Teamcenter provides variety of mechanism for customization
of teamcenter based on business requirement. The customization is based on base
framework of API provide by teamcenter. In this blog I will discuss all
customization options and its architecture.
Customization Architecture
Teamcenter customization architecture can be broadly distinguished
based on Teamcenter technical architecture. It can be categorized in to three layers.
- Server or Enterprise Layer
- Web Layer
- Client Layer
Client Layer is basically portal or thin client customization
which usually deals with UI and data handling of the result of server request. SOA client is SOA API for calling SOA
services. You can see in detail of Teamcenter SOA service in my SOA blogs. Web
Layer is nothing Teamcenter based J2EE deployment layer which basically
communicate between Server and client. Server
customization is core of all customization as most of the Business logic is
written in this layer. It mainly deals with all business transaction as it interacts
with data base through Persistence Object Layer (POM) API. FMS is resource layer which support actual
file transfer between client and server through FMS framework. For more detail
in FMS you can visit my blog on Teamcenter FMS. Server customization is done
through C based API provided by Teamcenter. This API is also called Integration
Toolkit (ITK). Apart from above discussed customization there is SOA
customization and BMIDE extension which are basically either server and
client\web customization or both. Below
diagram depict Customization Architecture diagram for Teamcenter. As shown in
diagram, all BMIDE extension is in server side. This is because most of BMIDE
extension overrides or changes object behavior based on business requirement. This
can be only accomplished in server layer; hence all extension is implemented by
using core ITK API provide in server layer. Below diagram shows the
Customization Architect of Teamcenter.
Based on above Customization Architect, Teamcenter
customization can be categorized in to following area.
- Server Customization
- Portal Customization
- Web or Thin client customization
- SOA based customization
- BMIDE extension customization
Server Customization:
Server side customization is a most frequently used customization, as all
business logic are written in this layer. Basically all requests pass through
through server layer for all teamcenter transaction. Hence it is core of
teamcenter customization. As discuss in Customization Architecture, Teamcenter
provide C based API called Integration Toolkit (ITK) for server side
customization. This toolkit provides hundred of API for processing various
business process based on Teamcenter functionality. The ITK is categorized by
various modules and functionality of Teamcenter. Also various extension
mechanisms are provided by ITK toolkit to plug in custom code based on various
Teamcenter events and object status. The detail discussion of ITK customization
is out of scope of this blog and I will cover it another blog.
Portal Customization:
Teamcenter Client is layer is written on Java JFC and eclipse SWT. The core client API are written in Java
JFC framework and slowly it will ported to eclipse SWT framework. Presently
Teamceter support both JFC and SWT customization, but it is recommended to do
customization in SWT looking at Teamcenter future vision. The Portal Customization
can be done extending OOTB Plug-in or developing your own plug-in. Apart from
JFC/SWT UI api, the Teamcenter client API also provides object interface
component which is an encapsulation of Teamceter Data model through Client
object model. This Object Interface component also form interface layer between
client and server.
Web or Thin Client Customization: This customization is for Teamcenter
Web client. Teamcenter provides standard web interface for viewing and editing
Teamcenter object in web browser. Web client is builds on asynchronous
JavaScript and XML (AJAX) to allow dynamic loading of data in the browser. The HTML
pages are renders by java script on XML data. Most of the thin client customization
is carried through JavaScript which allow the rendering as well managing
request\response from web server. Both client-to-server requests and server-to-client
responses in Teamcenter thin client are standard HTTP responses.
SOA Customization: It is also called Teamcenter services. It is a
standard SOA based services provided by Teamcenter for integrating with third
party as well custom client. Also Teamcenter provides framework to create your
own custom SOA services. I covered Teamcenter SOA services in detail in my SOA blogs.
BMIDE Extension Customization:
This is mainly a server customization using Teamcenter BMIDE. BMIDE provide
various extension customization mechanisms for implementing desired behavior in
Teamcenter. Some of example of BMIDE extension is pre-action or post-action
operation for Business object, Runtime property etc. This extensions are implemented in BMIDE environment by writing C\C++ server code mainly using ITK
API. BMIDE framework create stub code and other require classes for extension
implementation. Developer only required implementing base logic of the extension. I will try to cover extension implementation
in one of my future blog.
Apart from the above customization; Teamcenter Dispatcher
module can also be customized for required translation behavior. Most of time
Dispatcher client required to be implemented for extracting and loading translated
file from Teamcenter. The Dispatcher Client Framework is based on Teamcenter
SOA service and most OOTB SOA API is used apart from Dispatcher API which encapsulates
most of complex Teamcenter SOA API calls. I already covered Dispatcher
Customization in my blog on Teamcenter Dispatcher.
See Also :