prim24273:Expedition Professional 10.0 Web Server Configuration

Architecture Changes for Expedition 10.0
When Expedition 10.0 is installed it will install Tomcat as the Web Server instead of Jetty.  The installer will take care of all of the details of setting up the Tomcat server.
When Expedition 10.0 is installed the Web and database servers will be installed as automatic services (See the Server Configuration section of this document for details).

The Expedition Web server accepts HTTP(S) requests and supplies HTTP(S) responses.  It routes requests to the proper Java Servlet, which processes the request and passes it to the appropriate resource in the Expedition Application server.  The response from the Application server is sent back to the Web Server and is directed to the appropriate Java Server Page (JSP).  The Web Server uses the JSP and the data from the response to create the HTML page that is sent back to the requesting client.
Expedition uses Tomcat for a Web server.  Tomcat is an open source Web server from the Apache organization.  The Expedition installer will install a version of Tomcat that is integrated with the JBoss server.  This means the Web & Application servers run in the same Java Virtual Machine (JVM).  This improves performance because it eliminates the overhead encountered when the Web & Application servers have to communicate between separate JVMs.  Because of this the Web and Application servers have to be installed on the same physical machine.
Expedition uses JBoss for an Application server.  JBoss is a high quality open source application server from the JBoss Group.  JBoss is quickly becoming a dominant player in the application server market, winning Best Application Server from Java World Magazine in 2002.  The Expedition installer will walk you though the process of installing this server.  The Application server pools database and system resources and provides a security layer so clients do not have direct connections to the database.  The Application server also enforces a large percentage of Expedition抯 business rules and security settings ensuring the integrity of the data.

 
Web & Application Server Memory Usage
This section describes the how to determine the amount physical RAM that is required for the machine hosting the Expedition Web & Application servers.  It also describes how to allocate the appropriate amount of RAM to those servers.
Determining Physical RAM Requirements
To achieve optimal performance and scalability the Expedition Web & Application servers need to have enough memory allocated to them to handle the maximum load that will be placed on them.  The largest factors in determining the amount of memory required is the number of concurrent users and the total number of projects.  The following chart gives the required physical RAM requirements based on concurrent users and total number of projects.
Web & Application Server Scaling
Number of Concurrent Users * Total Number of Projects Required RAM
1 ?10 < 100 512 MB
1 – 10 100 ?750 768 MB
1 – 10 750 – 1500 1 GB
1 – 10 > 1500 1.25 GB or more
  
11 – 50 < 100 768 MB
11 ?50 100 ?750 1 GB
11 ?50 750 ?1500 1.25 GB
11 ?50 > 1500 1.5 GB or more
  
51 – 100 < 100 1 GB
51 ?100 100 ?750 1.25 GB
51 ?100 750 ?1500 1.5 GB
51 ?100 > 1500 1.75 GB or more

* A note on concurrent users.  The number of concurrent users means the number of people actively using the system at any one time. 
Allocating RAM to the Expedition Web & Application Servers
Increasing the amount of physical RAM on the machine hosting the Expedition Web & Application servers will not substantially increase performance and/or scalability unless the amount of RAM made available to the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) is also increased. 

The standard install will allocate 256MB of RAM to the JVM.  If the Expedition Web & Application servers are  the only applications running on a machine with 1GB of physical RAM, with the standard install, the Web & Application servers will only be able to use 256MB of RAM and about 500MB of RAM will be sitting idle.

An installation that is experiencing performance problems or just wants to maximize performance should adjust the JVM RAM setting according to the total amount of available physical RAM on the host machine.

As a general rule if the Expedition Web & Application servers are the only applications running on a machine then the amount of JVM RAM should equal the total physical RAM minus 256MB for the O/S.

For example: 

Physical RAM      1GB
Minus memory for the O/S   -256MB 
 Recommended JVM RAM   768MB

If another application is running on the same machine as the Expedition Web & Application servers then memory has to be available for that application.

For example: 

Physical RAM        1GB
Minus memory for the O/S     -256MB 
Minus memory for other application  -128MB  (this will differ depending on what the application is)
 Recommended JVM RAM     640MB

You can adjust the JVM RAM setting in the Expedition Server Configuration utility program.  There is a minimum and maximum setting.  It is advised to keep these numbers the same.

 
Server Configuration

Configuration files are used to control different aspects of the Web & Application server抯 environment and how the servers behave.  Listed here are the most commonly used configuration files for the Expedition Web & Application servers.

Configuration Files
File Name Location Purpose
run.bat Primavera\ExpeditionProfessional\Jboss\bin Sets environment variables and starts the servers
exponline.properties Primavera\ExpeditionProfessional\Jboss\server\expedition\lib\ext\com\primavera\exponline\common Configures the how Expedition uses the Web & Applications servers
log4j.xml Primavera\ExpeditionProfessional\Jboss\server\expedition\conf Defines how the servers display and log auditing information
expedition-ds.xml Primavera\ExpeditionProfessional\Jboss\server\expedition\deploy Configuration of database connection pools
conf\jboss-service.xml Primavera\ExpeditionProfessional\Jboss\server\expedition\conf JBoss configuration settings
server.xml Primavera/ExpeditionProfessional/jboss\server\expedition\deploy\jbossweb-tomcat50.sar Tomcat configuration settings

Running the Expedition Server as a service
Expedition 10.0 will install the Expedition server as an automatic service.  Being a service, there is not a console displayed for this server.  The messages that were being displayed on the console are now being written to the Primavera/ExpeditionProfessional/expconsole.log file.

Steps for running the server from the desktop instead of as a service
1. Stop the Expedition Professional Service and change the Startup Type to 揗anual?
2. Start the server by running the Primavera/ExpeditionProfessional/expedition.bat file.
 

Expedition Configuration
This section describes configuration changes that are made to the Expedition properties file.
Expedition Properties
The tokens below are values obtained from the user via the installer and entered in the exponline.properties file by the installer:

Tokens obtained from the Installer
Token Description
$$DOMAINNAME$$ The value of the Expedition Web Server Computername
$$INSTALLPATH$$ The value entered by the installer in the Destination folder for the Expedition Web Server e.g. c:\primavera\expwebserver
$$COMPANYABBREV$$ Up to 4 characters of the value entered by the installer in the Company Name field.
$$SMTPSERVER$$ The value entered by the installer in the SMTP Server field
$$EXPDBTYPE$$ The value entered by the installer when selecting the Expedition database type, e.g. Sybase or Oracle.
$$P3EDBTYPE$$ The value entered by the installer when selecting the P3e database type
$$REPORTIMAGEFOLDER$$ The value entered by the installer.

The following table lists the purpose of each of the properties in the exponline.properties file.

Tokens obtained from the Installer
Property Description
WebServerName=$$DOMAINNAME$$ This value is this computer name, e.g. EXPSERVER
WebApplicationName=exponline This is the identifier that is used in the Expedition URL.  For Expedition 9.0 this value must be “exponline” without the quotes
WebProtocol=http Defines the protocol used to communicate to the Web Server, HTTP is the default.  See separate document, Implementing HTTPS in Jetty, for instructions on how to use HTTPS.
WebPort=80 This sets the port number used by the Expedition Web Server.  Port 80 is the default, to change this value see instructions later in this document.
InstallPath=$$INSTALLPATH$$ Value entered via Installer on where the Web Expedition was installed.
admindefault=jdbc/expadminPoolDS Used to define the Expadmin DB connection.  Do not change this value.
DatabaseSiteName=$$COMPANYABBREV$$ This up to a 4 character string used to make the primary keys at each site of a company unique.
ServerContext.INITIAL_CONTEXT_FACTORY= This property is for future use.  A blank value in is used for the JBoss server.  For another type of application server this value would be changed.
ServerContext.PROVIDER_URL= This property is for future use.  A blank value in is used for the JBoss server.  For another type of application server this value would be changed
LookUpQualifier= This property is for future use.  A blank value in is used for the JBoss server.  For another type of application server this value would be changed
JDBCLookUpQualifier=java:/ This is the prefix used for JDBC lookups.  For this release the value must be java:/.
PrintDebugLevel=0 This is flag used to determine how much debug information will be displayed to the console and written to the log.  A value of 0 means no debug information will be displayed.  A value of 6 shows all debug information.
SMTPServer=$$SMTPSERVER$$ Value is the user’s SMTP Server for outgoing mail.
DatabaseType=$$EXPDBTYPE$$ Specifies the type of DB used for Expedition.  The valid values are either 揝ybase?or 搊racle?without the quotes.
P3eDatabaseType=$$P3EDBTYPE$$ Specifies the type of DB used for Primavera
xmlsessiontimeout=3600 This value defines how long the XML API can sit idle before the session is timed out and the user has to log back in.  The value is in seconds the default is 1 hour.
sessiontimeout=3600 This value defines how long the browser client  can sit idle before the session is timed out and the user has to log back in.  The value is in seconds the default is 1 hour.
CharacterEncoding=UTF-8 Must be blank or UTF-8, both provide the same result.
ReportImagesLocation=$$REPORTIMAGEFOLDER$$ This folder is the location of the image files used by the Reports & Forms.
Standalone=yes A 搚es?value is set when Expedition Clients will be run from a browser on this Server computer. A 搉o?value is set when Expedition Clients will be run from a browser from other computers.
GridToExcel= $$INSTALLPATH$$jboss-3.2.5/server/expedition/lib/ext/com/primavera/exponline/client/gridtoexcel.xsl This value is the full path to the installed gridtoexcel.xsl file.
BravaServerName The machine name the Brava server is on
BravaServerPort The port number for the Brava server
BravaMarkups The file directory where Brava is storing its markups
SybaseStartingClientPort This defines the first client port number.  All subsequent client port assignments will be made consecutively from this number.
SybaseTotalPossibleConnections This number represents the total of the maximum number of connections of all of the connection pools.
SybaseMinimumNumberOfConnections This represents the total of the min-pool-size for each connection pool defined for JBoss.
SybaseConnectionsDebugFile This property will turn on connection debug logging.  It will create the specified file and log all connections and the Socket cleanup operations.

 
Web Server Configuration
This section describes some of the configurations that can be made to the Expedition Web Server.

Changing the Web Server Port Number
To change the port number that the Web Server listens to for HTTP traffic is to run the Server Configuration Utility and enter the new port number in the Port number dialog screen.

Expedition Server Port Number Usage
This table lists the default ports used by the Expedition servers and where these ports are configured:

Port Usage
Port Number Usage Configured In
25 SMTP exponline.properties
80 HTTP Expedition Server Configuration Utility
443 HTTPS  server.xml
1098 JNDI RMI conf\jboss-service.xml
1099 JNDI JNPServer conf\jboss-service.xml
1521 Oracle Port expedition-ds.xml
2638 Sybase Database Server expedition-ds.xml
4444 RMI Object Port ?Using JRMP conf\jboss-service.xml
4445 JBoss Pooled Invoker conf\jboss-service.xml
8009 Apache Coyote AJP Connector server.xml
8083 JBoss Class Loading conf\jboss-service.xml
 N + # of DB Connections Sybase client connections, 1 per DB connection This range is assinged randomly by Sybase or is configurable.  See Custom Database Socket Configuration for configuration details.

Web Server Logging
This logs all of the requests made to the Expedition server.  It contains data on when the requests were made, the TCP addresses that accessed the server, what the requests were, what the results codes were, and the pages that were served. 

The details of how this information is logged are configured in the server.xml file:

<!– Access logger –>
<Valve className=”org.apache.catalina.valves.AccessLogValve”
prefix=”localhost_access” suffix=”.log”
pattern=”common” directory=”${jboss.server.home.dir}/log”/>
 

Values for the pattern attribute are made up of literal text strings, combined with pattern identifiers prefixed by the “%” character to cause replacement by the corresponding variable value from the current request and response. The following pattern codes are supported:
?nbsp;%a – Remote IP address
?nbsp;%A – Local IP address
?nbsp;%b – Bytes sent, excluding HTTP headers, or ‘-’ if zero
?nbsp;%B – Bytes sent, excluding HTTP headers
?nbsp;%h – Remote host name (or IP address if resolveHosts is false)
?nbsp;%H – Request protocol
?nbsp;%l – Remote logical username from identd (always returns ‘-’)
?nbsp;%m – Request method (GET, POST, etc.)
?nbsp;%p – Local port on which this request was received
?nbsp;%q – Query string (prepended with a ‘?’ if it exists)
?nbsp;%r – First line of the request (method and request URI)
?nbsp;%s – HTTP status code of the response
?nbsp;%t – Date and time, in Common Log Format
?nbsp;%u – Remote user that was authenticated (if any), else ‘-’
?nbsp;%U – Requested URL path
?nbsp;%v – Local server name
The shorthand pattern name 揷ommon?corresponds to %h %l %u %t “%r” %s %b”.

This functionality is fully documented on the Apache site:
http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/tomcat-5.0-doc/config/valve.html#Access%20Log%20Valve
 

Application Server Configuration

Database Connection Configuration
Once Expedition is installed on a machine there are three utility programs available to assist you with configuring connections to your database server.
Database Connection Configuration Utilities
Utility Description
Create New Group Used to make a new Group (database) available to Expedition.  This is a Sybase only utility.
Server Configuration Captures the following information about the database server and updates the appropriate Expedition sever files:?nbsp;Server type (Sybase or Oracle)?nbsp;Machine name?nbsp;Port number?nbsp;Password
Set Database Connection Reads the populategroups.bat file created by the Server Configuration utility and updates appropriate Expedition server files with the information.

Database Connection Pooling
When the Application server starts it creates pools of connections for each database the Expedition Application server is using.  Database connection pools are used so that database connections are shared across users.  Each user doesn抰 have to make a dedicated connection to the database.  A pool of connections is made and when a request needs a connection it uses one from the pool and returns it to the pool when the request has completed. 
The size of the connection pool is dependant on the number of concurrent users for a each particular database.  Remember all users need to connect to the ExpAdmin database, but all users may not be connecting to all of the groups.  There doesn抰 have to be a one to one relationship between concurrent users and database connections but you should allow the size of the pool to grow to that size if it needs to.
For example:
For 50 concurrent users, 10 using Group A and 40 using Group B:
ExpAdmin Pool Min Size: 25
ExpAdmin Pool Max Size: 100

Group A Pool Min Size: 5
Group A Pool Max Size: 20

Group B Pool Min Size: 25
Group B Pool Max Size: 80
This configuration sets the minimum for each pool to be less than the number of concurrent users, but allows the number of connections to grow to twice the number of concurrent users in case some request is using multiple connections. 
The actual amount of connections kept alive should never be less than the minimum size and will grow and shrink up to the maximum size setting depending on usage.   
As a rule of thumb it is better to allocate more connections needed than less.  If a user has to wait for a connection because all connections in the pool are being used and the pool is at max size, then the user will experience a performance delay.
The pools are defined in the expedition-ds.xml file.  The installer will run the Server Configuration utility will run the Set Database Connections utility which will overwrite this file.  The default pool sizes are minimum of 25 and maximum of 75.  These are generous settings, but it shouldn抰 be a problem unless you are short on resources on your Web & Application or database servers. 
This is an example of the XML in the expedition-ds.xml file that defines a connection pool for the ExpAdmin database. If you change any of these values directly in this file, you will need to re-adjust them every time you run the Server Configuration utility.  The utility removes all entries from the file then polls the database server for the groups available and adds an entry for each group with the default settings. 
<datasources>
 <local-tx-datasource>
  <jndi-name>jdbc/EXPADMIN</jndi-name>
  <driver-class>com.sybase.jdbc2.jdbc.SybDataSource</driver-class>
  <connection-url>jdbc:sybase:Tds:serverName:2638?ServiceName=expadmin</connection-url>
  <user-name>exp</user-name>
  <password>sql</password>
  <min-pool-size>25</min-pool-size>
  <max-pool-size>75</max-pool-size>
<idle-timeout-minutes>20</idle-timeout-minutes>
  <exception-sorter-class-name>
org.jboss.resource.adapter.jdbc.vendor.SybaseExceptionSorter
</exception-sorter-class-name>
 </local-tx-datasource>

This XML also defines that all connections that have been idle for more than 20 minutes should be refreshed.  This is done so that connections are refreshed before the database decides a connection is idle and disconnects it.  The Sybase DB default is 4 hours (-ti setting).

Application Server Logging
The log4j.xml file governs the logging in JBoss.  It configures where information is logged to, the level of information that is logged, and how the logs are maintained.  Log4j is an open source logging utility available from Apache.

This file defines two root categories, 揅ONSOLE?and 揊ILE?  These categories control what is logged to the server console and log files respectively.  The amount of information that is output to these categories is controlled by the logging levels.
Logging Levels
Log4j Logging Levels
Level Description
ALL The ALL has the lowest possible rank and is intended to turn on all logging.
DEBUG The DEBUG Level designates fine-grained informational events that are most useful to debug an application.
ERROR The ERROR level designates error events that might still allow the application to continue running.
FATAL The FATAL level designates very severe error events that will presumably lead the application to abort.
INFO The INFO level designates informational messages that highlight the progress of the application at coarse-grained level.
OFF The OFF has the highest possible rank and is intended to turn off logging.
WARN The WARN level designates potentially harmful situations.

The product is shipped to log in WARN mode.  This means that only exceptions and warning messages will be will be logged.  The logging level can be configured in the log4j.xml file.
Console Logging
When the Expedition server is run as a service the console output gets written to the Primavera/ExpeditionProfessional/expconsole.log file.
The following XML controls the logging to the console. 
?nbsp;The logging level is represented in the 揟hreshold?tag.
?nbsp;The layout of the console log is Time : Level : Category : Message.  To see a complete description of layout configuration options, look at the PatternLayout class documentation at this address:
http://logging.apache.org/log4j/docs/api/index.html

<!– ============================== –>
<!– Append messages to the console –>
<!– ============================== –>

<appender name=”CONSOLE” class=”org.apache.log4j.ConsoleAppender”>
<errorHandler class=”org.jboss.logging.util.OnlyOnceErrorHandler”/>
<param name=”Target” value=”System.out”/>
<param name=”Threshold” value=”WARN”/>
<layout class=”org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout”>
<param name=”ConversionPattern” value=”%d{ABSOLUTE} %-5p [%c{1}] %m%n”/>
</layout>
</appender>

File Logging
The following XML controls the logging to the console. 
?nbsp;The logging level is represented in the 揟hreshold?tag.
?nbsp;When the size of the log file reaches the MaxFileSize it will create a new file.
?nbsp;MaxBackupIndex indicates howmany backup files will be kept before it starts overwriting existing files.
?nbsp;The layout of the console log is Date: Time : Level : Category : Message.  To see a complete description of layout configuration options, look at the PatternLayout class documentation at this address:
http://logging.apache.org/log4j/docs/api/index.html

<!– ================================= –>
<!– Preserve messages in a local file –>
<!– ================================= –>

<!– A size based file rolling appender –>
<appender name=”FILE” class=”org.jboss.logging.appender.RollingFileAppender”>
<errorHandler class=”org.jboss.logging.util.OnlyOnceErrorHandler”/>
<param name=”File” value=”${jboss.server.home.dir}/log/server.log”/>
<param name=”Append” value=”false”/>
<param name=”MaxFileSize” value=”5120KB”/>
<param name=”MaxBackupIndex” value=”1″/>
<param name=”Threshold” value=”WARN”/>
<layout class=”org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout”>
<param name=”ConversionPattern” value=”%d %-5p [%c] %m%n”/>
</layout>
</appender>
Expedition Debug Information
To see debug messages from the Expedition application running on JBoss:
?nbsp;The output level should be changed to INFO
?nbsp;The PrintDebugLevel in exponline.properties should be set to 6.

NOTE: Turning on all debugging information will create very large log files and will cause some performance degradation.

Boot Log
When the Expedition server is started the server startup information is written to the Primavera/ExpeditionProfessional/boot.log file.

Report Logging
The Expedition server can create a Report Log that will contain debug information about every 搑eport?that the server processes.  Reports means any process that renders a report or form created by InfoMaker.  That includes reports, forms, and PDFs that are e-mailed.
To create this log, add the following line to the exponline.properties file:
ReportLogPath=c:/reportlogs
C:/reportlogs must be a valid directory.
Mail Configuration Issues
An issue faced with configuring SMTP mail to work with Expedition is Corporate Mail/Spam filters that block TCP/IP addresses without a successful reverse domain lookup. 
Some email relays might reject mail from Expedition in the case where the reverse DNS lookup fails. The solution for this is to add the Expedition IP address to the access list on the SMTP relay or to have a valid DNS entry for the Expedition server.

Custom Database Connection Configuration
This functionality is for Sybase configurations only.

This section describes how to use a custom Expedition Socket factory for each connection JBoss makes to the Sybase DB.  The advantages of using this custom factory are:
1. Allows customers to define a range of port numbers for these connections.
2. Allows connection audit information to be turned on.

Port Assignment

When this custom factory is enabled every request by JBoss to create a connection to the Sybase DB will be intercepted by our custom Socket factory.  This Socket factory will create a Socket with the client port assigned within a specified range.  This specified range is determined by settings in our properties file.

When a socket is created, the Socket factory keeps a pointer to it and remembers which port was assigned to it.  Every 10 minutes a scan of the Sockets is executed to look for closed Sockets.  If a closed Socket is found then the associated port number is released and available for another connection.

This illustrates how ports are assigned for 5 DB connections:

 Initial Creation of Connection pool
Create Socket on port 4000   Socket created successfully on port 4000
Create Socket on port 4001   Socket created successfully on port 4001
Create Socket on port 4002   Socket created successfully on port 4002
Create Socket on port 4003   Port 4003 is in use by other program  Socket created successfully on port 4004
Create Socket on port 4005   Socket created successfully on port 4005

Refresh of Connections by JBoss
Create Socket on port 4006   Socket created successfully on port 4006
Create Socket on port 4007   Socket created successfully on port 4007
Create Socket on port 4008   Socket created successfully on port 4008
Create Socket on port 4009   Socket created successfully on port 4009
Create Socket on port 4010   Socket created successfully on port 4010

Release port 4000
Release port 4001
Release port 4002
Release port 4003 *   This is releasing our pointer to this port because we are not holding an
      open connection to it.  This will allow subsequent connection attempts to
      try this port again.  This is particularly import when the server is cycled
      quickly and the old connections are still holding ports open.   
Release port 4004
Release port 4005

Configuration
To turn this functionality on you have to modify two configuration files:
expedition-ds.xml
exponline.properties

expedition-ds.xml
This file defines the JBoss database connection pools.  The following line has to be added to each datasource definition:

<connection-property name=”SYBSOCKET_FACTORY”>
 com.primavera.exponline.server.base.SybaseSocketFactory
</connection-property>

exponline.properties
Mandatory Configuration Settings
The following properties have to be added to enable this functionality:

SybaseStartingClientPort=4000
This defines the first client port number.  All subsequent client port assignments will be made consecutively from this number. 

SybaseTotalPossibleConnections=150
This number represents the total of the maximum number of connections of all of the connection pools.  For example if you 2 connection pools defined in expedition-ds.xml and both have the following pool sizes:
<min-pool-size>25</min-pool-size>
<max-pool-size>75</max-pool-size>

Then the total possible connections is 150  (75 * 2) 
Optional Configuration Setting
SybaseMinimumNumberOfConnections=50
This represents the total of the min-pool-size for each connection pool defined for JBoss.  This enables debugging for minimum pool size settings.

SybaseScanInterval=10
This set how often the Socket scan is run.  The number is in minutes, 10 is the default value.  NOTE: The Socket scan interval value has to be less than the
<idle-timeout-minutes>20</idle-timeout-minutes>
setting for each datasource in the expedition-ds.xml file.

SybaseConnectionsDebugFile=C:/primavera/debug/connections.txt
This property will turn on connection debugging.  It will create the specified file and log all connections and the Socket cleanup operations.  This file should only be used for debug purposes and not for long-term production use.

If the total number of open Sockets (DB Connections) drops below the minimum defined in the property, a warning message will written to the connections debug file:

Thu Jun 03 13:14:09 EDT 2004 WARNING Minimum Connection Count =50 Current number of Open Connections=20

This check will be performed every time the Socket scan is done (default is every 10 minutes).

NOTE:  The path specified for this file must be a valid path and the user the Expedition server is running under must have privileges to create a file on this path.  The Expedition server will not start correctly if either of these conditions is not met.

Port Range Determination

This is how the port range is determined:

 Starting Port       SybaseStartingClientPort    4000
 Number of ports needed         SybaseTotalPossibleConnections  (150 * 2) + 5
 Number of ports reserved           305
 Port Range                4000  -  4304

The number of connections is doubled to allow new ports to be assigned before the old ones are released.  The 5 extra ports are included to allow for up to 5 ports in the specified range to be in use by other programs.
 
Systems Integration
This section reviews configuration to integrate with other software systems.
Primavera Integration
This section describes the integration points Expedition has with Primavera and the underlying configuration needed to make them work.  There are two types of interfaces to Primavera:

P3e Integration Points
Integration Type Description
Direct Connection to the Primavera Database A connection is made directly to the Primavera database and information is passed between the two systems.  You can see the field mapping for this interface in an install document titled 揚rimavera Integration Field Mappings? 
URL Connection A Primavera URL is called from the Expedition client and Primavera pages are displayed.  This interface requires the direct database connection parameters to be populated. 

The Expedition and Primavera systems are installed separately and do not share any resources except the possibility that they could both utilize the same Oracle database server.

Connecting Expedition to a Primavera Database.
When installing Expedition the user will be prompted for parameters to make a connection to the P3e database.  These parameters will be used to make a direct connection to the Primavera database and are used for the URL connection.

Primavera Database Connection Parameters
Parameter Description
Service Name The name of the Primavera MS SQL DB Server, or for Oracle, the SID.  Example:  P3E35 or P3EORA9, respectively.
Machine The name of machine where the Primavera Database is located.  It can be the machine name or a URL.
DB Name The Primavera DB name. For Oracle, this is usually the same as the SID, for MS SQL Server it doesn’t matter. 
Username and Password The username and password to get admin or privileged access to the Primavera Server.

 
These parameters will be used by the installer to create an entry in the expedition-ds.xml file.  This entry will create a database connection pool for the Primavera connections.  Here is an example of the expedition-ds.xml entry:

<local-tx-datasource>
 <jndi-name>jdbc/PRIMAVERASDK_PE</jndi-name>
 <driver-class>oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver</driver-class>
 <connection-url>jdbc:oracle:thin:@servername:1521:polaris4</connection-url>
 <user-name>uid</user-name>
 <password>psw</password>
 <min-pool-size>6</min-pool-size>
 <max-pool-size>6</max-pool-size>
 <exception-sorter-class-name>
org.jboss.resource.adapter.jdbc.vendor.OracleExceptionSorter
</exception-sorter-class-name>
</local-tx-datasource>

The highlighted text above should be replaced by the parameters entered in the installer.
To tie an Expedition project to a Primavera project the 揝chedule?field must be updated in the Project Settings dialog for each Expedition project.

URL Connection
The URL connection to Primavera allows Expedition users click on a Primavera URL from within Expedition.  This will create a separate browser instance and make a URL connection to Primavera.  The UID & PSW from the Expedition user must match exactly to the UID & PSW of the Primavera user for this connection to succeed.  Also, the Primavera database connection parameters must be populated for the URL connection to succeed.

There is one connection parameter, for the URL connection, entered in the installer:

P3e URL Connection Parameters
Parameter Description
Primavision URL The name of the machine hosting the Primavision app, and usually includes the port number.

The following information is posted to the Primavision server to make a URL connection:

Parameters passed to the Primavision server
Parameter Description
User Name Expedition’s user name
Password Encrypted Expedition’s password
Language This will be standard 2 character language code. (en, fr, de,zh etc.)
Project Id This is a number uniquely identifying a project in the Primavera database
Database Computer name of the machine on which database is running, Primavera Database Server port number, and Primavera Service Name

Brava!?Version 5 Integration
To integrate Expedition Professional with a Brava! server, the following properties must be added to the exponline.properties file (default location \Primavera\ExpeditionProfessional\jboss\server\expedition\lib\ext\com\primavera\exponline\common):

Expedition Properties for Brava Integration
Property Description
BravaServerName Name of the machine that is running the Brava! server
BravaServerPort Port number that Brava!抯 instance of Tomcat is listening on
BravaMarkups The file directory where Brava! is keeping its markups

Example:
 BravaServerName=machinename        
 BravaServerPort=8080              
 BravaMarkups=\\\\machinename\\markup  

The BravaMarkups property must use a UNC path to point to the markups directory. As well, if the Expedition Professional Web Server is running as a service, it must be modified to run as a domain user account with access to the Brava! markups directory. The Brava! markups directory must be shared.

Notes:

?nbsp;The Expedition Professional Web Server does not validate Brava! values added to exponline.properties. If the values are not accurate, Brava! accessibility from Expedition Professional will be affected.

?nbsp;The Expedition Professional Web Server needs to be restarted before the integration will take effect.

For more information on using Brava! with Expedition Professional, refer to the Brava! Integration Overview in online help.