1. Developer Guide
  2. Developing Custom Profile Service Providers
  3. Overview of the Profile Service API

Overview of the Profile Service API

Converged Application Server includes a profile service application program interface (API), com.bea.wcp.profile.API, that may have multiple profile service provider implementations can be used to create profile provider implementations. A profile provider performs the work of accessing XML documents from a data repository using a defined protocol. Deployed Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Servlets and other applications need not understand the underlying protocol or the data repository in which the document is stored; they simply reference profile data using a custom URL, and Converged Application Server delegates the request processing to the correct profile provider.

The provider performs the necessary protocol operations for manipulating the document. All providers work with documents in XML Document Object Model (DOM) format, so client code can work with many different types of profile data in a common way.

You can also use the profile service API to create a custom provider for retrieving document schemas using another protocol. For example, a profile provider could be created to retrieve subscription data from an Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) store or a relational database management system (RDBMS).

Note:

The Diameter Sh application also accesses profile data from a Home Subscriber Server using the Sh protocol. Profile. Although applications access this profile data using a simple URL, the Diameter applications are implemented using the Diameter base protocol implementation rather than the profile provider API.

Figure 12-1 Profile Service API and Provider Implementation

Description of Figure 12-1 follows
Description of "Figure 12-1 Profile Service API and Provider Implementation"

Each profile provider implemented using the API may enable the following operations against profile data:

  • Creating new documents.

  • Querying and updating existing documents.

  • Deleting documents.

  • Managing subscriptions for receiving notifications of profile document changes.

Clients that want to use a profile provider obtain a profile service instance through a Servlet context attribute. They then construct an appropriate URL and use that URL with one of the available Profile Service API methods to work with profile data. The contents of the URL, combined with the configuration of profile providers, determines the provider implementation that Converged Application Server to process the client's requests.

The sections that follow describe how to implement the profile service API interfaces in a custom profile provider.