The Active Channel Server system can be broken down into the following basic parts:
The Active Channel Server provides an extremely flexible set of COM/Automation-compliant objects for creation and storage of channel information. Since they are COM-compliant, any programming language that supports the COM can access them. These objects form the core of the system, and it is through these objects that the core functionality of the system is expressed.
Channel Agents are simply scripts that programmatically update channel information during a refresh cycle. They can be written in any scripting language that supports the COM and has an Active Scripting Engine available on the system. By default, this includes VBScript and JScript. The scripts are run via an Active Scripting Host implemented though a Channel object. During the refresh cycle, the script can check the file system, databases, or catalogs for information to be included in the channel. When appropriate information is found, the script can then update the channel with new objects and information, adding titles, abstracts, items, URLs, software packages, sub-channels, etc.
Active Channel Server provides front-end tools that users and administrators can use to configure the various aspects of the system. These include a snap-in for the Microsoft® Management Console (MMC), a set of command-line utilities that run using the Microsoft® Windows® Scripting Host (WSH), and ASP pages that can be accessed through the Web Administration tool. The MMC and Web Administration tools are designed to be fully extensible, allowing developers and users to easily make new custom channel agents available for configuration through these tools.