Attributes

Attributes

Data Types

Attributes in ACMA share similar data type structures to the FIM metaverse. The following attribute types are supported.

Attribute Type	Length	SQL datatype	Presented to MV as
String (indexable)	400 characters	nvarchar(400)	String (indexable)
String	2GB	nvarchar(MAX)	String
Integer	64 bit	bigint	Integer
Boolean	1 bit	bit	Boolean
Reference	16 bytes	uniqueidentifier	Reference
DateTime	7 bytes	datetime2(3)	String (indexable)*
*As the FIM metaverse doesn't have a native DateTime data type, these attributes are imported into FIM as an ISO 8601 date time string, in the same way the FIM service does. In ACMA these values are stored as native dates, and can be compared and modified as natural date times.

As with the metaverse, all attributes can be multi-valued, apart from those with the Boolean data type.

Operations

Attributes can be configured for the following types of operations

Operation	Description
Export from FIM	The attribute supports being exported from FIM to ACMA only
Import to FIM	The attribute can be imported to FIM only
Import/Export	The attribute can be both imported to and exported from FIM
Internal	The attribute is not visible to FIM, but is usable in ACMA
Temporary	The attribute is not visible to FIM, and is not stored in the database. It is usable only within a single export session of an object. These attributes are useful for temporarily storing data, similar to how one might use a variable in code

Operations set on the attribute apply to all object classes that use the attribute. You cannot have different operation types for the same attribute bound to different object classes.

{anchor:indexing}

Indexing

Indexing attributes allows ACMA to efficiently search for values when used in lookup queries, uniqueness checks, and event processing. Without appropriate indexing, searching the database can become very slow. However, indexing an attribute increases the cost of writes to the database, so the appropriate balance between the two needs to be found.

As a general guideline, if the attribute is not being searched on, or the searches are likely to be very infrequent, then do not index the attribute. Otherwise, an index should be applied.

The topic of database performance and tuning is a complex one. As each environment is different, there are no hard and fast rules about what should or should not be done. Your local DBA can provide profiling and tuning advice specific to your environment.

Built-in attributes

There are certain built-in attributes in ACMA that cannot be modified, but can be read and used in rules and value declarations.

Attribute name	Description
objectId	The unique ID assigned to an object
deleted	Stores the time, in .NET ticks that an object was deleted. If an object is deleted this value is non-zero. This only applies to objects that have classes marked as undeletable
shadowParent	The parent object of a shadow object
shadowLink	The name of the link object that defines a shadow object relationship
objectClass	The name of the class of the object