KPIs disappearing? No way!

Look at this article:
http://www.prelert.com/blog/623/Fair enough prelert tries to make their money but I spot this:
"KPI’s probably won’t disappear any time soon, but predictive analytics tools for IT operations, such as Prelert’s, will increasingly become indispensable for predicting and tracing the roots of performance issues."
KPI can be anything, I just invented a new one: time to find a needle in haystack, let's call it short: Time To Needle.
Hence, I think KPIs will stay with us forever. There always will be performance of something to measure and express.

What is the important thing in GUI?

I just read this article:
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/european-technology/ok-so-stick-with-windows-xp-but-how-big-a-risk-do-you-run/1627?tag=nl.e101&s_cid=e101&ttag=e101

After reading the whole article out, I started wondering what is the best thing I like in Windows XP the most.

It's GUI.

There's something in common in Windows XP, Samsung TouchWiz or LG Smart TV GUI (its biggest sense can be seen in Home Dashboard) are EASY and SIMPLE or CLEAR, English dictionary suggests me to say legible. This, plus the fact those GUIs colorful in kind of elegant way (to me, some people may see they're kitch) makes me to stay and use it and enjoy.

I'll never forget those long hours spent on freshly new installed Windows XP systems, while working with HTML, JavaScript and PHP pages back in 2012/2013. So modern, user friendly and so cool Windows XP seemed to be so was the work with tools and apps. On top of that, music being played in WinAmp was adding a charm to those long evenings and nights over my computers. In fact, there's kind of sentiment in my generation and older too - Windows XP was the first one in Windows series which I didn't have to reinstall at least annually.

And now, well, XP is going to sunset in 12 months. Pity. Sentiment is there. And just a greatly simple GUI is something I cannot understand why MS gave up. 

XMLtoolkit stop issue

If this ever happened to you, that XMLtoolkit doesn’t want to stop normally or gives you other issues related to creating connection to itself, it must be registry error.

Here’s the symptom:

[netcool@tbsm61 bin]$ ./tbsmrdr_stop.sh GTMCL5478W: The request could not be delivered, the toolkit may be down. If the toolkit is busy processing data, allow it to complete and shutdown gracefully. If the toolkit is idle but will not stop, reissure the request with the -f flag. The exception was: Exception creating connection to: 172.16.1.103; nested exception is:         java.net.NoRouteToHostException: No route to host retCode: 4

So I try to stop my XMLtoolkit instance and the script fails and the toolkit itself keeps running.

This is mainly because of XMLtoolkit failover capability feature. Each instance registers itself by IP of the machine it runs on, and it’s usually IP configured for the first network interface. You can check on this at any time:

[netcool@tbsm61 bin]$ ./registryupdate.sh -U db2inst1 -P smartway -v GTMCL5457I: Toolkit registry table information. ID: 1         Name: 172.16.1.103         Primary: true         Action: 0         LastUpdate: Thu Jan 01 01:00:00 CET 1970 ID: 2         Name: null         Primary: false         Action: 0         LastUpdate: Thu Jan 01 01:00:00 CET 1970 GTMCL5358I: Processing completed successfully. retCode: 0

The corresponding value is written to xmltoolkitsvc.properties under DL_Toolkit_Instance_ID property.

It may happen especially on a virtual machine, which is being reconfigured as moved to new networks. There’s quick remedy for this: update DL_Toolkit_Instance_ID property with a new value, like static IP or a unique hostname in xmltoolkitsvc.properties file and register that value in the database:

[netcool@tbsm61 bin]$ ./registryupdate.sh -U db2inst1 -P smartway -s 1 GTMCL5458I: Setting the toolkit registry table GTMCL5358I: Processing completed successfully. retCode: 0 [netcool@tbsm61 bin]$ ./registryupdate.sh -U db2inst1 -P smartway -v GTMCL5457I: Toolkit registry table information. ID: 1         Name: 10.10.10.21         Primary: true         Action: 0         LastUpdate: Thu Jan 01 01:00:00 CET 1970 ID: 2         Name: null         Primary: false         Action: 0         LastUpdate: Thu Jan 01 01:00:00 CET 1970 GTMCL5358I: Processing completed successfully. retCode: 0

The second run of the script with associated –v flag will help you verify if value was set ok.

Now it’s time to stop the toolkit without issues:

[netcool@tbsm61 bin]$ ./tbsmrdr_stop.sh GTMCL5443I: The script toolkit_stop.xml has been submitted for processing. retCode: 0

And this is it.

TBSM 6.1.1 GA

Tivoli Business Service Manager 6.1.1 was released 14.03.2013.

Just look how many new features were added:
http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v3r1/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.tivoli.itbsm.doc_4.2.1%2Fscenarios%2Fbsms_dlkc_field_valuepairs.html

I'll make bit more of overview soon. 

Here you can find the download instructions:
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/wikis/home?lang=en#/wiki/Tivoli%20Business%20Service%20Manager1/page/TBSM%206.1.x%20Milestone%206

Enjoy!

TBSM 6.1 database preparations - part 1 - DB2 instance

I just figured out how to speed up my process of preparing DB2 for TBSM database installation and wanted to share with you guys. Today I wanted to share something rather universal, not just for TBSM use, so people from other areas may enjoy too. It's command line DB2 instance creation process with saving time on not having to take few other actions more by running the following commands in right order and with right parameters.
This is Linux ready, with some modifications will be fine for other UNIXes.
You do all as root.

 1. Create groups - you need them first, standard names:
groupadd db2iadm1
groupadd db2fadm1
groupadd dasadm1

2. Create home dirs - let's assume we run home at /home:
mkdir /home/db2inst1
mkdir /home/db2fenc1
mkdir /home/dasusr1

3. Add users (standard names, bash assumed existing, remove -s flag and value if not available at your box)
mkgroup db2iadm1
useradd -g db2iadm1 -s /bin/bash -d /home/db2inst1 db2inst1
mkgroup db2fadm1
useradd -g db2fadm1 -s /bin/bash -d /home/db2fadm1 db2fenc1
mkgroup dasadm1
useradd -g dasadm1 -s /bin/bash -d /home/dasusr1 dasusr1

4. Setting passwords:
passwd db2inst1
db2inst1's New password:
Re-enter db2inst1's new password:
passwd db2fenc1
Changing password for "db2fenc1"
db2fenc1's New password:
Re-enter db2fenc1's new password:
passwd dasusr1

5. Reconfirm all the passwords, different security policy for new password may apply for different distribution installations, example:
su - db2inst1
db2inst1's Password:
[compat]: You are required to change your password. Please choose a new one.
db2inst1's New password:
Re-enter db2inst1's new password:

6. Ensure home directories are owned by right users, it will help with setting up environment variables automatically for DB2 instance by the installer:
chown db2inst1:db2iadm1 /home/db2inst1/
chown db2fenc1:db2fadm1 /home/db2fenc1
chown dasusr1:dasadm1 /home/dasusr1

7. Configuring the DB2 instance for TBSM DB - remember of passing port number, it will save you time later by configuring TCPIP and service name automatically now:
[root@yourmachine]:\ # cd /opt/IBM/db2/V9.7/instance
[root@yourmachine]:\ # ./db2icrt -a SERVER -p 50000 -s ese -u db2fenc1 db2inst1
DBI1070I Program db2icrt completed successfully.
[root@yourmachine]:\ # ./db2iauto -on db2inst1
[root@yourmachine]:\ # su - db2inst1


Few postinstall steps, do all as DB2 instance administrative user this time:

8. Check on DB2 variables. DB2COMM is one you need to be set up for reaching the instance from TBSM later on:
[db2inst1@yourmachine]: # db2set
DB2COMM=tcpip
DB2AUTOSTART=YES

9. Check on the license expiration date, make sure it's Permanent before you roll out your TBSM to production:
[db2inst1@yourmachine]: # db2licm -l
Product name: "DB2 Enterprise Server Edition"
License type: "Trial"
Expiry date: "10/01/2012"
Product identifier: "db2ese"
Version information: "9.7"
Product name: "DB2 Connect Server"
License type: "Trial"
Expiry date: "10/01/2012"
Product identifier: "db2consv"
Version information: "9.7"

10. Check on the code level if any fixpacks need to be installed before TBSM (in TBSM 6.1 minimum is 9.5 FP3 or 9.7 FP3)
[db2inst1@yourmachine]: # db2level
DB21085I Instance "db2inst1" uses "64" bits and DB2 code release "SQL09076"
with level identifier "08070107".
Informational tokens are "DB2 v9.7.0.6", "s120516", "IP23321", and Fix Pack
"6".
Product is installed at "/opt/IBM/db2/V9.7".

11. Check on whether your DB2 instance is up and running:
[db2inst1@yourmachine]: # db2start
SQL1026N The database manager is already active.

12. You can make sure whether any databases were installed successfully at any time by running this command:
[db2inst1@yourmachine]: # db2 list db directory
SQL1031N The database directory cannot be found on the indicated file system.
SQLSTATE=58031

13. Create sample db manually, connect to it, disconnect and drop - the simplest test ever, in order to make sure all went ok


14. You're ready to install TBSM
There's bunch of disk requirements for TBSM database installation in DB2 specifically, but I will describe it next time.
Thank you.

participating netcoolObjectServerRepository

This is a recipe for a very problem with federated repositories in WebSphere Application Server, particularly in Java application which is Tivoli Integrated Portal 2.x and several implementations of TIP-based modules, like Tivoli OMNIbus WebGUI 7.3.x and Tivoli Business Service Manager 6.x Dashboard Server.

After installing a TIP-based module with disabled option for netcoolObjectServerRepository acting as one of repositories within the central WAS federated repo, you can still do it later by running special script enabling ObjectServer plugin for VMM (Virtual Member Manager). Here's more details on that: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v8r1/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.netcool_OMNIbus.doc_7.3.0%2Ftip%2F1.1.1%2Fttip_config_vmm4objectserver.html

But it may happen that even after adding the ObjectServer repository and restarting TIP (eWAS Java process), the repository may be not visible on the list of repositories in the Realm, in WAS console.

In such a case, pay attention to wimconfig.xml file. It happened to me, for unknown reason (for now at least) that all was set up correctly but one little thing - netcoolObjectServerRepository wasn't included in "participating" xml tag in wimconfig.xml file. Simple adding the missing stanza did the job.

So, it should look like this at the end of day:

 <config:realmConfiguration defaultRealm="defaultWIMFileBasedRealm">
      <config:realms delimiter="/" name="defaultWIMFileBasedRealm" securityUse="active">
        <config:participatingBaseEntries name="o=defaultWIMFileBasedRealm"/>
        <config:participatingBaseEntries name="o=netcoolObjectServerRepository"/>
        <config:participatingBaseEntries name="dc=acme,dc=com"/>
      ...
      </config:realms>
    </config:realmConfiguration>

The example above shows usage for Netcool Object Server Repository as well as for my open LDAP repository (acme.com).

The file can be found here:
/opt/IBM/tivoli/tipv2/profiles/TIPProfile/config/cells/TIPCell/wim/config/wimconfig.xml

where
/opt/IBM/tivoli/tipv2 is the standard TIP_HOME directory on Linux platforms.

Pierwszy post

To mój pierwszy post, tak więc pozwolę sobie się tylko przedstawić.