Houdini Demo

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Houdini Demo

• Systems Development
• Maintenance

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• What is Houdini?
• Houdini is a toolset that will allow us to
  directly retrieve information from and write
  information to the R17 colleague system.
• Houdini is also accessible using our web tools
  and will allow real time web interaction with R17.

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• Houdini is made up of two major parts.
• RMI (Remote Method Invocation)
• Unidata Triggers (with custom software)

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• What is RMI?
• RMI is Java based technology that invokes a
  program on the Colleague system.
• Application Program Interface tools, functions.
• Java API called Remote Method Invocation.
• IBMs Unidata developed a Unibasic API called
  UniObjects.
• A blend of UniObjects RMI to create technology.

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• What Can it do?
• Administrative Systems staff can publish existing
  Colleague reports lt1hr to web.
• Envision screen XRMI was created to automatically
  publish converted reports.
• Reports can be displayed as they normally run in
  Colleague or sent in XML for enhancement.

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• How it Works
• User logs into the Intranet visiting the RMI
  page.
• Having already been authorized by Active
  Directory, ColdFusion logic makes a call to RMI.
• The call validates what reports the user has
  access to and builds a custom interface.
• User can then select what report to run whereupon
  the RMI is called executing the report and
  returning the data.
• Data is returned to the web browser to be viewed,
  saved ,or printed by the user.

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• Advantages
• User doesn't need to access Colleague.
• Still needs a background account FERPA
  sign-off.
• Customized for Sinclair, LDAP, Security, and
  ColdFusion.
• Uses the existing core security module in
  Colleague.
• Security remains centric on Colleague.
• The user doesn't have to learn or use the
  Colleague function keys.
• Network password web browser is all that is
  needed.
• Great for faculty.
• Presentation is limitless with XML.
• Architecture supports custom web applications

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• Advantages
• RMI has one process always running, spawning
  threads for each additional request.
• Resource friendly
• Self-healing if the main process dies it will be
  restarted automatically.
• Unaffected by Operating Systems environment due
  to the Java Virtual Machine (JVM).

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• Unidata Triggers
• A Trigger is a Unidata procedure which is
  attached to a Unidata file like PERSON.
• When a change occurs to the file the trigger
  automatically fires.
• It calls a procedure to update an SQL Database.

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• ODS Creation
• Writing real-time to the SQL database creates an
  Operation Data Store (ODS).
• An ODS holds time-sensitive data that can be
  retrieved with the reliability that its current.

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• Expanded Use of Triggers
• If a student is on academic probation and they
  drop a class we can execute a procedure to email
  their counselor.
• The students academic status drops to academic
  probation the counselor can be made aware via
  email.

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• Trigger Architecture
• The trigger is a Unibasic subroutines that
  executes a Unix executable, which in turn calls a
  Java application.
• The Java application updates SQL database via a
  JDBC call.

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• Trigger Advantages
• Custom developed to fit Sinclairs business
  model.
• Datatel patch independent.
• We are in control.
• More efficient than Datatels trigger
  functionality, which is program specific.

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• Trigger Advantages
• The ODS created by the trigger functionality can
  be used in the Data Warehouse (DW) project.
• Data Warehouse is archived data 1 day old at
  best, but can now be blended with the ODS.
• Increasing DW usability and still taking full
  advantage of diverting the user-community to the
  DW thus decreasing the foot print on the
  Colleague system.

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• What projects will use Houdini?
• The first planned use of Houdini is
• SSP (Student Success Plan)
• Demo application available

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• Questions?