Item

Descriptions

Broadway

Broadway is the Fabric module that is used for designing data movement, its transformation and the orchestration of business flows. 

A Broadway flow is built from Stages that are executed from left to right where each Stage can include one or more Actors.

Actors are reusable pieces of logic with input and output arguments that can be assembled together to create complex logic.

CQL

Cassandra Query Language. CSQL is used by Fabric's Cassandra DB to query internal key spaces and tables.

Database Types

New and customized database types can be defined without additional enhancement to the product, depending on their specifications and whether they have a  JDBC driver. Database types that are part of the Product package can be edited or overridden but may require customization.

Data Viewer

A Fabric Studio capability, which allows you to view the Logical Unit Instance stored in memory as a database file.

The Data Viewer is also used to debug LUs to improve testing and defect resolution phases.

Deployment

The action of applying the Fabric Studio component into the Fabric server (DB). A newly created Fabric component or an updated one is not reflected in the Fabric DB until it is deployed to the Fabric server.

Deployment is needed for each implementation change. For example, LU schema definition changes, transformation rule changes in Functions, Globals and Translations.

Distributed DB

A distributed database is a database that consists of two or more files located in different sites either on the same network or on entirely different networks. Sections of the database are stored in multiple physical locations whereby processing is distributed among multiple database nodes. This makes them easy to expand and resilient. Fabric greatly reduces the processing complexity associated with their architecture.

Enrichment Order

Defines the order of the Enrichment function’s execution. The order is set in the Logical Unit schema’s properties.

ETL

Extract Transform Load.

ERD

Entity Relation Diagram - the graphical representation of an LU schema.

Execution Order

The order that LU tables are populated in an LU schema is defined by Fabric when the LU schema is created. The LU schema's Root Table is always populated first and by default, its population order is set to 1 since it is the first one to be executed.

Globals

Globals are used when a variable with the same value is required repeatedly by various Fabric objects. A Global can be defined within a shared scope or locally in the LU.

Graphit

A Fabric tool that can be used to create dynamic CSV, XML and JSON documents. Graphit is useful for generating Fabric Web Service responses. The content of a response is defined during its execution, either according to specific parameters relevant to the specific Web Service call and the employed LUI, or by retrieving dynamic information from other databases or interfaces. Graphit can be either invoked by a Web Service or directly.

IAM

Identification and Access Management: The mechanism for user identification via an authentication process, and for access management via authorization mechanisms.

Fabric provides IAM for web, console, and web-services access, by using either Fabric's local repository or the organization’s identify provider (IDP) which is integrated with Fabric as a Service Provider (SP).

IDP

Identity Provider: Authenticates principals and issues tokens (or assertions). The IDP is also an actor in modern authentication and authorization platforms, along with a principal and Relying Party (RP) or Service Provider (SP)

Interfaces

An Interface is a data communication channel between Fabric and any external systems.

When multiple data sources are used by a Logical Unit, additional interfaces can be defined.

The interface types are:

DB Interface: Enables the connections of the Fabric server to databases like SQL Server, PostgreSQL or Oracle (data and metadata).

Non-DB Interface: Used to define a connection with data provisioning systems that are not databases. For example, search engines, FTP servers or a message queue.

Instance Group

A list of Instance IDs (LUIs) used as part of a batch data extraction and transformation into Fabric. Usually constructed by an SQL query.

Instance ID

An Instance ID is a unique identifier of an LUI. For example, Customer ID 12345 represents a specific customer of a CUSTOMER Logical Unit Type. This ID is set as the Logical Unit's Root table's PK column.

LDAP

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol: This is a mature, flexible, and well supported standards-based mechanism for interacting with directory servers. Fabric can work with LDAP and AD LDAP  servers (Active Directory LDAP) as authenticators as well as  to get information about users  from those servers.

Logical Unit / Data Product

A Logical Unit (LU, or Logical Unit Type - LUT), also known as a Data Product, is a blueprint that holds a set of definitions / instructions used to create and maintain the data of a Data Product dataset.

Lookup

A Lookup is an object that is added to a Table Population to get information from a source DB, LU table or Reference table.

LU View

An object that holds a predefined query on LU tables in the Fabric MicroDB, allowing an easy access to a required data collection.

LU Table

The basic building block of a Logical Unit that defines a Data Product's data, including columns, PKs, indexes and triggers. A Logical Unit may have one or many LU tables.

LUI

A Logical Unit Instance (LUI) is a specific instance of a Logical Unit. For example, the data for a specific Customer ID.

MDB / MicroDB

Micro-database, a small SQL database used for the storage of an LU Instance (LUI) data. An MDB is stored as an SQLite file, depending on the stored property definition on the LU schema.

MTable

An object created in the Fabric memory from a CSV file, enabling a fast in-memory data lookup at run-time.

Parsers

Graphical map that defines data transformation and mapping rules from a source. For example, a DB table or Input file into Fabric distributed storage (Cassandra). Parsers use the same mechanism as jobs for execution which can be manual or automatic.

Query Builder

The Query Builder is an embedded visual query building component in Fabric Studio that allows you to build complex SQL queries using a predefined Fabric interface. A basic knowledge of SQL and its concepts is required to use the Query Builder.

Reference Table

A Fabric allocated area for tables defined as Reference (metadata). These tables can be used by all LUI or within a specific LU's instances. For example: the postal code of a customer’s address.

Root Table

The main table in the Logical Unit. Each LU schema must have one Root Table. The Root Table holds the Instance ID (Column) and is the root of the LU hierarchy.

Security Assertion Markup Language: This is a standard protocol used for SSO. It provides a mechanism for exchanging authentication and authorization data between an identity provider (IDP) and a service provider (SP).

Security definition for restricting Fabric from exposing sensitive data to unauthorized users, based on their predefined roles. This is part of Fabric's Declarative Field Level Authorization mechanism.

Source Object

A population rule, either a query or function, used as a source input to the LU table.

Service Provider: This is an actor in modern authentication and authorization platforms. The SP is an application or resource that is protected and requires authentication and authorization of any principal wishing to access it. Fabric acts as an SP when using external authenticators.

Single Sign On:   This is a user authentication service that permits an organization's members (users) to use one set of login credentials to access multiple applications and services. Fabric has the capability to work as a service within the organization's SSO.

Sync

A process that updates / modifies the source data connected within Fabric. The Sync process executes and extracts the transformation logic of a given instance on the LU tables and populates its data into Fabric.

Sync Method

Defines how the sync will be performed (sync policy):

NONE: Do not sync.

Time Interval: Sync is performed automatically at the predefined time. Format = D.HH:MM:SS. Default = 1 Day.

Inherited: Each LU level inherits the sync rule of its direct parent branch. For example, the LU Table Population inherits from the LU table and the LU table inherits from the LU schema.

Decision function: Sync is performed according to a Decision function which returns a True / False Boolean parameter.

The sync method can be set on LU Schema, LU Table, or Table Population levels.

Sync Mode

The synchronization mode of an instance from source systems.

ON: Run the sync based on the sync method. This is the default mode.

OFF: Don't sync.

FORCE: Always sync.

DELTA: sync OFF if delta is empty otherwise sync ON.

The Fabric Set Sync command is used to set the Sync Mode.

Swagger

Fabric Studio supports invocation and testing of Web Services using Swagger (Open Source under Apache License 2.0), a specification and complete framework implementation for describing, producing, consuming, and visualizing RESTful Web Services.

To connect to Swagger:

Go to the following URL and specify the IP address of your Fabric server: http://<Fabric Server>:3213/api

Or,

Set the Web Service invoke path template in your User preferences - Server configuration to: static/swaggerUI/dist/index.html#/<CATEGORY>/<WS_VERB>_<WS_PATH>

Table Population

Defines the data transformation and mapping rules from a source into a targeted LU table. An LU table can contain several table populations.

Translation

A Fabric object that transforms data from one set of valid values to another and enables the execution of various transformation rules .

User Jobs

A Fabric mechanism that executes a light-weight function either manually or automatically using a predefined Scheduler. For example, time interval.

WS

Web Service, a Java function that can be exposed through Fabric’s Web Service layer.