When you specify the authentication type, Rational Publishing Engine ensures that the correct protocol is used first and unnecessary requests are not performed. You might see a significant performance improvement in document generation time if your data source requires Basic, OAuth, or OAuth-OSLC authentication or if you are using a complex template that requires many requests from the data source. If no authentication type is specified, each type is tested.
For more information about how user names and passwords are stored, see Security considerations for IBM® Rational Publishing Engine.
Creating the oslcServiceProviders.xml file outside the default RPE_HOME/config directory supports team collaboration environments. The oslcServiceProviders.xml file can be reused by multiple users when placing the file in a shared location, and set the com.ibm.rational.rpe.config.oslcServiceProviders property to point to the shared location.