Actuate Java Components are a collection of related web applications that support accessing and working with report information using a web browser. Web developers and designers use Actuate Java Components’ industry-standard technology to design custom e.reporting web applications to meet business information delivery requirements.
Actuate Java Components are platform-independent and customizable. By separating user interface design from content generation, Java Components ensure that reporting web application development tasks can proceed simultaneously and independently. You deploy Actuate Java Components on a web or application server. Java Components access documents in a file system repository. Actuate Java Components technology is also scalable.
When deployed, the context root is the name of the web archive (.war) or engineering archive (.ear) file without the file extension. For example, if your web archive (.war) file were named DeploymentKit.war, the URL to access the application is:
http://<web server>:<port>/DeploymentKit/
The context root for Java Components is the root directory of the web archive (.war) file when it is extracted.
Actuate Java Components technology includes the following features:
JavaServer Pages (JSPs) support creating HTML or XML pages that combine static web page templates with dynamic content.
Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) standards provide plain text transmission of XML using HTTP.
Report designs and documents are stored on a file system.
Secure HTTP (HTTPS) supports secure information transfer on the web.
JSR 168 compliant portlets provide access to reports through portal servers that support the JSR 168 standard.
Licensing Java Components
Java Components have a temporary license by default. To fully license the Java Components you have purchased, you must move the license file received from Actuate into the <context root>\WEB-INF directory of the Java Components web archive (.war) file.
How to license Java Components
1 Rename the Java Components license file that Actuate sent you to ajclicense.xml.
2 Create a temporary directory, such as C:\Temp\ajc on a Microsoft Windows server or /temp/ajc on a UNIX server. If you use an existing directory, ensure that this directory is empty.
3 Extract the contents of the Java Components WAR file into a temporary directory.
On a Windows server, open a command window and type the following commands, replacing the E: DVD drive letter with the path of your Java Components WAR file:
cd C:\Temp\ajc
copy E:\ActuateJavaComponent.war
jar -xf ActuateJavaComponent.war
The Java Components files appear in the temporary directory. Leave the command window open.
On a LINUX or UNIX server, type the following commands, replacing the DVD drive name with the path of your Java Component WAR file:
cd /temp/ajc
cp /dev/dsk/cd/ActuateJavaComponent.war .
jar -xf ActuateJavaComponent.war
The Actuate Java Components files appear in the temporary directory.
4 Copy the ajclicense.xml file into the extracted <context root>\WEB-INF directory.
5 Type the following command:
jar -cf ..\DeploymentKit.war *
This command creates DeploymentKit.war in the parent directory. This new Java Components WAR file contains the license.
6 Deploy the DeploymentKit.war file to the application server or servlet engine as an application.
7 Restart the application server or servlet engine.
Setting up Actuate Java Components
To deploy a report to the web, you need:
An Actuate Java Components installation.
An application server or JSP or servlet engine such as Actuate embedded servlet engine or IBM WebSphere.
One or more Actuate designer tools.
Permission to read, write, and modify operating system directories as necessary. For example, the directory Java uses to hold temporary files is defined by the java.io.tmpdir property and is by default the value of the TMP system variable in the Windows environment and /var/tmp in the UNIX and LINUX environments. Read and write permission must be provided to the application server running Actuate Java Components for this directory.
For more information about installing Java Components, see Installing an Actuate Java Component.
Customizing Java components for installation
When you deploy Java Components on an application server, you can use customized Java Components applications. To do this, you need to extract the contents of the Actuate Java Components WAR or EAR file and customize the files directly. To deploy the customized application, recreate a WAR or EAR file from the customized files using the Java jar utility and redeploy it to your application server. The customizations can include any modifications of JavaScript, Java Server Pages (JSP) and other web pages, and skins. Later sections in this book provide detailed information about customizing JavaScript and JSPs.
When Actuate Java Components are deployed, you cannot further customize styles, add pages, or make any other changes that affect the Actuate Java Components file structure without extracting the contents of the WAR or EAR file, modifying the contents, and re-deploying it.
Clustered Actuate Java Components instances can use a third-party application to balance the load among the application servers. Actuate Java Components support third-party load balancing, as illustrated in Figure 1‑1, to ensure high availability and to distribute tasks for efficient processing.
Figure 1‑1 Load-balancing architecture for Java Components
JavaServer Pages (JSPs) support creating HTML or XML pages that combine static web page templates with dynamic content.