BI Flash™ 1.0 - Administrator Manual
Managing Application Server for iPhone

Overview
In order for the iPhone to gain access to all the power of SAS, it connects to a SAS server running on an application server.  Once it is configured, the iPhone will communicate directly with the application server requesting for views of a SAS datasets or dynamic reports as the result of executing a SAS macro.  The diagram below illustrates the communication between the iPhone and the application server.

BI Flash System Architecture

The application server is essentially a SAS session that is running on a server ready to receive request from the iPhone.  Multiple application servers can be running on the server communicating to different requests on different TCP ports.  This allows for scalability and optimal performance preventing communication bottle necks or collisions.

The application server administrations involves the following tasks:

Each one of these tasks is detailed below.

Staring Application Server Manager
All the tasks relating to the administration of the application  servers is managed through the application server management tool.  This is available on the SAS server that is running SAS and BI Flash server components.  The administrator would start BI Flash console on the server by double clicking on the desktop icon as shown here:

From the main BI Flash server application, you can click on the "APPSERVER" which is the short name for application server management tool.  The main screen of the application server management tool provides access to all the functions needed to manage the application server.

This lists all the current available application servers along with its associated libraries.  The machine in which it is hosted is referred to by name or by IP address. 

Define New Application Servers
Each application server will communicate to the iPhone from a range of TCP ports.  You can have multiple SAS sessions supporting one application server to load balance multiple request if that application has many users.  This can be defined when the administrator sets up a new application server by through the "Add" button.

You can define the following attributes to the application associated with each application being hosted:

  • Application Name - This is a short name identifying each application.  Since this is also used to store files on the server, do not use special characters or spaces in the name.

  • Server Name - The application server is commonly running on the current local server which the application server is hosting.  On the other hand, if there are several physical servers, you can specify the IP address or server name and the hosted server for the new application will be hosted on a separate machine.

  • Port Number - The starting port number is defined for each application server.  Avoid defining ports that may be in conflict with other applications hosted on the same server.  

  • Number of Sessions - Multiple SAS sessions can be defined for each application server so iPhone requests can be spread out among multiple sessions for optimal performance.  Note that each addition SAS session will take up two additional ports starting with the defined port number.

Once all the information is defined for the new application, clicking on the OK button will register and have the application available for the administrator to start as described in the next section.

Starting Application Server
An application server is essentially a SAS session running and listening for request from the iPhone.  Once it receives a request, it processes the information and returns the results to the iPhone.  Before the iPhone can be used, an administrator needs to start the application server.  This can be done entirely from the main Application Server Management screen.  

  1. Select the application server by name on the list entitled "Application Server".
  2. Select the "Start" radio button from the list of actions.
  3. Click on the OK button to then apply the starting of the application server.

If this was setup interactively, you will see a splash screen and a new SAS session running on the server ready for requests from iPhone.

Stopping Application Server
The administrator may wish to stop the application server for maintenance.  This is accomplished through the following steps:

  1. Select the application server by name on the list entitled "Application Server".
  2. Select the "Stop" radio button from the list of actions.
  3. Click on the OK button to then apply the stopping of the application server.

Upon applying the stop action, the administrator is shutting down that application server and closing that SAS session pertaining to the selected application.  If there are multiple SAS sessions associated with the selected application, all of them will close down.  The iPhone will not longer have access to this application server.

Edit Existing Application Server
An administrator can dynamically modify an existing application server changing things such as the name or number of sessions it supports.  An application server can not be edited if it is currently running.  It is recommended that it is stopped before editing is allowed.  The administrator would do the following to edit or modify the application server.

  1. Select the application server by name on the list entitled "Application Server".
  2. Select the "Edit" radio button from the list of actions.
  3. Click on the OK button to get the modify application screen.
  4. Modify attributes then click OK to apply updates.

All the attributes of the modify screen is the same as what was entered when the application server was originally defined.  This gives the opportunity to have the attributes updated.

Deleting Application Server
Deleting the application server means that the service is removed from the list and the application is no longer made available for access by any iPhone.  This will remove the application serer from the list of current application server.  The administrator needs to stop the application server if it is running before deleting.  The following steps are taken.

  1. Select the application server by name on the list entitled "Application Server".
  2. Select the "Delete" radio button from the list of actions.
  3. Click on the OK button to have the selected application server deleted.

The administrator can easily re-instate the deleted application server by adding a new application server with the same information.The deletion is not permanent but just removes the name off the list of current available application servers.

Review Logs
Each request that is sent from the iPhone is processed by BI Flash and the information is recorded in a log file.  Messages produce from the SAS process that would normally go into a SAS log would be appended to this application server log.  The administrator can view this log file by clicking on the "Preview Log" button from the main Application Server Management.  This actually opens the folder which contains all the log files.  Each application server will have its own log file and if the log file spans multiple days, it is separated out for each day to keep the size at a manageable size.

Defining Libraries
Libraries are short names that point to a physical path location on the server.  This is similar to a SAS libname and it is defined as a SAS library for an application server.  This means that if the SAS program needs to access data at a particular location, it would refer to it by a short library name or libname.  The administrator can define these library names prior to start the application server.  This is available through the "Library Management" tool accessed through the "..." button to the right of the list of libraries.

An administrator can perform the following tasks related to SAS libraries.

  1. Add - New libraries can be added with distinct name and corresponding location path on the server.
  2. Modify - Existing libraries can be modified with different names of associated path locations.
  3. Delete - An existing library can be removed from the list of available libraries.
  4. Assigned - Libraries can be assigned to an application server simply by selecting it on the main screen when the application server is being started.  Note that you can assign multiple libraries by holding down the control key combination.
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