The Generic Service Brokers

The generic “Endpoints” service brokers are used to expose non-specific APIs and services as SmartObjects. In other words, they are not written for a specific technology or product, but are rather generically used if a product or technology exposes an API or service of one of the supported types. The following generic brokers are available at time of writing:

• Endpoints Assembly (exposes public static methods of .NET assemblies as Service Objects, see http://k2.com/help/bpmatrix/integration/GenericAssembly for documentation of this service type)
• Endpoints WCF (exposes WCF services as Service Objects, see http://k2.com/help/bpmatrix/integration/GenericWCF for documentation of this service type)
• Endpoints WebService (exposes web services (usually .asmx services) as Service Objects, see http://k2.com/help/bpmatrix/integration/GenericWebService for documentation of this service type)
• OData (exposes OData data sources as Service Objects, see http://k2.com/help/bpmatrix/integration/GenericOData for documentation of this service type)
• REST (use Swagger descriptor files to expose REST endpoints as Service Objects, see http://k2.com/help/bpmatrix/integration/GenericREST for documentation of this service type)

Because the target technology may expose complex types, you may have to use serialization/deserialization to work with complex objects. K2 will attempt to expose first-level complex types as SmartObjects, but this is possible if the object only has primitive type properties (e.g. strings, numbers, dates). If the object contains other objects, then you will have to use serialization/deserialization because K2 cannot convert a complex type into a simple property. Basically, it means you use additional methods to serialize and deserialize the complex types in the SmartObject. The next topic describes serialization and deserialization in more detail.

Working with Certificates

You may need an authentication certificate to call an endpoint. In this case, you can configure K2 to use the certificate.

1. Install the certificate that is going to be used to authenticate on the K2 Server (Local Machine > Personal and Trusted Root)
2. Get the Thumbprint of the Certificate
3. Give Service Account rights to access the certificate
4. Add the following sections to the K2HostServer.exe.config file:
   1. Under <wsHttpBinding> add:
      
      <binding name="WSHttpBinding_CertificateService" closeTimeout="00:30:00" openTimeout="00:30:00" receiveTimeout="00:30:00" sendTimeout="00:30:00" bypassProxyOnLocal="false" transactionFlow="false" hostNameComparisonMode="StrongWildcard" maxBufferPoolSize="524288" maxReceivedMessageSize="296960" messageEncoding="Text" textEncoding="utf-8" useDefaultWebProxy="true" allowCookies="false"> <readerQuotas maxDepth="32" maxStringContentLength="296960" maxArrayLength="296960" maxBytesPerRead="296960" maxNameTableCharCount="296960" />
      <reliableSession ordered="true" inactivityTimeout="00:30:00" enabled="false" />
      <security mode="TransportWithMessageCredential">
      <transport clientCredentialType="None" proxyCredentialType="None" realm="" />
      <message clientCredentialType="Certificate" negotiateServiceCredential="true" algorithmSuite="Default" establishSecurityContext="false" />
      </security>
      </binding>
   2. After <bindings/> add:
      
      <behaviors>
      <endpointBehaviors>
      <behavior name="ClientCertificateBehavior">
      <clientCredentials>
      <clientCertificate findValue="PutThumbprintOfCertificateHere" storeLocation="LocalMachine" storeName="My" x509FindType="FindByThumbprint" />
      </clientCredentials>
      </behavior>
      </endpointBehaviors>
      </behaviors>
      <client>
      <endpoint address="PutEndpointAddressOfServiceHere" binding="wsHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="WSHttpBinding_CertificateService" contract="CertificateServiceContract" name="WSHttpBinding_CertificateService" behaviorConfiguration="ClientCertificateBehavior" />
      </client>