Provisioning Propagation Configuration

Last modified 14 Mar 2024 12:46 +01:00
Provisioning propagation feature
This page describes configuration of Provisioning propagation midPoint feature. Please see the feature page for more details.
Since 3.7.1
This functionality is available since version 3.7.1.

Introduction

MidPoint usually executes all resource operations as soon as possible. But this may be quite troublesome for manual resources and slow resources where the operations are costly. Therefore there is a way to change that behavior by using provisioning propagation task. In such case midPoint will not execute operations immediately. Requested changes will get queued for (reasonably short) time. Then midPoint will execute all the changes at once in a single operation.

See Provisioning Propagation page for full introduction to this topic.

Configuration

Provisioning propagation configuration has two parts. Firstly the resource has to be configured to postpone (queue) the operations. Secondly there needs to be a propagation task that executes the operations.

Resource Configuration

Resource configuration is a simple matter of enabling operation grouping feature by setting a grouping interval:

<resource oid="f34328fa-f229-11e7-8cc9-e3f77b478e97">
    ...
    <consistency>
        <operationGroupingInterval>PT10M</operationGroupingInterval>
        <pendingOperationGracePeriod>PT15M</pendingOperationGracePeriod>
    </consistency>
    ...
</resource>

When the grouping interval is configured then midPoint will automatically enable operation queuing for that resource. The operations will not get executed immediately. All the operations will be queued in shadow objects in a form of pending deltas. The example above specifies grouping interval of 10 minutes. Therefore the operation will be queued for a maximum period of 10 minutes. When that period is over then the operation will get executed. And the execution will include all the other pending changes queued in the shadow.

Propagation Task

Second part of the configuration is the propagation task. This is recurring task that scans for pending operations to be executed. The task looks for any shadow with a pending operation that is older than the grouping interval specifies. If such shadow is found then all the pending changes (deltas) are executed. If there are several pending deltas then they are all merged together and executed in a single operation.

The propagation task definition is very simple. All that is needed is to specify correct handler and to point to the resource:

Notation before 4.4
<task>
    ...
    <handlerUri>http://midpoint.evolveum.com/xml/ns/public/provisioning/task/propagation/handler-3</handlerUri>
    <objectRef oid="f34328fa-f229-11e7-8cc9-e3f77b478e97" type="ResourceType"/>
    ...
</task>
Notation in 4.4 and after
<task>
    ...
    <activity>
        <work>
            <propagation>
                <resourceRef oid="f34328fa-f229-11e7-8cc9-e3f77b478e97"/>
            </propagation>
        </work>
    </activity>
</task>

The propagation task is quite efficient and it can run frequently (every few minutes) - as long as there is a reasonable amount of pending operations in the shadow objects.

It is also a good idea to specify a grace period for pending operations so the executed pending operations will get cleaned up when they are not needed. This is illustrated in the resource configuration example above. Too many pending operations stored in the shadows may affect system performance. The data structure that represents pending operations is quite complex and it is not easily indexed. Therefore the propagation task needs to examine all the shadows that have at least one pending operation. This is more than acceptable approach in case that the pending operations are regularly purged and do not accumulate in the shadows forever. And that is one of the reasons for specifying the grace period.

Multi-resource Propagation Tasks

EXPERIMENTAL
This feature is experimental. It means that it is not intended for production use. The feature is not finished. It is not stable. The implementation may contain bugs, the configuration may change at any moment without any warning and it may not work at all. Use at your own risk. This feature is not covered by midPoint support. In case that you are interested in supporting development of this feature, please consider purchasing midPoint Platform subscription.

The usual set-up is to have one propagation task for each resource. But it is quite likely that there may be many manual resources which leads to many propagation tasks to maintain. Therefore there is an experimental support for multi-resource propagation task:

Notation before 4.4
<task>
    ...
    <handlerUri>http://midpoint.evolveum.com/xml/ns/public/provisioning/task/propagation/multi-handler-3</handlerUri>
    <objectRef type="ResourceType">
        <filter>
            <q:equal>
                <q:path>extension/provisioning</q:path>
                <q:value>propagated</q:value>
            </q:equal>
        </filter>
        <resolutionTime>run</resolutionTime>
    </objectRef>
    ...
</task>

Please note the difference in task handler URI (handler-3 versus multi-handler-3).

Notation in 4.4 and after
<task>
    ...
    <activity>
        <work>
            <multiPropagation>
                <resources>
                    <query>
                        <q:filter>
                            <q:equal>
                                <q:path>extension/provisioning</q:path>
                                <q:value>propagated</q:value>
                            </q:equal>
                        </q:filter>
                    </query>
                </resources>
            </multiPropagation>
        </work>
    </activity>
</task>

Limitations

Current implementation of provisioning propagation was designed specifically to work with simple manual resources. Therefore there are some limitations:

  • Provisioning scripts are currently not supported. The propagation task will ignore all provisioning scripts.

  • Support for entitlement associations is limited. Subject-to-object associations are very likely to work properly, although this was not explicitly tested. Object-to-subject associations are currently not supported.

  • Consistency mechanism support for propagated resources is currently limited. We do not guarantee that consistency mechanisms will work for all the circumstances.

  • Application of this mechanism to anything other than manual and semi-manual resources is questionable. It might or might not work. All the testing of this feature was done with manual resources only.

Missing/incomplete feature
This is a missing or incomplete feature of midPoint and/or of other related components. We are perfectly capable to implement, fix and finish the feature, just the funding for the work is needed. Please consider the possibility for supporting development of this feature by means of midPoint Platform subscription. If you already are midPoint Platform subscriber and this feature is within the goals of your deployment you may be able to use your subscription to endorse implementation of this feature.
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