.. highlight:: xml
.. index:: Introduction

.. _intro:

Introduction 
------------

DataPower Buddy ("DPBuddy") is a tool for automating administration and management of IBM WebSphere DataPower appliances. The tool supports configuration export, configuration import, file transfer, backups and many other functions, as described in this document. 

Each of these functions is implemented as a command (a.k.a. command-line interface - CLI) that can be run directly from command line/shell and as a custom task for the `Apache Ant <http://ant.apache.org/>`_ build tool.  

For example, to import a domain, you can run the following command:

.. code-block:: bat

   dpbuddy import -file domain.zip -assertObjectsUp -save


This command will import the configuration and files contained in "domain.zip", verify that all objects and services are up and running after the import and save the domain's configuration.

To implement the same functionality in an Ant build script, you could create an Ant target containing the :ref:`dp:import task <import>` (all DPBuddy tasks have ``dp:`` XML namespace prefix):
        
.. code-block:: xml

   <target name="import.domain" >
      <dp:import file="domain.zip" assertObjectsUp="true" save="true"  />
   </target>

You can find many more examples in your DPBuddy distribution under ``samples`` or `online <http://myarch.com/dpbuddy-examples/>`_. The directories ``samples/cli-shell`` and ``samples/cli-win`` contain CLI examples for Linux and Windows respectively. The ``samples/ant-tasks`` folder contains examples of Ant tasks. You can also look at ``samples/ant-end-to-end`` and `dp-build.deploy.xml <http://myarch.com/dpbuddy-example-end-to-end/>`_, which implements an end-to-end build/deploy process using DPBuddy. 
  
Internally DPBuddy uses the DataPower SOAP interface a.k.a. SOAP Configuration Management ("SOMA") for all of its functions. You can find more details about SOMA in `DataPower InfoCenter <http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/wsdatap/v6r0m0/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.dp.xi.doc%2Fxmi_soapinterface.html&resultof%3D%2522%2553%254f%254d%2541%2522%2520%2522%2573%256f%256d%2561%2522%2520/>`_ or in `this redbook <http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpapers/pdfs/redp4446.pdf>`_, however, no knowledge of SOMA is required to be able to use DPBuddy. Reliance on SOMA means that DPBuddy runs all of its commands remotely over HTTPS using the port dedicated to the XML management interface. You can find this port under Network/Management/XML Management Interface in DataPower WebGUI.