Progress | Acorn IT

Zamolxis on Progress Developer Studio for OpenEdge 12.

Marian Edu — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 07:27:45 +0000

With the upgrade to a new version of Eclipse platform to 4.9 in Progress Developer Studio for OpenEdge installing Zamolxis ERD fails because of missing dependencies.

The cause is some of the modelling components – namely the GMF Tooling – used by Zamolxis are no longer included in the main Eclipse update site. In order to be able to install Zamolxis in Progress Developer Studio for OpenEdge version 12+ the update site for GMF tolling must also be added to the list of update sites in Eclipse the same way the Zamolxis update site is added, and make sure you check the ‘contact all update sites’ for dependencies resolution.

The GMF Tooling update site is http://download.eclipse.org/modeling/gmp/gmf-tooling/updates/releases/.

Another dependency that might be missing is for com.google.common package required by the model compare feature, this is available through Orbit repository:

http://download.eclipse.org/tools/orbit/downloads/drops/R20160221192158/repository/.

After adding those two additional update sites please make sure you check the Contact all update sites during install to find required software when installing Zamolxis features.

Happy modelling.

chatbots and openedge

Marian Edu — Wed, 25 Apr 2018 06:25:11 +0000

Zamolxis ERD “launch” offer

Marian Edu — Thu, 30 Nov 2017 17:54:23 +0000

akera.io JSDO services

Marian Edu — Wed, 31 Aug 2016 18:43:38 +0000

Cloud Data Object

Exposing akera.io rest services using the Progress’s ‘cloud data object‘ protocol – often referred to as JSDO (which is just it’s Javascript implementation) – is now possible for basic CRUD data access.

Metadata/Catalog
Full support for database metadata - aka, services catalog; both table and dataset format are supported.
CRUD operations
All basic CRUD (create/read/update/delete) operations are supported.
Advanced read options
Support complex filtering, sorting, pagination and record count.

Explore the `sports2000` catalog here...

Rollbase

While the ‘standard’ selected for akera.io REST services remains oData, the reason for which CDO/JSDO support was added is another Progress’s solution – Rollbase.
Surprisingly, or not, integration with external REST services in Rollbase is limited to JSDO ones and that explains why we’ve decided to add JSDO support (as plug-in).

Save the service definition (catalog) as json file.

Follow the external object import procedure.

Specify the full URL for accessing table data as ‘Service URI’: http://sports.akera.io:18383/sports/rest/crud/jsdo/sports2000/state/.

Check service support `complex filter and sorting`.

Check service support `paging`.

Check service support `count operation`.

Now you should be able to browse data from the external object, with pagination, filter and sorting support. All other CRUD operations are supported as well, some database tables do have schema validation set so `delete` operations might fail – triggers can also raise errors on create/update/delete.

Thinking about modernisation?

Do you need `satellite` web/mobile modules around your existing Progress application and realised the `modernisation` starts to sound more like a full rewrite?

Fear not, we can help you going web/mobile even if still on older versions of Progress and/or using a `classic` client-server architecture.

Find out more...

akera.io newsletter #1

Marian Edu — Fri, 22 Jul 2016 11:19:31 +0000

the lightweight approach

What is new in akera.io

While adding nifty new features can be both fun and rewarding it worth less than nothing if not shared with others therefore we will try to periodically send this kind of newsletters out, if you’re not yet subscribed to our newsletter hurry up and do so now…

Administration Service

While we keep on using our simple approach of having one configuration file per service instance this new service module allows one to have a unified management of services defined on the server and control them through a easy to use web user interface.
All akera.io services can now be installed as daemon service at the OS level (Windows, Unix).
JAVA API

Accompanying the node.js API available from our first releases you can now access the akera.io application server from Java applications using a features full application programming interface (API). Both basic data access (CRUD) and calling any application business logic are supported.
JDBC Driver

Our own JDBC driver for OpenEdge business logic is now available in a new flavour using the akera.io Java API. If you don’t have an Progress Application Server installed but would like to get access to your application data and business logic through standard JDBC interface you can use akera.io application server instead.
Performance

As always things can be done better and we’re thriving to improve all the time, some improvements in that area:
- web service cluster mode to better use available CPU’s
- JSON option for output/input-output parameters to avoid encoding the value as string

Roadmap

Some of the things we are currently working on and are planned to be released in upcoming releases…

oData REST Interface
oData is an open protocol to allow the creation and consumption of queryable and interoperable RESTful APIs in a simple and standard way, that is why we took the decision to implement akera.io REST interface on top of it. More details about this on OASIS web site - http://www.odata.org.
Common Component Specifications
With the Common Component Specification initiative of Progress beginning to take shape we will provide support for 'business entities' in akera.io APIs.
Data Driven Development
Tooling and development environment is where our focus will be in the following months. With extensive experience in model driven development and domain specific languages we thought what better model could we start from than the underlying application database. More about this during an upcoming session at this year EMEA PUG Challenge - http://www.pugchallenge.eu.

Click Here
For Sports 2.0 Demo!

More information on akera.io web site, our public repositories are hosted on Github and you can also find us on Facebook.

Web/Mobile Enablement

Marian Edu — Mon, 09 May 2016 18:29:50 +0000

Web Startup Program

Responsive Web or Native Mobile
Two screens implemented
Two wireframe mockup for each screen
Back-end REST services
Progress Application Server or akera.io
Fix time – one week
Fix price – 1000 €

Business logic

There need to be a clear separation between business logic and user interface in 4GL programs in order to be used as REST services. Depending on complexity this business logic separation process might be out of scope of this start-up program.

I'm interested
let's rock!

Getting started with akera.io – Part two

Marian Edu — Mon, 28 Mar 2016 07:25:45 +0000

application server

akera.io server is a full blown application server for Progress OpenEdge specifically designed for web/mobile applications.

Because of the efficient non-blocking I/O provided by node.js together with the myriad of modules available in npm ecosystem writing an application server to easily expose business services (REST) for web/mobile applications in node.js makes a lot of sense.

The result is a modular and very lightweight solution that is both easy to start with and can also scale as needed.

Prerequisites

Being an application server for Progress OpenEdge, akera.io does require the Progress runtime (AVM) to be available – either part of the RDBMS product if ran on the same computer as the database server or ‘Client Networking’ product if network connection is used.

4GL Development product is not required as 4GL components are delivered in xcode format, the optional ‘Development Studio’ component does require the option to compile code and therefore will have limited functionality without it.

akera.io is built on node.js therefore the first thing that need to be done is to install node.js on your system if not available already.

Head over to the node.js download page and select the installer for your platform.

Because of the Progress runtime dependency any platform supported by Progress can be used, for the rest the only option is to run it in a Docker environment (Linux).

Installation

After all prerequisites were installed we can proceed with the installation.

Since the de-facto package manager for node.js is npm all akera.io components are built as packages – the public ones available directly on npmjs.com while for the rest we have our own private repository.

// set the npm registry to our private repository

$ npm set registry http://repository.akera.io

// avoid installing dev dependencies

$ npm config set production

// install using global flag

$ npm install -g akera-server

This would take some time – about 30 seconds (depending on the internet speed) and make sure the system have enough space left before starting the installation as it does require nothing less than 9 MB to be available (if need be, please be prepared to drop 2-3 of your favourite mp3 songs to make room for it).

Test the installation by running the control script in a terminal.

$ akera-server help

Akera application server version: 1.2.13

Broker control script, usage:

akera-server  [-h ]

start – start all brokers set-up in home folder

stop – stop all brokers set-up in home folder

status – show status for all brokers set-up in home folder

trim – trim agents of all brokers set-up in home folder

list – list all brokers set-up in home folder

akera-server  [-h ] [-i]

start – start the broker

stop – stop the broker

status – show status for the broker

trim – trim agents for the broker

new – create new configuration for the broker

config – edit configuration for the broker

delete – remove configuration for the broker

-i interactive if set the process remains in foreground, only valid for start

Configuration

Now that you have everything installed you can set-up your first application server instance using the configuration option of the control script but first few things about akera.io configuration:

there is no single ‘unified’ broker configuration file, akera.io uses one configuration file per broker
configuration file uses a simple JSON format
is recommended to use a ‘configuration folder’ to group them in one central place
unless specified otherwise the control script will use the user’s configuration folder as default – $HOME/.akera

The easiest way to create a new application server configuration file – sports – is to use the control script with the new command:

$ akera-server -h /opt/apps/akera new sports

? Progress installation directory /usr/dlc

? Port that the server will listen on 8900

? Initial number of agents 5

? Minimum number of agents 2

? Maximum number of agents 10

? Agent PROPATH (comma separated). /opt/apps/sports

? Agent accessible path (PROPATH relative entries, comma separated) web,rest

? Agent working folder /tmp

? Agent session temporary folder /tmp

? Agent start-up parameter file

? Procedure to run at startup

? Enable development studio (not in production). No

? Expose database content as REST No

? Expose WEBPATH file-system content as REST No

? Keep persistent procedures between requests Yes

? Messages language en

? Log File akera-server.log

? Maximum log file size(kb) 50000

? Maximum log files 3

? Log level info

? Execution timeout 3000

? Require SSL connection from clients No

? Administrator password

? Message packet size 64

Most of those are pretty much self explanatory and somehow familiar to those experienced with Progress Application Server.

The only one thing that might look odd is the ‘accessible path‘ – although it’s possible to run any business logic procedure available on PROPATH we think it’s safer to just limit client access to only those ‘services’ that were meant to be exposed instead of just everything available in PROPATH. In this example we only allow execution of procedures from ‘web‘ and ‘rest‘ sub-folders – in any of the PROPATH entries.

Database connection(s) can be specified in the start-up parameter file (.pf) if so desired just we like more to have them set in a separate configuration section – the control script will ask for this at the end, you can add as many database connections as needed (shared memory or network connection).

? Databases New

? Database logical name sports

? Database physical name/path /opt/db/sports.db

? Network connection No

? Databases (Use arrow keys)

❯ New

Config

Delete

List

Done

When you’re done adding all database connections select ‘Done’ and you’ll be prompted to save the configuration.

? Databases Done

? Save changes Yes

To update the configuration later on you can either do that directly on the JSON file if you are a vi freak or start the control script with the ‘config‘ option and follow the same flow just with the current configuration values used as presets – if you don’t want to update a property just hit enter and previous value will be kept.

$ akera-server -h /opt/apps/akera config sports

Starting

Now you’ve passed the most boring part you can go ahead and start the application server instance you’ve just configured, again use the control script for that just with the start option (yeah we know, all too original).

akera-server -h /opt/apps/akera sports start

info> Starting broker: sports…

warn> Broker admin password not set.

info> AGT[9134] Agent started(34533) [201]

info> AGT[9135] Agent started(52577) [201]

info> AGT[9136] Agent started(35380) [201]

info> Broker listening on port 8900 [9125].

There is also an ‘interactive’ (-i) option for the start command, this will keep the process in the foreground and also display log messages on the console – can be used if you want to deploy it in a docker environment (more about this later on).

$ akera-server -h /opt/apps/akera sports start -i

Starting broker: sports…

Broker admin password not set.

AGT[9115] Agent started(52355) [201]

AGT[9116] Agent started(44206) [201]

AGT[9117] Agent started(37419) [201]

Broker listening on port 8900 [9106].

This can be used for debug purposes – setting a different log level for the console can be done right after the ‘-i’ switch.

$ akera-server -h /opt/apps/akera sports start -i debug

Starting broker: sports…

Broker admin password not set.

Create a non-secure server socket.

Create a secure server socket.

Secure server socket using PFX

Admin server listening on port 56647.

Starting agent.

Create a non-secure server socket.

Agent listening for Progress connection on [44560].

AGT[9162] Progress agent running: 9162.

AGT[9162] Progress agent connected.

Control

Once we have our application server instance up and running you might well need to check-out what is doing or bring it back to order if needed.

status

$ akera-server -h /opt/apps/akera sports status

Running for : 14:01:42

Load        : 0%

Free        : 5

Busy        : 0

Requests    : 8247

Completed   : 8247

Memory      : 78289408

trim agents

$ akera-server -h /opt/apps/akera sports trim

Trim agents for broker: sports…

Trim agents successfully.

shutdown

$ akera-server -h /opt/apps/akera sports stop

Shutting down broker: sports…

Broker shutdown successfully.

Getting started with akera.io – Part one

Marian Edu — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 08:22:41 +0000

akera.io & docker

This is the first part of the getting started series we are preparing for akera.io and since we love docker let’s start with a post on how you can easily have your Progress OpenEdge application nicely packed in containers.

Being very lightweight and modular all akera.io components are a great fit for Docker containers so, although optional, we do recommend running them in a Docker environment.

Docker

An open platform for distributed applications for developers and sysadmins ...

Prepare Installer Image

Have the OpenEdge linux installation kit at hand.
Create a Dockerfile image description that will be used to build the ‘installer’ image and serve as base image for other OpenEdge images.
Start from a linux distribution of your choice – make sure it’s supported by Progress if you plan to use it in production.
Copy the installation kit to the image on build (ADD will automatically unarchive the content for known archive types).
Build the base image

Dockerfile

# Base image with OpenEdge 11.6 installer

FROM ubuntu:latest

MAINTAINER Marian Edu
LABEL version=”11.6″

LABEL description=”Progress OpenEdge 11.6 installer image.”

RUN mkdir /proinst

WORKDIR /proinst

ADD PROGRESS_OE_11.6_LNX_64.tar.gz /proinst/

Build the image

$ docker build –rm=true -t oe:11.6 .

Prepare OpenEdge Image(s)

The same image description – Dockerfile – can be used to build OpenEdge images with different products/components installed. You always start from the installer image builded in the first step and use a unattended install response file appropriate for the environment you need to build.

Have the OpenEdge licenses file at hand.
Create a Dockerfile image description that will be used to build the OpenEdge image.
Start from the installer image.
Prepare a response.ini file for OpenEdge unattended installation – easiest is to do the installation manually and use the content saved in $DLC/installresponse.ini file.
Copy the response.ini and start the unattended installation.
Clean-up by removing the unnecessary installation files.
Build the image

Since the image will have OpenEdge licensed products installed is probably not a good idea to share the image on Docker Hub.

Dockerfile

# OpenEdge 11.6 runtime image

FROM oe:11.6

MAINTAINER Marian Edu

LABEL version=”11.6″

LABEL description=”Progress OpenEdge 11.6 runtime image.”

#change the working folder for installation

WORKDIR /tmp

#copy the unattended installation file

ADD response.ini /tmp/response.ini

# set environment variable

ENV TERM xterm

# start unattended setup

RUN /proinst/proinst -b /tmp/response.ini

# remove installation files

RUN rm -Rf /proinst

Prepare OpenEdge Runtime Image

This is how a response.ini file looks like, to install the OpenEdge runtime required by akera.io Application Server just replace the license information and adjust installation path and localisation settings to better suits your needs.
You can start building the image using the Dockerfile from previous step together with this response.ini file – easiest have them both in the same folder or use a full path for response.ini file in image description.

response.ini

; DESCRIPTION of Configuration Count

[Configuration Count]
NumberofConfigurations=1

[Product Configuration 1]
name=Your Company Name

serial=123456789

version=11.6

control=XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX

prodname=Client Networking

[Type and Destination]
type=COMPLETE

path=/usr/dlc

workpath=/usr/wrk

oem_path=/usr/oemgmt
oem_workpath=/usr/wrk_oemgmt

[Language Default]
DefaultLanguage=English – International

[Language Choice]
lang1=English – International

[International Settings]
cpinternal=ISO8859-1

cpcollation=Basic

cpcase=Basic

dateformat=mdy

numsep=44

numdec=46

Build the image

$ docker build –rm=true -t oe-runtime:11.6 .

ABL JDBC New Release 2.0.0

Marian Edu — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 19:57:47 +0000

New Major Release

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of our JDBC driver for Progress/OpenEdge Business Logic.

Below some of the most notable features added, the documentation was also updated and is now complete.

HTTP & SSL Connection

HTTP tuneling
HTTP connection model supported for the new Pacific Application Server and AIA adapter.
Secure connection
SSL available for all connection modes.

Buffered Result Sets

Select
For very large result sets buffered records retrieval can be done by setting the fetch size connection property. The data will be retrieved in pages when needed through multiple round-trips to the server.
Business Logic
Stored procedures and views can also support buffered result sets by implementing required interfaces.

Backend Framework

Dynamic Procedure Call
Virtually any business logic procedure can now be executed directly with no need to register a stored procedure wrapper. All primitive data types parameters can be used as input/output/input-output, one dataset or multiple temp-table(s) output are supported as complex data structures.
Extent fields
Support for extent fields was added, either the whole values as array or individual extent(s) using square bracket notation.
Services
Authentication and business catalog framework services were extended and logging service was introduced.

Incompatible API changes

Package name change from “ro.medu.abl” to “ro.acorn.jdbc”
Interfaces name change: IStoredProcedure, IView
Authentication service interface change

Download now!

Progress Silver Service Delivery Partner

Marian Edu — Wed, 27 Jan 2016 16:17:44 +0000

Acorn IT just became a certified Silver Progress Service Deliver Partner (SDP) for EMEA. This includes certification for Progress OpenEdge, the leading platform for simplifying and streamlining the development, integration and management of business applications and Telerik Platform, the cross-platform mobile development solution for iOS, Android and Windows Phone. The certification confirms the ability of Acorn IT to deliver Progress-related professional services with high quality, standard for customers running Progress solutions.

“We are thrilled to recognize Acorn IT as a certified Progress Service Delivery Partner,” said Kimberly King, Vice President, Global Partners and Channels, Progress. “The quality of service experience this partner brings forth is an excellent example of the best practices and principals set forth by Progress, that our customers have come to know and expect.”

Progress and its ecosystem of more than 2,000 Partners support more than 4 million users. The Progress Service Deliver Partner program was established to ensure customers continue to receive the quality service and experience Progress is known for. As a Progress SDP, Acorn IT will provide a professional delivery model based on best practices for mission-critical Progress applications. To achieve this certifications from Progress, Acorn IT participated in a rigorous process including training course for Progress OpenEdge developer certification as well as course around Progress OpenEdge administration certification. There are also four Telerik Platform enablement certification courses. Finally, to further ensure ongoing quality standards, SDP-certified providers undergo a thorough assessment of their delivery and support capabilities annually.

Progress | Acorn IT

Zamolxis on Progress Developer Studio for OpenEdge 12.

chatbots and openedge

Zamolxis ERD “launch” offer

akera.io JSDO services

Cloud Data Object

Metadata/Catalog

CRUD operations

Advanced read options

Rollbase

Thinking about modernisation?

akera.io newsletter #1

the lightweight approach

What is new in akera.io

Administration Service

JAVA API

JDBC Driver

Performance

Roadmap

oData REST Interface

Common Component Specifications

Data Driven Development

Web/Mobile Enablement

Web Startup Program

Business logic

Getting started with akera.io – Part two

application server

Getting started with akera.io – Part one

akera.io & docker

Docker

Dockerfile

Build the image

ABL JDBC New Release 2.0.0

New Major Release

HTTP & SSL Connection

HTTP tuneling

Secure connection

Buffered Result Sets

Select

Business Logic

Backend Framework

Dynamic Procedure Call

Extent fields

Services

Incompatible API changes

Progress Silver Service Delivery Partner