I can't compare the relative merits of Intelliden with its peers but was excited to hear that IBM were filling out their network management portfolio with a configuration management piece when the intention to buy the company was announced.

Now we are presented with IBM Tivoli Netcool Configuration Manager (ITNCM). The first thing that strikes me is that it is not simply a blue-wash of the old Intelliden product with IBM logos and other minor tweaks to the GUI. It's accessible, where all Tivoli products *should* be, from the TIP and integrated with OMNIbus and Network Manager (ITNM). Well, mostly. Judging from the video posted yesterday there is a wealth of functional integration between the products.

Sometimes "integration" means "it forwards a trap", but here we have much more.

Right-clicks from a device in ITNM or an event in OMNIbus bring up launch-in-context ITNCM menu picks. The history of changes made to a device is available from within ITNM, might be handy for trouble-shooting issues that could be related to those changes.

Changes made in ITNCM are flagged in OMNIbus, together with their status. Nice to see OMNIbus being used as the repository of such events rather than introducing a separate log elsewhere.

Compliance alerts from the ITNCM Compliance Manager are also sent to OMNIbus. Again, good to see OMNIbus acting as the single place to go for all network related events.

All of these alerts are linked back to their representative icons in the ITNM network views, the work flow seems to be nicely joined-up.

I am rather disappointed that the old GUIs haven't been merged fully into the TIP. They appear in new windows rather than as tabs in the TIP and a seperate login is required to bring up the Compliance Manager GUI. These are minor quibbles given the integration points that have been provided, but I hope one day to see all the Tivoli products using the same GUI.

I'm looking forward to a proper look-see at ITNCM but the initial impression is a very good one. I hadn't expected such a tight integration so soon after the acquisition.

IBM has released two new Lotus Foundation Appliances: http://www.tivoli-foundations.com/ These are made up of: * Application Manager - ITM 6 in a box * Service Manager - Service Desk (TSRM) in a box

Click to read more ...

In OMNIbus 7.2.0, the generic_clear trigger does not work if the value in the AlertGroup field is greater than 64 characters.

Click to read more ...

In Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus it isn't only servers that are highly resilient. OMNIbus probes can also be configured to provide hot-standby.

Click to read more ...

Problem

User applied interim fix pack 7.1.0.3-TIV-SRM-IF0002 on to a CCMDB/TSRM install. Afterwards it was noticed that when clicking on reports and selecting any report to run, a pop-up comes up asking which report they would like to run. Within 1/2 sec an error also pops up on the screen as follows;

BMXAA4210E - Database error number -7 has occurred.

The character "&" following "COMPANY" and runtype" is not valid.

 In the logs the following appears;

0000004f SystemOut O 15 Jul 2009 12:35:15:167 [ERROR] BMXAA6713E - The MBO fetch failed in the mboset with the SQL error code:-7

com.ibm.db2.jcc.c.SqlException: The character "&" following "COMPANY' and runtype" is not valid.

at com.ibm.db2.jcc.c.fg.e(fg.java:1596)

at com.ibm.db2.jcc.c.fg.a(fg.java:1206)

at com.ibm.db2.jcc.b.gb.g(gb.java:140)

at com.ibm.db2.jcc.b.gb.a(gb.java:39)

at com.ibm.db2.jcc.b.w.a(w.java:34)

at com.ibm.db2.jcc.b.vb.g(vb.java:139)

at com.ibm.db2.jcc.c.fg.n(fg.java:1177)

at com.ibm.db2.jcc.c.fg.a(fg.java:1832)

at com.ibm.db2.jcc.c.fg.a(fg.java:473)

at com.ibm.db2.jcc.c.fg.executeQuery(fg.java:457)

at psdi.mbo.MboSet.getNextRecordData(MboSet.java:2994)

at psdi.mbo.MboSet.fetchMbosActual(MboSet.java:2529)

at psdi.mbo.MboSet.fetchMbos(MboSet.java:2495)

at psdi.mbo.MboSet.getMbo(MboSet.java:1815)

at psdi.webclient.beans.report.ReportRoxListBean.initialize(ReportRoxListBean.java:58)

at psdi.webclient.system.beans.DataBean.getMboSet(DataBean.java:1257)

at psdi.webclient.system.beans.DataBean.getZombie(DataBean.java:2098)

at psdi.webclient.controls.TableCol.initialize(TableC 

Solution

Regenerate the report pages as follows:

Go to --> administration --> reporting- -> report administration --> press enter to display all reports --> then press the generate request pages on the bottom left of the app.

It will take a few minutes to process all the reports, after which the error message will stop appearing.