Connector Components in Detail

The following figure illustrates the major components of the Connector, their relationship with one another, and the flow of data between them. This diagram represents the connection between SailPoint and a single Connector installation with a single MS. In practice, multiple MS on different platforms can be administered by multiple Connector installations.

Component

Description

Connector Gateway

Resides between SailPoint and Mainframe Connector (CTSGATE) and is responsible for the communication between these two components.

Connector

Enables the interception of managed system events and the translation of SailPoint commands to each specific managed system terminology. The Managed System Interface component of the Connector is a flexible API which is customized for each managed system.

CTSGATE

Mainframe side communicator gateway. Responsible for communication with Connector Gateway and CTSACS /CTSACD. It is also responsible for starting and stopping CTSACS and CTSACD.

CTSACS

Transaction Server - is responsible for SailPoint transactions handling.

Note
May be 1 to 3 transaction servers.

Managed System Interface

Responsible on the interface with RACF itself. It translates SailPoint transactions into RACF commands (provisioning transactions). It uses RACF's API to aggregate RACF's entities from RACF to provisioning module.

Managed System

RACF

CTSACD

Notification Server - Reads events written to Queue by Interceptor, retrieve relevant entity up-to-date status from RACF and pass entity data to CTSGATE.

Interceptor

Responsible for intercepting Mainframe local changes done by RACF administrators and end-users and writes them to Queue.

Two types of interceptors can be used in the Connector:

  • Online Interceptor: Detects security administration events as they occur.

  • Offline Interceptor: Detects security administration events in batch.

Connector Queue

The Connector queue is a dataset in which all security data is saved before it is sent to SailPoint via the Notification Server. If communication between Connector and SailPoint fails, Managed System events continue to be stored in the Connector queue and are sent to SailPoint when communication is re-established.