Exporting data for use in other tools?

[PMMulligan]

Hi all,

I have looked through the docs and forums, but I can not find anything in particulare about exporting data for use in other tools, or importing data from other tools.

For example, I may want to export/import all my application data to a CMDB, and they often support a CSV (or text, or XML, etc.) file format.

I am new to Protege, I understand OWL in concept, but have no working knowledge of it.

[sarah.smith]

Hi,

Sorry for the delay in replying, we have been hampered by the holiday season!

We have an Integration Tool, currently in beta testing, which is designed to allow importing or synchronisation of information between Essential and other tools. In fact, we have used this tool to synchronise information with a CMDB in the past. You can find the download and documentation information here - http://www.enterprise-architecture.org/ ... einfo&id=2

We do not have an explicit tool for exporting data, however, the Essential Modeller publishes your repository data as a standard xml file to the Java Servlet Engine supporting the Essential Viewer (e.g. Tomcat).

The file is named 'ReportXML.xml' and in a typical Tomcat installation is found at the path, {Tomcat-Install}/webapps/essential_viewer.

Each time you publish your repository to the Essential Viewer from Protege this file is updated, therefore, you can take a copy of this file, apply any appropriate trasnformation (e.g. using XSL) and then import the information to the target repository of your choice.

In future, we will be looking to add the ability to explicitly export this file from the Essential Integration Server.

Please let us know if you need any further information.

Sarah

[jonathan.carter]

As an alternative (and one that I have been using with a client for some time now for integration with a CMDB in a similar way to that which you describe), you can put a simple report together in the Essential Viewer. You can then use this report to manually pull or even have a scheduled job request the URL for that report and take e.g. a CSV or an XML or whatever to move it to where you need it to go.

There are 2 examples of this approach - one for CSV and one XML -included in the standard Essential Viewer pack that provide an extract of Applications. If you haven't got any Application Providers defined in your model, run these on the sample repository to see what they produce.
These can be found in the Essential Viewer in the Architecture Governance or Project Delivery Reports under Integration Extract Reports (at the bottom of the list of reports).

These 2 example reports are very simple and you can have a look at how they are put together by looking at their source XSL files:

• {Tomcat Install}/webapps/essential_viewer/application/appProviderExtractCSV.xsl
• {Tomcat Install}/webapps/essential_viewer/application/appProviderExtractXML.xsl

Use these as a template or starter and change the select statement to choose which classes of elements you want to export.

Jonathan