Securing the Web Services Exposed by the Hub

8 Mapping Connector Fields to Hub Fields 8-1 8 Mapping Connector Fields to Hub Fields This chapter describes how records are transformed between the Hub and PIM servers. This chapter includes the following topics: ■ Overview of Data Transformation ■ About Domain Schemas ■ Data Side Effects Caused by Synchronization

8.1 Overview of Data Transformation

To enable the exchange of information between different types of PIM servers, the Hub defines a schema representation for each connector domain type in a schema XSD file. The data that is extracted from the PIM servers and returned to the Hub is transformed into the format defined by the Hub schema. Connectors transform the data into Hub XML format and also into the format of the PIM server for both inbound and outbound transactions. For every inbound record extracted, the connector must convert it from the native PIM API format to an XML message that conforms to a PIM XML schema defined for the connector domain. After the connector constructs the PIM XML message, it then uses XSLT to transform the message into a Hub XML message. This message conforms to a provided Hub XML schema. To enable data to map between the Hub domain and the connector domain, a connector’s Transformer component includes the schemas for both the Hub and connector domains and also XSLT documents. As described in Appendix D, Connector API, an UpsertRecord is a representation of a Hub record that flows between the Hub and connectors. This data structure includes a member called the hubRecordData, which contains the XML representation of the Hub record. Because the Hub record’s XML must conform to the XSD for the Hub domain, connector developers must create the following: ■ An XSD for a corresponding connector domain that maps to the Hub domain ■ An XSL definition for transforming the Hub XML representation of the record to the PIM XML representation of the record ■ An XSL definition for transforming the PIM XML representation of the record to the Hub XML representation of the record During extractions from the PIM server, a connector must ensure that each extracted record is first converted into a PIM XML message. It then uses the XSLT to convert the message from PIM XML to Hub XML. For record events pushed to the PIM server that is, Create and Update operations, the connector uses XLST to convert the Hub XML record to a PIM XML record before writing to the PIM server.