Service Designer
The Service Designer is a toolset for service developers to design new services and their components as well as define behavior test scenarios for various testing, verification and diagnostics purposes.
Assembly Descriptors
When opening the designer, the first view is the “Assembly Descriptors” listing all available descriptors that can be selected to be edited in the designer. The descriptors can define a top-level network service, a service segment or a VNF (Virtual Network Function).
At the top of the page is a search bar that allows Assembly Descriptors to be filtered by name. Partial name filtering is supported. The results panel below the search bar will automatically update as you enter the characters of the name. There is no need to click on any filter icon.
- Name
- Version
- Description
- “Open” button
- Ellipsis (“…”) to access further Assembly Descriptor actions (for example, Delete)
Currently it is not possible to sort the contents of the Assembly Descriptor list.
There is also a possibility to create a completely new service design by clicking the “Create” button in the top right corner of the page.
Designer: Composition View
In the Assembly Designer, there are two main views: “Composition” tab showing service composition with service elements including their properties and relationships and “Behavior Testing” tab for designing, viewing, and executing testing scenarios. Toggling between these two views can be done using the tab labels at the bottom of the page.
The main part of the “Composition” tab is the design canvas presenting the service elements and their relationships. To the right of the design canvas there is a collapsible right-hand panel allowing the properties and relationships of the currently selected element to be viewed and modified.
The right-hand properties and relationships panel is collapsed/expanded by clicking on the 3 horizontal line “Menu” icon to the right of the “Save” button or by using the key combination <Ctrl> + <Shift> + 2.
When in view the right-hand properties and relationships panel contains individual collapsible sections for Properties, Relationships, Operations, Metrics, Clustering and Healing. These sections will only be shown if they are applicable to the service loaded into the Designer so you may only see a subset of these. The collapse/expand state of these panes within the panel is toggled by clicking in the header bar of each pane. In the darker header area of the properties and relationships panel is the name and description of the selected element. The description can be updated by clicking on the pencil icon shown to the right of the description text.
The contents of the lower portion of the properties and relationships panel can be scrolled independently of the design canvas. This is achieved either using the scroll wheel of the mouse or by dragging the slim scrollbar shown on the very right of the panel.
A new property can also be created from within the properties and relationships pane by scrolling down to the bottom of Properties pane and clicking the “+ Add New Property” link.
To provide even more space for the design canvas the left-hand navigation menu can also be collapsed out of view by clicking the “X” symbol in the top right-hand corner of the navigation menu. Doing so will display a 3 horizontal line “Menu” icon in the top left of the Designer canvas. Click this icon to bring the navigation menu back into view.
On the design canvas the contents of the current view can me moved by clicking in any empty part of the canvas and dragging the mouse whilst keeping the mouse button pressed.
You can zoom in/out of the service design using the scroll wheel of your mouse.
A service element can be selected by simply clicking the element symbol on the canvas. Once selected the element will be expanded automatically and the right-hand properties and relationships panel will be brought into view if it is not already visible.
To collapse an expanded service element simply click on the small up arrow enclosed within the colored semicircle in the middle of the bottom bar of the expanded element border.
New elements, either assemblies or external references, can be added to the design by clicking the “Add Element” button at the top of the design canvas.
Saving changes to the design is done by clicking the “Save” button in the design canvas header bar, which saves the current design to the IBM® Telco Network Cloud Manager - Orchestration catalog.
Properties of the service can be edited through the right-hand panel of the designer. New relationships can also be introduced by connecting the dots attached to opened element symbols on the design canvas.
For consistency, changes can be made only to the opened design (assembly). This includes the properties of the opened service itself and the relationships between its comprising elements. The assemblies that are defined as elements of the service cannot be changed without opening them to the designer independently.
Designer: Behaviour Testing View
In the Assembly Designer, there are two main views: “Composition” tab showing service composition with service elements including their properties and relationships and “Behaviour Testing” tab for designing, viewing, and executing testing scenarios. Toggling between these two views can be done using the tab labels at the bottom of the page.
- Assembly Configurations – defines an Assembly Descriptor configured with specific property values to be used in a Behavior Test Scenario.
- Scenarios – set of individual Behavior Tests.
- Results – outcome of running Behavior Test Scenario(s)
- Assembly configurations
- In order to use assemblies in behavior testing scenarios, either in the role of Service Under Test, or as a test setup, requires the corresponding assembly configuration to be made on the “Assembly Configurations” page of the Behavior testing tool. This is the page that you will see by default when clicking on the “Behavior Testing” tab. Existing assembly configurations are listed on the page and can be opened for editing or deleted from the “more options” menu (accessed by clicking on the ellipsis icon “…”) at the end of the corresponding row. A new assembly configuration can be created by clicking the “Create Assembly Configuration” button above the list of existing assembly configurations. The assembly configuration defines the assembly descriptor to be used, a name and a description of the configuration, as well as property values to be used when instantiating an assembly based on the configuration.
- Scenarios
- Defined testing scenarios are listed on “Scenarios” page of the Behavior Testing tool. The available Behavior Test Scenarios are presented in a list displaying the following information for each Scenario: • Scenario Name • Description of the Scenario • Number of stages within the Scenario The list is presented sorted alphabetically by Scenario name. It is currently not possible to change this sort order. A scenario can be opened for viewing and editing by clicking the associated “Open” button. Editing the name or description of the scenario or deleting a scenario can be done through the “more options” menu (accessed by clicking on the ellipsis icon “…”) at the end of the corresponding row. Creating a new testing scenario can be done by clicking the “Create Scenario” button above the list of existing scenarios.
- Results
- The “Results” page of the Behaviour testing tool shows a summary of results of the latest
testing scenario executions. The available results are presented in a list displaying the following
information for each execution:
- Scenario Name
- Description of the Scenario
- Date and time the Scenario was executed
- Overall result of the Scenario execution
- Test Scenario Design
- The Scenario Design page allows editing of an existing scenario or designing a completely new Behavior Test Scenario. Scenario design can be accessed through the Scenarios page of the behavior testing tool either by clicking the “Create Scenario” button to create a new scenario or clicking the “Open” button to edit an existing one.