Configuration Required for VCS Publishing
You can configure Visualization Content Service (VCS) to manage publishing jobs for Windchill Service Information Manager and Windchill Service Parts (SIM-SP) from information structures, publication structures, product hierarchy family, and parts lists.
The XML bundle or UsingXSL output is published and stored in a shared Azure Blob Storage. You can specify the Azure Storage Account name and container by setting the properties sim.azure.storage.account and sim.azure.storage.container. Refer to the sections following to configure Azure Blob Storage for storing the bundle output.
You can store files by configuring Azure Blob Storage using security credentials authentication or MSI authentication.
Azure Storage Account Configured with Security Credentials Authentication
When the Azure Storage Account is configured for security credentials authentication using the blob configuration utility, provide the account name of the storage and the key in an encrypted form. Execute the following command to invoke the blob configuration utility.
Windchill com.ptc.windchill.objectstorage.azureblob.tools.BlobConfigurationTool configure -u [admin username] -p [admin password]
The encrypted setup enables SIM-SP to find the appropriate storage account. The blob configuration utility also sets up Windchill vault data storage on Azure Blob containers.
Azure Storage Account Configured with Managed Service Identity (MSI) Authentication
When Windchill is configured to use MSI authentication using the blob configuration utility, the storage account name is not captured. To identify the storage account where the SIM-SP bundle output is published, you must set the sim.azure.storage.account using site.xconf. Refer to the following example:
<Property name="sim.azure.storage.account"
overridable="true"
targetFile="codebase/wt.properties"
value="<azurestorageaccountname>"/>
overridable="true"
targetFile="codebase/wt.properties"
value="<azurestorageaccountname>"/>
Configure Azure Blob Storage Container for Storing Bundle Output
Set the property sim.azure.storage.container to the SIM-SP container using site.xconf. The bundle output is stored in the container configured in this property. Refer to the following example:
<Property name="sim.azure.storage.container"
overridable="true"
targetFile="codebase/wt.properties"
value="<container-name>"/>
overridable="true"
targetFile="codebase/wt.properties"
value="<container-name>"/>
Output Bundle Location
A successful publish job stores the bundle output in the ZIP format at the pre-configured storage location in the Azure Storage container. The structure of the bundle output is given below:
<Configured Storage Account>
<Configured Storage Container>
<structureName_StructureNumber>
<structureName_StructureNumber_jobId>
<Configured Storage Container>
<structureName_StructureNumber>
<structureName_StructureNumber_jobId>
For a structure, all bundles are published in the same folder, <structureName_StructureNumber>, and are distinguished by the job id <structureName_StructureNumber_jobId>. The bundle is then available for download by Arbortext Content Delivery (ACD) and can later be deleted from the Azure Blob Storage. The bundles are retained in the Azure Blob Storage as per the storage policy defined for the storage container.
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In addition to the VCS configuration for SIM-SP, the configuration mentioned above is required for publishing XML or UsingXSL bundle output. For other output formats like PDF and HTML, no additional configuration apart from the VCS configuration for SIM-SP is required.
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