Accessing Service Groups

A Service Group is a convenient way of deploying multiple services in one service archive file. There is a logical relationship between the services at runtime. The only difference in the services.xml for a service group and a single service is its root element. For a service group, the root element is <serviceGroup>, and we have multiple <service> elements inside the <serviceGroup> element.

For example,

<serviceGroup>
<service name=Test1>
...
<service>
<service name=Test2>
...
</service>
</serviceGroup>

Follow the instructions below to access and manage service groups.

1. Log on to the Data Services Server Management Console.

2. Click the Main menu and select List under Web Services.

3. The Deployed Services page appears. Click on the deployed service group(s) link to access the Deployed Service groups.

4. In the Deployed Service Groups page, click on the necessary service group.

5. The Service Group Dashboard page appears.

It contains three panels as follow:

Service Group Details

The Service Group Details panel shows the name of the service group.

Services

The Services Panel lists all the services included in the group. In this example, there is only one as follows:

From here you can:

• Click a service's name and view its dashboard
• View a service's WSDLs
• Test the service using the "Try this service" link

Actions

The following functions are available to manage the service groups:

• Managing the parameters of the service group
• Managing the module engagements
• Creating the archive file
• MTOM - By default, MTOM is set to optional. You can set it to True or False. For more information, refer to MTOM in the QOS Configuration section.

Managing the Parameters of the Service Group

1. In the Service Group Dashboard, select Parameters.

2. Parameters can be defined inside the services.xml file as an immediate child element of the service element.The Service Group Parameters page is used to add service group parameters to the service.xml. A parameter has two attributes:

• name - The mandatory attribute which specifies the name of a parameter.
• locked - The optional attribute. The idea of a "locked" attribute is to express whether we allow the parameter value to be overridden by a child node in the hierarchy. For example, if a parameter is added setting the "locked" attribute to "True," then at the event of a service trying to add another parameter with the same name, it throws an exception.

The WSO2 Carbon platform provides an easy method to generate the Service Group parameters.

Click on the 'Add New...' button to generate a new service parameter.

3. Enter the parameter's name and click OK to add the parameter to the list.

4. Enter the parameter's value and click Update. You can also delete a parameter by clicking the Delete button.

6. Confirm your request by clicking Yes in the message that prompts.

Managing the Module Engagements

There may be some instances where it's impossible to run the service without engaging the WS-Security module into the service. Engaging a module is just a matter of adding a module tag into the services XML. If the module is available, then the engaging will take place; else it will be a faulty service.

Follow the instructions below to engage a module into a service group (Also refer to Module Configurations).

1. In the Actions panel, select Modules.

2. Select a module to add and click engage. WSO2 Carbon provides the following modules, which you can engage into your service group.

• WSO2xfer-3.20 - Is an implementation of WS-Transfer.
• WSO2mex-3.20 - Provides MetadataExchange services for any services that the module is engaged.
• rampart-1.61-wso2v1 - Provides the WS-Security and WS-SecureConversation functionalities for Axis2, based on Apache WSS4J, Apache XML-Security and Apache Rahas implementations.
• sandesha1-3.20
• rahas-1.61-wso2v1 - Is used to STS enable a service, where it adds the RequestSecurityToken operation to a service that the module is engaged to.

3. A message appears if the module is successfully engaged. Click OK.

See more information about modules in Modules.

Creating the Archive File

Click Create Service Archive on the Service Group Dashboard page and it will create the service archive file.

You will be prompted to save the file (Echo.aar in this case) somewhere in your machine.