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The availability will be based on a REST HEAD call to the plugin UI server to check the availability of the server.
If the server response successfully a relevant flag will be updated to true and the plugin info will be returned in the response if not the flag will be set to false.
The SDC UI will execute the call on UI bootstrap. The mechanize will not support automatic refreshed as such, to update the UI with a new designer or to pick up a designer’s new state the user will need to refreshwhen accessing the plugin page. This way we're making sure that only when the user wants to access the plugin page in the UI the actual online state of this particular plugin will be checked.
High-level overview
The solution will position SDC as a hosting application providing a platform for plugins to enhance the existing capabilities. Each plugin will be treated as a separate service in the eyes of SDC. From the SDC perspective, the plugin can be position anywhere. Because SDC is a multi-tier application we expect the different plugins to uphold the same architecture. There should be a separation between the FE server which is in the DMZ and serves UI pages to the BE server which is in the Protected network, that handles the DB access and the Businesses logic operations. The designer service is loosely integrated with SDC. The two integration points are the plugin UI server location, which is configurable in the FE server configuration and a rest based communication between the plugins backend and SDC backend.
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