ITSM Journalhttp://www.itsm-blueprint.com/itsmjournal/en-GB2010-07-30T19:39:51ZSquarespace Site Server v5.11.5 (http://www.squarespace.com/)Intelliden becomes IBM Tivoli Netcool Configuration Manager - First Impressionshttp://www.itsm-blueprint.com/itsmjournal/2010/7/28/intelliden-becomes-ibm-tivoli-netcool-configuration-manager.htmlAndy Bentley2010-07-28T08:51:45ZI 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.

]]>Tivoli Foundations Integrationhttp://www.itsm-blueprint.com/itsmjournal/2009/10/1/tivoli-foundations-integration.htmlToby Pass2009-10-01T15:33:10ZGeneric_clear trigger not workinghttp://www.itsm-blueprint.com/itsmjournal/2009/8/12/generic_clear-trigger-not-working.htmlAndy Bentley2009-08-12T15:57:03ZOMNIbus automations triggersOMNIbus Probe Peer to Peer failoverhttp://www.itsm-blueprint.com/itsmjournal/2009/7/21/omnibus-probe-peer-to-peer-failover.htmlAndy Bentley2009-07-21T13:55:19ZAvailability and Performance Management Netcool OMNIbus Probe Tivoli failoverApplying 7.1.0.3-TIV-SRM-IF0002 resulted in errors while attempting to run reportshttp://www.itsm-blueprint.com/itsmjournal/2009/7/21/applying-7103-tiv-srm-if0002-resulted-in-errors-while-attemp.htmlMatt Still2009-07-21T09:49:13Z7.1.0.3-TIV-SRM-IF0002 BXAA4210E Change and Configuration Management Service Desk ccmdb maximo reports tsrmProblem

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.

]]>Tips for successfully loading CSV files via MEA in Maximo 7.xhttp://www.itsm-blueprint.com/itsmjournal/2009/7/20/tips-for-successfully-loading-csv-files-via-mea-in-maximo-7x.htmlMatt Still2009-07-20T12:30:47ZMEA csv integration framework loadingBelow are a few tips to help with successful loading of data in CSV format through MEA (now known as Integration Framework)


1. Ensure that your Object Structure supports flat files

There is a text box on the object structure record that needs to be checked to allow this object to be used with CSV files.

2. Use the correct format

Export a test record to get a CSV template in the correct format to import back in.

3. Include Enterprise service and External system in file

Ensure that the first line includes the name of your enterprise service and external system. (again exporting a test record will show you the format)

4. Remove any extra commas from the first line of the CSV file

If there are 15 columns in the spreadsheet, when you edit the file in Excel and save it, it will add 15 commas to the end of the first line and cause the import to fail. After editing the file in Excel, re-open it in notepad and remove all commas after the last character on the first line.

5. Commas are deleted by Excel

When using Office 2003 (could also be other versions), if the last column in the spreadsheet is blank, any commas at the end of the line, after about row 16, get deleted by Excel. This is noticed when you re-open the document in notepad. As a workaround when in Excel, I usually fill the last column with ‘XXXXX’ then use notepad++ to search and replace the value with null afterwards.

6. If using the sequential queue to load. Ensure that the queue is empty.

If previous files were loaded and failed, the queue will be ‘blocked’ until these messages have been deleted. To see if the queue has error messages in it go to ‘Integration – ‘Message Reprocessing’.

If there are messages in the queue they will be displayed one at a time under the messages box. To clear these, check the box next to the message and click ‘select action – ‘delete message’.

If there is more than one message then this can be very time consuming as there will a 5 seconds delay before the next message appears. To delete these in bulk login to the WebSphere console and navigate to the sequential queue;

Service Integration (in left hand column ‘Buses’ click on ‘intjmsbus’ ‘messaging engines’ click on the ‘ctgNode01.MXServer-intjmsbus’ ‘queue points’ click on the sequential queue ‘SQINBD@ctgNode01.MXServer-itjmsbus’ ‘Runtime’ tab  Messages

Then select ‘Delete All’

 

7. Check for any non standard characters within the file.

Use notepad++ to open your file and check for any non standard characters within the file that will cause issues while loading.

]]>Changes to 'field-size-config.xml' file didn’t take effect in pre-production systemhttp://www.itsm-blueprint.com/itsmjournal/2009/7/20/changes-to-field-size-configxml-file-didnt-take-effect-in-pr.htmlMatt Still2009-07-20T12:27:01Zcache ccmdb ear file maximo tsrmProblem

In the development system, the user wanted to increase the size of an UPPER 30 type
field across Maximo.

On the development system windows server, the 'field-size-config.xml' file was edited and the
value for an UPPER field was changed from 10 to 15.

The ear file was rebuilt and re-deployed via the WebSphere console.

Once the server was restarted, the user logged in and the changes had taken effect.

The same steps were repeated in an identical pre-production system, although the changes did not appear to have taken place and the field size was the same.

Solution

The cache needs to be cleared from the WebSphere application server;

Stop the Maximo server and delete the files located under the temp folder and restart Maximo;


IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\profiles\CustomXX\temp.


Additionally, if this doesn’t resolve the issue you can also uninstall the ear file, delete the specific ear file folder and re-deploy.


IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\profiles\CustomXX\InstalledApps

]]>Viewing status of all situations in ITM 6.xhttp://www.itsm-blueprint.com/itsmjournal/2009/6/26/viewing-status-of-all-situations-in-itm-6x.htmlToby Pass2009-06-26T10:00:07ZNetwork OS Identification scripthttp://www.itsm-blueprint.com/itsmjournal/2009/5/5/network-os-identification-script.htmlDavid Pridmore2009-05-05T09:36:16ZOMNIbus Naming Conventionshttp://www.itsm-blueprint.com/itsmjournal/2009/4/23/omnibus-naming-conventions.htmlAndy Bentley2009-04-23T14:04:23ZIt is important to take care when defining the names assigned to components in the OMNIbus interfaces file, particularly in a distributed environment.

There are some standard naming "rules" which have arisen due to historical conventions in the OMNIbus code or the Sybase middleware used for communication between the OMNIbus components. Additional conventions can be defined to improve the administration of your OMNIbus environment.]]>