Constraints of the Asset Integration Cycle

This topic discusses the constraints on the concurrent use of the OLSA Asset Integration API by a single customer, for example, a single LMS instance.

Each unique customer is given a single OLSA site with the associated OLSA credentials, customerid, sharedsecret, endpoint URL. Each OLSA site serves only a single LMS instance for a customer.

The asset integration cycle (IPA) represents the following sequence of calls:

• Starting with AI_InitiateAssetMetaData
• One or more calls of AI_PollForAssetMetaData
• Ending with AI_AcknowledgeAssetMetaData

If a single customer has a multi-cpu, multi-process, or multi-threaded LMS instance then only one thread of execution can run the asset integration cycle. There cannot be two or more different threads in the same LMS instance running the asset integration cycle against the same OLSA site.

If a customer has multiple LMS instances then only one LMS instance can run the asset integration cycle against their single OLSA site. Except for one special case noted below, you cannot have two or more LMS instances running the asset integration cycle against the same OLSA site.

Only the following known cases exist have run into this constraint:

• A single customer was setup with load-balanced LMS, with multiple servers implementing a single LMS instance. Two or more of these servers making up the LMS instance point to the same OLSA site. Two or more of these servers has a single thread that executes the asset integration cycle against the same OLSA site.

  Solution: Make sure only one server in this set of servers executes the asset integration cycle against this customer’s OLSA site

• A single customer is setup with two separate LMS instances. The first LMS instance is for staging. The second LMS instance is for production. Both LMS instances point to the same OLSA site. Each LMS instance has a single thread that executes the asset integration cycle against the same OLSA site.

  Solution1 - Disable the staging server.

  Solution2 - Provision two OLSA sites for the customer. The first OLSA site used by the staging LMS. The second OLSA site used by the production LMS. Skillsoft would feed each OLSA site the same content updates. This has a cost impact.

  Solution3 Special case - The customer uses the staging LMS initially to make sure everything is working. The customer initially points the staging LMS to his OLSA site to test asset integration cycles. Once the customer is satisfied, he either disables his staging LMS or unlinks it from his OLSA site. The customer then asks Skillsoft to have his OLSA site reset. The customer then points the production LMS to his OLSA site. The production LMS can now perform asset integration cycles against this OLSA site. The customer never points his Staging server back again to his OLSA site.

If the customer is exercising this special case then it can be supported by Skillsoft.