Web services

You can use the web services in TrueSight Orchestration to remotely trigger TrueSight Orchestration workflows and return a Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) response with the workflow output. The TrueSight Orchestration product uses the ORCA web service, RESTful (REST) web service, and legacy web service.

The legacy web service was used in the earlier releases of the TrueSight Orchestration product. The ORCA web service was introduced with version 7.5.00 of the product and the REST web service became available in version 7.8.00. The ORCA and REST web services provide many improvements over the legacy web service. You can also use the ORCA and REST web services in conjunction with the legacy web service.

RESTful web service

The TrueSight Orchestration REST API enables you to leverage the important properties of RESTful web services, such as uniform interface, addressability, statelessness, and connectedness. In RESTful web services, these properties are embodied in resources, URIs, representations, and the links between them. The REST API web service is available on the CDP and activity peer (AP) (only supports Execute Process for a job).

The new REST API web service addresses some of the limitations of the ORCA and/or legacy web services, such as the following: 

• Using JSON and JSONP (to avoid the need for proxies and avoid cross-domain issues) support
• Using token-based authentication, enabling the user to log into the API server, get an authentication token, and use it for subsequent API calls so that the user is not required to include credentials in every request
• Adapter management, such as
  • Adding and configuring adapters
  • Enabling or disabling adapters on peers
  • Starting or stopping adapters on peers
  • Upgrading adapters
  • Updating adapter configuration
• Module management, such as 
  • Querying for details about all installed modules or their constituent workflows
  • Activating or deactivating modules
  • Updating module configuration
• Job and process management, such as
  • Executing single workflows synchronously or asynchronously
  • Terminating or canceling workflows
  • Pausing or resuming workflows
  • Requesting the operational status of workflows
• Repository resource management, including uploading resources to the repository or removing resources from the repository

ORCA web service

The ORCA web service is powerful and flexible. You can use the queries and other operations to solve programmatic use cases. For example, using the ORCA web service, you can create a query to retrieve a list and descriptions of activated modules and workflows on a grid. Using the information retrieved from the queries you can build a robust web service interface.

The ORCA web service enables you to programmatically trigger workflows from other applications. The ORCA web service uses a fixed Web Service Definition Language (WSDL) for the web service.

The ORCA web service is available on the configuration distribution peer (CDP).

The ORCA web service offers you flexibility when performing the following activities:

• Querying for various information about installed modules or their constituent workflows
• Executing single workflows synchronously or asynchronously
• Terminating or canceling workflows
• Pausing or resuming workflows
• Executing multiple workflows asynchronously
• Requesting the operational status of workflows
• Optionally, registers with registries that are Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) v3 compliant

Legacy web service

The legacy web service exposes a WSDL that matches the exposed workflow. You must set the Expose as SOAP workflow property to expose workflows to the WSDL.

The legacy web service is available on the CDP and activity peer (AP). Users who have View Grid Status, Grid Administration and Admin permission can use the legacy web service to execute workflows. For more information about assigning permissions, see Assigning grid permissions.

 You can execute workflows synchronously.