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## Package com.fujitsu.iflow.diradapter.intf

This package contains Interfaces to the Interstage BPM Directory Service.

See:
Description

Interface Summary
DirAdapter | The DirAdapter interface acts as a factory for directory session objects.
DirSession | The DirSession Interface provides access to Directory Service information used by Interstage BPM.

## Package com.fujitsu.iflow.diradapter.intf Description

This package contains Interfaces to the Interstage BPM Directory Service. The purpose of Interstage BPM's Directory Adapter is to embody the organizational model. The methods used by this adapter are exposed through the DIRAdapter interface and the DIRSession interface.

The Directory Adapters that ship with Interstage BPM are the adapters for Microsoft Windows 2000's User Manager, the Sun Directory Service (LDAP), and ActiveDirectory (also LDAP). These Directory Services resolve groups or roles into the users that belong to them.

## Interstage BPM Keeps Authentication Independent from the Organization Model

Embodying the organizational model is very important to the design of the Interstage BPM engine. This means that Interstage BPM captures structure and operation of organization by assigning activities to organizational resources. These resources might be people, machines, or programs. In Interstage BPM terminology, these groups of resources in the organizational model are described as roles, and the assignment of specific activities to specific individuals or resources is called role resolution.

When Interstage BPM specifies a role, it's simply indicating the string name of the group. The Interstage BPM engine doesn't define the group or distinguish between types of groups. The classification of users into groups or categories is entirely left up to the designer.

Users might be grouped because they perform similar functions. Or they might be grouped according to their level of authority, their responsibilities, their skill types or levels, or their profession. Or the role could resolve to a group of devices or even software. The Interstage BPM engine doesn't distinguish these, because all that it manipulates is a string.

The engine doesn't even require that the string be a simple name. Alternatively, it could be a parameterized function call or a query. The only thing that the engine requires is that it be a string that can be mapped to a set of organizational resources by the Directory (DIR) Adapter. An example of a dynamic role assignment is if you wants to create a role that is defined as the supervisor of the last assignee of a particular Activity. To accomplish this, you would create a markup language tag and use it as the role. As far as the Server is concerned, it is making a request by sending out a string. If the adapter can interpret the tags in this in such a way that it returns the names of the intended user or users, the directory service will select the people to return dynamically.

Interstage BPM's system of embodying the organizational structure in a simple string was kept flexible because the organizational structure differs from organization to organization, and the users or entities are defined in entirely different ways from organization to organization.

## Components of the Directory Service Adapter

The DirSession interface provides access to the directory service and to user groups that have been created by using mechanisms supported by the directory services. One set of functions in this interface queries the directory service database for information on user groups stored in the directory service. A second set of functions deals with storing, retrieving, or deleting user specific information, and tailoring Interstage BPM's behavior to a specific user's needs (e.g., what kind of notification the user wants to receive).

This second set of functions accesses property lists (name-value pairs) that might be stored entirely in the directory service, entirely in the Interstage BPM database, or split between the two locations.

On Solaris, Interstage BPM's access of the file system is based on superuser privileges. The DDFramework authenticates users with LDAP through JNDI with Interstage BPM as the root user or superuser. When Interstage BPM talks to LDAP, it is actually the root user that is talking.

The database adapter used by the Interstage BPM Server provides these functions on its RMI interface. Please refer to the code of the sample adapters that is supplied with Interstage BPM to learn more about using these functions.

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