

Leverage KNS to provide a reference implementation for services; workflow enabled management application

Flexibility for dynamic attributes associated with IdM entities (persons, groups, roles, etc)

Pluggable support for Internet2 products (Grouper, etc)

KIM Overview Cont. Basic concepts

Namespace (i.e. Application, any generic context)

Person - different default “sponsored” attributes for each namespace context; core shared attributes as well

Group - simply groups users; arbitrary data associated with them

KIM Overview Cont. Permissions - ability to perform actions Roles - cross context capabilities;

aggregates permissions (i.e. fiscal officer, dean, etc)

Qualified Roles - specific to a context• fiscal officer for chart XYZ• dean for the College of ABC• administrators for the College of ABC <-- this

one’s a group

What’s Next? Looking to the Future… Rice components will piggy back on each other

KEW and KEN will use KNS to draw screens, etc. Standards

JSR 186/286 portlets for user interfaces (portals) BPEL for process orchestration JPA for data persistence (move to Hibernate) WS-* support

Easier configuration and turnkey upgrades Light weight service interfaces (WSDL, XSD) Open source ESB foundation for KSB

The main Rice web site http://rice.kuali.org Sign up for our public mailing list Access to our wiki: roadmap, project

plans, documentation, etc Documentation is a weakness

About the website

The Team Current Contributors

Brian McGough - Indiana University Aaron Godert - Cornell University Eric Westfall - Indiana University Ryan Kirkendall - Indiana University Nate Johnson - Indiana University Aaron Hamid - Cornell University David Elyea - Indiana University Chi-Thanh Dang - University of Arizona Phillip Berres - University of Southern California Tom Clark - Indiana University

Past Contributors John Fereira - Cornell University Scott Battaglia - Rutgers University

That’s it!

Q & A