API overview

The Application Programming Interface (API) provides several Java interfaces to allow the API user to interact with the Netcool Configuration Manager in much the same way that a user interacts with Netcool Configuration Manager through the GUI.

Restriction: If you want to use the Sun JRE instead of the IBM JRE for the JVM used by the client API application, download the following files and add them to the classpath:
xalan.jar
You can obtain the xalan.jar file from http://www.apache.org, or another external source.
As of the latest versions of Xalan the packaging has changed and some parts have been moved into separate jars. You must obtain these and add them to the classpath as well:
  • serializer.jar
  • xercesImpl.jar
  • xml-apis.jar
Note: The API is not thread safe.

An API user must login to the server prior to accessing any services provided through the API. After the user has established an API session, the user can perform most of the same activities that are available through the Netcool Configuration Manager GUI. For example, auser can search for and retrieve resources from the server, access resource attributes, make changes to network resource configurations by creating and submitting command set UOWs (Unit Of Work), check the status of UOWs, and view UOW logs.

A few activities performed through the Netcool Configuration Manager GUI are not practical using the API. In particular, making ad-hoc configuration changes to network resource configurations as is done from the Configuration Editor, and creating modeled command sets of any significant complexity require extensive knowledge of the underlying device schema and markup language used internally to model device configurations and configuration changes. Since the device schemas and command set markup language are not currently supported for external use and are subject to change without notice, this approach is not recommend even for experienced XML users/programmers.

The API also provides capabilities that are not available from the GUI. For example, it is possible to programmatically "assemble" command sets together at run time to create a single command set that is applied to the network resource as an atomic change.

The API does not provide the following capabilities:
  • Direct access to the database
  • Direct access to Worker Servers
  • Classes, interfaces, or method calls to directly manipulate or mark up the internal XML documents stored in the various types of resources used by the ITNCM - Base.
The XML documents contained in ITNCM - Base resources can be retrieved or set on those resources, but any editing of the XML documents is outside of the scope of the API. Individuals with adequate knowledge of the XML schema and markup language used internally by ITNCM - Base can attempt to change the XML documents externally, but this approach is not supported as part of normal API usage, and is not generally supported.