Papers in PDF format

is being used to create real-time reports, then additional hardware can be added at the site
to minimize buffering and accommodate the immediate processing of all captured data.
Aria.store supports multiple databases and sets up the Schema for the selected database.
Single databases can also be partitioned across multiple machines, either for added
performance or additional resource control.
Aria.api
Aria.api is the Application Programming Interface that allows access to the stored objects
in the Aria.store database. This API permits the Aria environment to be completely open
and extensible. The API defines how standard scripting languages such as Perl, Java, Tcl
and C++ can access the data objects created by the Aria.recorder engine.
The first API provided by Andromedia interfaces Perl5 to the ObjectStore database. This
allows developers to write Perl5 scripts and add Perl5 modules that are accessible to users
from web browsers. An application server will allow the Perl5 interpreter to be wrapped
in an executable file and be aware of any Andromedia or user defined extensions. This
avoids the need for the interpreter to be initialized and eliminates CGI forking, resulting in
optimized execution speed.
Third parties have the ability to access stored data objects and data structures through the
Aria.api on both a real-time and persistent basis. Developers can build powerful new
applications or interface existing applications to the web activity data through this API.
This very same API is used by Andromedia’s Aria.reporter to analyze the stored data and
create reports.
API Object Classes
The Web object model is organized into three fundamental classes; the users, their
activities and the objects they manipulate. Users and objects are relatively finite, but their
interactions are enormous. The object classes exposed through the API are Users,
Servers, Pages, Visits, Statistics, Queries, Graphs and Reports. The first four classes can
be monitored on a real-time basis. In a future Release the user can view aggregate data
from these objects on a monitoring dashboard that displays the on-line information in realtime.
The user object represents a specific user of the web site. It basically saves two kinds of
information about the user. First, it saves account information which includes a site
unique user id, when the user first visited, and when the account expired (best
approximation of when the user left the site). The User object also saves a persona which
is how the user would describe himself via a form or other information they control and
make publicly available to web sites.
The server object maintains information about the type and configuration of the server. It
also tracks server statistics.
______________________________________________________________________________
The Aria Architecture Page 20 Andromedia, Inc.
White Paper July 1996