Important

Exago v2020.1 with a planned release in Q2 2020 will replace all existing Storage Management methods, and therefore Cloud Storage is not recommended for new deployments as it will not be available. For more information, contact your Customer Success Manager.

A new feature of v2016.3+ is the ability to store reports, temp files, config, and other Exago files on an Amazon S3 Cloud server. Amazon Cloud Storage can be used for:

• Config Storage
• Report Storage
• Temp Files Storage (which includes themes and templates).

In order to connect to your cloud server:

1. Obtain the access key and secret key. See Getting Your Access Key ID and Secret Access Key for more information.
2. Locate the region code for the location of the cloud server. See Regions and Availability Zones for more information.
3. Create a formatted connection string in the following format. This string will be used in various places in the application to connect to the cloud storage repository.

region='region';accesskey='accesskey';secretkey='secretkey';bucketname='bucketname'

• region: Indicates the region of the cloud server from step 2.
• accesskey: Amazon access key credential from step 1.
• secretkey: Amazon secret key credential from step 1.
• bucketname: The storage directory.

EC2 v2016.3.4+

To enable EC2 instances access to S3 buckets, an IAM role needs to be created and tied to the instances with a policy allowing that level of access.

To use instance credentials, set every instance of accesskey to equal 'ec2' (accesskey='ec2').

The Config, Reports, and Temp files can all reside in a single S3 bucket, and will be placed automatically into separate Config, Reports, and Temp folders, which should not need to be created ahead of time.

Config Storage

An Exago installation contains a configuration file, typically namedWebReports.xml, which tells the application where to store Reports and Temp files.

There are three ways which you can specify a cloud location for the config file:

1. A file in the Exago install directory called appSettings.config.
2. If you're using the .NET API, a parameter in the API constructor method.
3. If you're using the REST Web Service API, a connection string needs to be placed in both appSettings.config files in the WebServiceApi folder and the Web Application install directory.

Method 1: appSettings.config

Exago contains an XML file called appSettings.config in the root folder of the install directory. If it does not exist, create it as a text file with the following content:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<appSettings>
</appSettings>

This file is used for custom app settings which are automatically imported into web.config during runtime. For more information, see appSettings.config / app.config.

Note

Do not edit the web.config file directly. It is automatically generated by Exago, and any changes to it will be overridden.

To set the config file location, place your connection string in the appSettings.config file:

<add key="ExagoConfigPath" value="pathtype=s3;region='region';accesskey='accesskey';secretkey='secretkey';bucketname='bucketname';storagekey=config"/>

The 'bucketname' and 'region' values will need to be modified for their environment. 'bucketname' is the S3 bucket that will be to used for config, report, and temp storage, and 'region' is the region the S3 bucket belongs to.

To allow S3 access for EC2 instances, add the following line to the config after configuring the EC2 instances:

<add key="ExagoConfigPath" value="pathtype=s3;region='region';accesskey='ec2';bucketname='bucketname';storagekey=config"/>

Method 2: .NET API

Exago .NET API apps cannot access the appSettings.config file. Instead, you must use one of the following two methods to specify a config file location:

1. Place the config key within the host application's web.config or app.config.
2. Pass the connection string in the API constructor method:

Api myApi = new Api("/exago/virtual/path", "WebReports.xml", "pathtype=s3;region='region';accesskey='accesskey';secretkey='secretkey';bucketname='bucketname'");

Similarly, managing and creating folders within an S3 file system through the .NET API requires an alternate method than the one listed in the .NET API General Reference. Instead of using the ReportMgmtFileSystem class to create, rename, or otherwise manage the file system within the .NET API, methods defined within the ReportManagement property of the API object must be used. For example, to add folders via the .NET API when using S3 storage, the following method should be called:

api.ReportManagement.AddFolder("<parent folder>", "<child folder>");

Method 3: REST Web Service API

The REST Web Service API requires the following connection string to be placed in both appSettings.config files, located in the WebServiceApi folder and Exago's install directory.

<add key="ExagoConfigPath" value="pathtype=s3;region='us-east-1';accesskey='accesskey';bucketname='bucketname';secretkey='secretkey';storagekey=config"/>

Reports Storage

To use Amazon for report and folder management, enter your connection string in the Report Path field of the configuration.

Admin Console > General > Main Settings > Report Path

pathtype=s3;region='region';accesskey='accesskey';secretkey='secretkey';bucketname='bucketname'

For EC2, the Report Path should be defined as:

pathtype=s3;region='region';accesskey='ec2';bucketname='bucketname'

Temporary File Storage

To use Amazon for temp file storage, enter your connection string in the Temp Cloud Service field of the configuration.

Admin Console > General > Main Settings > Temp Cloud Service

type=s3;region='region';accesskey='accesskey';secretkey='secretkey';bucketname='bucketname'

For EC2, the Temp Path should be defined as:

pathtype=s3;region='region';accesskey='ec2';bucketname='bucketname'

Note

You still need to maintain a local temp directory (Temp Path field).