Author Topic: Difference PCS OSLC API from EA or 3rd party  (Read 4619 times)

Guillaume

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Difference PCS OSLC API from EA or 3rd party
« on: October 24, 2024, 06:16:41 pm »
Hello,

For Prolaborate, a Powershell script, or any other custom application, a PCS license is required with the Pro Features (OSLC ...) enabled in the PCS client.
Apart from the licensing aspects, is there any difference technically in the way EA communicates with the Pro Cloud Server API compared with third party applications ? Does EA use the same OSCL methods e.g. /oslc/am/login to get the auth token, /oslc/am/resource to get details for an element, diagram... based on its guid, etc. ?

Thanks
Guillaume
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Geert Bellekens

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Re: Difference PCS OSLC API from EA or 3rd party
« Reply #1 on: October 24, 2024, 07:09:39 pm »
EA (as in the fat client) doesn't use OSLC at all. It uses PCS as a gateway to get to the database.

AFAIK WebEA and Prolaborate do use OSCLC, but I'm not convinced they only use OSLC.
For WebEA you can read the source code, so if you know your way around PHP code, you might be able to figure it out.

Geert

Guillaume

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Re: Difference PCS OSLC API from EA or 3rd party
« Reply #2 on: October 24, 2024, 07:18:34 pm »
Hi Geert,

Thanks for your reply.
Since EA, Prolaborate, WebEA or any custom script use the same PCS url + port + model name to access a repository, is it down to the PCS to handle how they communicate e.g. EA = ?, Prolaborate/WebEA = OSLC + ?, custom PowerShell = OSCL... ?
Guillaume

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ea0522

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Re: Difference PCS OSLC API from EA or 3rd party
« Reply #3 on: October 24, 2024, 07:54:45 pm »
As with any interface, there is one application that provides the realisation of the interface which in turn can be used by 0, 1 or more other applications.
The using applications determine which interface they wish to use in which (use) case.
So when PCS offers both OSLC and something else, it is up to EA, Prolaborate or WebEA to determine which to use.
Besides that, they are not limited to using the PCS interface, there is also the (native) database connection which might be used directly in case the PCS interface will not suffice.

And although I'm fairly familiar with PHP, I still cannot determine how WebEA is showing the image of a diagram...

Geert Bellekens

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Re: Difference PCS OSLC API from EA or 3rd party
« Reply #4 on: October 24, 2024, 08:08:16 pm »
Besides that, they are not limited to using the PCS interface, there is also the (native) database connection which might be used directly in case the PCS interface will not suffice.
I think one of the major points of the PCS server is to hide the database and allow only connections through PCS.

Direct client/database connections are frowned upon by security architects.

Geert