You can register your Data Provider Adapter implicitly when you add the adapter to the Virgo server framework. To use implicit registration, you must declare the Java service that implements your Data Provider Adapter as an OSGi bundle when you add the service to the Virgo server framework. The vSphere Web Client and the vSphere Client detect new OSGi bundles as they are added and register the Data Provider Adapters with the Data Service. You must also annotate the adapter class with the object types that the adapter supports.

To declare the service as an OSGi bundle, you must define Java service of your adapter as a Java Bean in the bundle-context.xml file. You can find the bundle-context.xml file in the src/main/resources/META-INF/spring folder of your plug-in module.

To define the Java Bean, you must add the following XML element to the bundle-context.xml file.

<bean name="MyDataProviderImpl" class="com.example.MyDataProviderAdapter"> </bean>

The name attribute is an identifier that you choose for the Java Bean. You must set the value of the class attribute to the fully qualified class name of the Java class you have created that implements the DataProviderAdapter interface.

After you define your Data Provider Adapter as a Java Bean, you must modify the bundle-context-osgi.xml file to include the Java Bean as an OSGi service. The bundle-context-osgi.xml file is in the src/main/resources/META-INF/spring folder of your plug-in module.

You must add the following XML element to the bundle-context-osgi.xml file.

<osgi:service id="MyDataProvider" ref="MyDataProviderImpl"
               interface="com.vmware.vise.data.query.DataProviderAdapter" />

The id attribute is an identifier that you choose for the Data Provider Adapter. You must set the value of the ref attribute to the same value as the name attribute that you defined when declaring your Java Bean. The interface attribute must be set to the fully qualified class name of the DataProviderAdapter interface.

You must update the src/main/resources/META-INF/MANIFEST.MF file to reflect any Java packages from the SDK that your Data Provider Adapter imports. You add the imported packages to the Import-Package manifest header of the MANIFEST.MF file.

In Data Provider Adapter Example, the example Data Provider Adapter imports the packages com.vmware.vise.data.uri and com.vmware.data.query. The packages are listed by using the Import-Package OSGi manifest header in the MANIFEST.MF file.

Import-Package: org.apache.commons.logging,
com.vmware.vise.data,
com.vmware.vise.data.query,
com.vmware.vise.data.uri

You must annotate your Data Provider Adapter class with the object types for which the adapter processes queries. The vSphere Web Client and the vSphere Client use these annotations to route queries for the specific types to the correct adapters. You use the @type annotation to define the vSphere object type for which the adapter processes queries.

For example, if you have a custom object of type WhatsIt, you annotate the class in the following way.

@type("samples:WhatsIt") // declares the supported object types
public class MyAdapter implements DataProviderAdapter {
...

Most Data Provider Adapters use other OSGi services that the SDK provides. These services include the base Data Service, the Resource Type Resolver Registry, and the vSphere Object Reference Service. You can pass these OSGi services to your Data Provider Adapter as arguments to the Data Provider Adapter class constructor method.

All Data Provider Adapters can include the Data Service. To include the Data Service as an argument to your Data Provider Adapter class constructor, you add the following element to the bundle-context-osgi.xml file of your service.

<osgi:reference id="dataService" interface="com.vmware.vise.data.query.DataService" />

If your Data Provider Adapter handles queries for multiple custom object types, you must include the Resource Type Resolver Registry OSGi service and register a Resource Type Resolver. To include the Resource Type Resolver Registry OSGi service as an argument to your Data Provider Adapter class constructor, you add the following element to the bundle-context-osgi.xml file of your service.

<osgi:reference id="uriRefTypeAdapter" interface="com.vmware.vise.data.uri.ResourceTypeResolverRegistry" />

If your Data Provider Adapter handles queries for built-in vSphere object types, such as Hosts or Virtual Machines, you can include the vSphere Object Reference Service. To pass the vSphere Object Reference Service as an argument to your Data Provider Adapter class constructor, you add the following element to the bundle-context-osgi.xml file of your service.

<osgi:reference id="vimObjectReferenceService" interface="com.vmware.vise.vim.data.VimObjectReferenceService" />

Your Data Provider Adapter can use the User Session Service to get information about the current user session. To pass the User Session Service as an argument to your Data Provider Adapter class constructor, you add the following element to the bundle-context-osgi.xml file of your service.

<osgi: reference id="userSessionService" interface="com.vmware.vise.usersession.UserSessionService" />

If you pass OSGi services to your Data Provider Adapter class constructor, you must include those constructor arguments when you declare your Data Provider Adapter as a Java Bean in the bundle-context.xml file. See Declaring the Service as an OSGi Bundle.

For each service your Data Provider Adapter includes, you must add a <constructor-arg> element to the Bean definition of your adapter. In each <constructor-arg> element, you set the ref attribute to the same value as the id attribute in the <osgi:reference> element in the bundle-context-osgi.xml file.

If your Data Provider Adapter uses the Data Service, vSphere Object Reference Service, Resource Type Resolver Registry, and User Session Service, the Bean definition might appear as follows.

<bean name="MyDataProviderImpl" class="com.example.MyDataProviderAdapter">
  <constructor-arg ref="dataService"/>
  <constructor-arg ref="uriRefTypeAdapter"/>
  <constructor-arg ref="vimObjectReferenceService"/>
  <constructor-arg ref="userSessionService"/>
</bean>

You can register your Data Provider Adapter with the Data Service by using the DataServiceExtensionRegistry service. DataServiceExtensionRegistry contains a registerDataAdapter() method that you must call to register your Data Provider Adapter.

A common way to register your adapter is to pass DataServiceExtensionRegistry as a parameter to your Data Provider Adapter class constructor, and call registerDataAdapter() from within that constructor.