UMI XML document model

The Universal Management Infrastructure XML document model (UMI XML model) is a set of restrictions that are placed on the XSL or XML model by the user mapping rules implementation. This model enables the interface to be simple and yet functional for user mapping purposes.

The model constrains the rules to function in a predetermined XML document format with the same top-level XML document element for all rules. The XML UMI that is imported by the rules evaluator from user attributes must be inserted into this XML document before the data can be used. Similarly, to simplify the process of defining rules, the rules must operate in the confines of the UMI XML model.

The UMI XML model requires the XML document to contain the following top-level XML element into which all target UMI for a particular rule evaluation is inserted. The XMLUMI element is created automatically as part of the rule evaluation process by the user mapping engine.

<XMLUMI>
<!--XML formatted UMI are inserted here.    -->
</XMLUMI>

As a result of this restriction, the XPath to the data in a rule must include the prefix /XMLUMI to access a particular data element within the model. For example, if we add a UMI item of stsuuser:STSUniversalUser to the document, we must specify the XPath /XMLUMI/stsuuser:STSUniversalUser to access the data in the XML object stsuuser:STSUniversalUser.

An XPath is the path to a particular child element in the hierarchy of a structured XML data object. It is similar to the mechanism that a directory path on a hard disk uses to access a specific file. An XPath designation starts from the root of the document and traces a path from this root through its child elements to the specific element that is referenced. For example, to use the example entitlement stsuuser:STSUniversalUser in the XML user mapping model, the following XPath accesses the address element of /XMLUMI/stsuuser:STSUniversalUser:

"/XMLUMI/stsuuser:STSUniversalUser/stsuuser:AttributeList/stsuuser:
Attribute[@name='address']/stsuuser:Value"

XPaths like this example are the means by which user mapping rules access the UMI data values for attribute-based user mapping decisions.

Because all data elements are restricted to work in the UMI XML model, the user mapping rules must also be restricted to operate on or match XPaths in the model. Therefore, XSL template match statements are also restricted to matching XPaths starting from /XMLUMI in the UMI XML document. For more information, see Format and constraints of rules.

Parent topic: Authenticated User Mapping