ReadMe for IBM Tivoli Storage Manager Operational Reporting Driver 7 Updated July 19, 2003 (added MVS considerations) Welcome Thank you for evaluating this software. Your participation and feedback is highly valued and appreciated. Please send your feedback to opreport@us.ibm.com. Once you set up your SMTP server information in operational reporting an easy way to provide feedback is to right click on a report or monitor, choose Send E-mail, and then click the Feedback button. This will automatically fill in the right e-mail address, will attach the corresponding report files needed for review or problem determination, and you can provide additional comments. TSM Operational Reporting has been available under a beta program. This is the 7th driver in the beta program and is now available as a technology preview as well. A thank you goes out to the beta participants for contributing valuable feedback. The beta program will continue and will focus on gathering detailed usage information. If you would like to work with development to provide this level of information please send a note to opreport@us.ibm.com. Driver 7 is contains a number of enhancements and fixes. Contents 1) UPGRADE INSTRUCTIONS 2) ENHANCEMENTS 3) CURRENT LIMITATIONS AND WORKAROUNDS 4) DEFECTS THAT HAVE BEEN FIXED IN THIS DRIVER 5) MVS CONSIDERATIONS ====================================================================== 1) UPGRADE INSTRUCTIONS ====================================================================== If upgrading, ensure that the TSM management console is not running. New Install ------------ - Install driver 7. Nothing else is needed. From driver 4a, 5 or 6 to driver 7 ---------------------------------- - Install driver 7 into the same directory where you installed driver 4a, 5, or 6. Nothing else is needed. From driver 4 to driver 7 ------------------------- - Make a backup copy of *.rcp, *.rep, *.mon, *.msc files - Install driver 7 - Restore any *.rcp, *.rep, *.mon, *.msc files From driver 3 to driver 7 ------------------------- - Make a backup copy of *.rcp, *.rep, *.mon, *.msc files - Uninstall driver 3 - Install driver 7 - Restore any *.rcp, *.rep, *.mon, *.msc files Note: After installing driver 7 run a report and review it. The last line of a report will include operational reporting version information. If the version information does not show up as 5.x.x.-7 then you may have to uninstall your previous driver and re-install driver 7. ====================================================================== 2) ENHANCEMENTS ====================================================================== - Custom template files are now in XML - SQL Select Statement Builder - Monitors can now include Extensions and Timing Information - Web Summary now has Color Coded Collapsable Sections - Node filtering in Client Schedule Section - Limited Support for including Output from Multiple Servers in a Report - An Easy way to Provide Feedback - A new Report Timing Information Section is Available - Expiration Load Summary has been Added - Interactive Refresh Progress Indicator - HTML Reports include a web link to the TSM server - Dialogs with Significant Text Editing now have Context Menus for Cut/Paste - Refresh using Current or Scheduled Time Custom template files are now in XML Previously the operational reporting template files had names that ended in .rep or .mon. In large part to facilitate language translations the files are now in XML. The conversion process should be transparent. When a report or monitor is run the associated template files will be converted. For example, if a report was using default.rep, when the report is run under driver 7 it will be converted to XML and stored as default_rep.xml. The original file will be renamed to default_rep.old Similarly, if a monitor was using default.mon then it will be converted and stored as default_mon.xml and the original will become default_mon.old. The report's context information is updated to point to the new file as well. You can also manually convert template files from the report or monitor's property page. Select Custom Summary, and click Settings. Any referenced .mon or .rep files will be converted automatically at that point. The default file type is now .xml so only .xml files will appear in the template file drop down. You can click the Browse button to open older .mon or .rep files and have them converted. Again, the original files are preserved using an extension of .old. You do not need to include a _mon or _rep in the filename. The same .xml file format is used for both report and monitor files. The _mon or _rep naming convention was used in the automatic conversion process to ensure unique names. For example, without such a convention default.mon and default.rep would have both resolved to default.xml. SQL Select Statement Builder This is an advanced feature for those familiar with SQL select statements. On dialogs that allow you to enter select statements there is an Advanced... button which will bring up a SQL select statement builder. You can review TSM tables and columns and point and click to build select statements. You can override the default alias values by clicking an item in the list and typing in a new string. You can construct statements from up to two tables at a time. A work area lets you construct a select statement. Your target select statement is displayed in a separate area. You can right-click in the work area or select statement area to access a context menu with cut, copy, paste, undo, select-all, etc, options. You can also select text and use drag and drop or normal windows keyboard cut and paste commands to manipulate the select statements. You can test the statements as you construct them and this is recommended. Note that the amount of time a TSM server takes to execute select statements depends on a number of factors and the same select statement may run quickly on one server and slowly on another. Some key factors include the amount of other workload taking place on the server when it gets the select statement - the busier the server is the longer the select statement will typically take. Another is the complexity of the select statement. The simpler the faster. A hint is to try to use the simplest statement you can and avoid using joins and multiple tables when possible since TSM will have to create temporary tables and this can take quite a bit of time on a heavily loaded server. You can now choose to include timing information in your report in order to determine the impact of the select statements in each section of a report. You can use this information to decide which statements need to be optimized. For example, if you have a report that takes 20 minutes to complete and you find that 18 minutes of it is because of one section in the report you can look at optimizing that section. Monitors can now include Extensions and Timing Information Previously monitors were limited to a custom summary section. If a notification rule in the custom summary section was triggered you would be notified via e-mail and/or a net send to your desktop. If, for example, you had a notification rule to indicate whether any schedules failed or if a drive went off line you would be notified but you would not have information on which schedules failed or which drives were off line. It was helpful to be notified but you still had to issue additional queries to get the information. Driver 7 allows you to include extensions in monitors. You can, for example, add an extension and provide a select statement that lists the drives that are off line or the schedules that have failed. The extensions are only executed if a notification rule is triggered. This is done to keep the impact to the server down since monitors are run on an hourly basis. If a notification rule is triggered the extensions will be run and the sections will be included in the detailed output. Web Summary now has Color Coded Collapsable Sections Previously the web summary supported the use of collapsable and non-collapsable sections. When many reports and monitors are included in the summary it's useful to use collapsable sections to minimize scrolling. When collapsable sections were used it was not possible to determine the status of entries in a section without expanding the section. This meant a lot of expanding each time you wanted to determine overall status. Driver 7 provides a color code box on each summary section. If all the items in a section are running smoothly then the box will be green. If some items are running smoothly and some need attention the color will be yellow. If all items need attention then the color is red. Node filtering in Client Schedule Section Previously there was no way to filter the set of nodes that appear in the Client Schedule section. It was possible to add an extension to do filtering but color coding and return code mapping was lost. The schedule return code mapping rules are fairly complicated and involve client version and schedule type in addition to specific return code to text mapping. The implementation of these mapping rules is still not complete but it will be. Because its difficult to implement this functionality in an extension driver 7 adds a Settings dialog for the client schedule section. This is an advanced function. To use it you can select the Client Schedules section in the report properties sheet. Then click Settings... You will see an Advanced Node Filtering dialog. The dialog allows you to specify a Subquery in the form of a select statement. The Subquery must resolve to a list of nodes. If the Subquery is provided results will only be reported for nodes that are in the list of nodes returned by the sub-query. This is an advanced function and it may sound difficult but the Settings dialog provides a number of examples and the SQL select statement builder is available to help as well. It does provide a great deal of flexibility in determining the set of nodes to include in this section and it retains the color coding and return code mapping benefits. Limited Support for including Output from Multiple Servers in a Report Previously there was no way to include input from multiple TSM servers into a single report. Limited and alpha level functionality is included in Driver 7 to support TSM server groups and command routing. It's only available in extensions and has only seen very limited testing. It's mentioned in order to obtain your feedback at this point. To try it out you can set up a server group (See the TSM Admin reference for details) and then create an operational reporting extension which specifies the name of the group in parenthesis right before the select statement. For example, instead of an extension with the following select statement: select node_name, contact from nodes you could specify (tsm_group) select node_name, contact from nodes In addition the the columns that are returned from the server operational reporting will insert server name column into the results to specify which server the row applies to. This should work okay when results are found for each server. If results are not found for a given server in the group or if other errors are encountered it will likely result in error information being returned in the report rather than a clean table. Please provide feedback on the importance of this and similar functionality. An Easy way to Provide Feedback Right-click on a report or monitor, choose Send E-Mail, click Feedback, add any additional comments and click Send. We would like to see your reports and hear your comments. By examining your reports we are better able to tell how operational reporting is being used and whether there are cases that are not being handled well or properly. Gaining insight into your environments will help us to provide better solutions. If you are having problems with a report this is also an easy way to provide problem determination information as the report/monitor html and text files, the .in, .out, log, and trace files are included in the attachment list by default. A new Report Timing Information Section is Available Reports and monitors can take a lot of time to produce. Because a report or monitor can include many sections including your own extensions it can be hard to determine where time is being spent and if a select statement in an extension section needs tuning. Driver 7 provides a new section that includes detailed timing information. The timing section lists each section included in the report along with its query time and processing time. Query time is the amount of time a TSM server takes to execute and processing time is the amount of time operational reporting takes to produce the report section. Total time is also included. Expiration Load Summary has been Added An expiration load summary section is now available and is similar to the other load summary sections. All load summary sections have had their labels updated to better reflect the values that are represented. Load summaries scan hourly activity for a range of hours - typically 24. The highest hourly value represents 100% and is used to normalize all other values. The highest hourly value will result in that hour's section displaying 10 green segments where each segment represents 10%. Other sections will display the number of green segments corresponding to the percentage load for that hour. Interactive Refresh Progress Indicator A progress bar is displayed when a refresh is in progress. HTML Reports include a web link to the TSM server Driver 6 introduced the Server Name, Version, Platform, and Time stamp included in reports. Driver 7 turns the Server Name into a link that when clicked will bring you to the Web admin interface for that server. Dialogs with Significant Text Editing now have Context Menus for Cut/Paste A number of dialogs previously limited input to one line and did not provide an easy way to cut and paste text - the only option was to use the keyboard to do cut and paste. These dialogs such as the ones that let you construct select statements or send e-mail, etc, now support a context menu (right-click in the text area) as well as drag and drop to cut and paste. Refresh using Current or Scheduled Time Previously you could only refresh using the current time. Driver 7 allows you to refresh a report using either the current time or the scheduled time. ====================================================================== 3) CURRENT LIMITATIONS AND WORKAROUNDS ====================================================================== Limitation Workaround Comments ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Cannot currently rename You can delete a To be fixed in a TSM computer - the computer and create an upcoming driver. menu item is grayed out. a new one ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Various toolbar icons Right-click on tree To be fixed in appear grayed out. items and use context an upcoming driver. menus rather than toolbar icons. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ====================================================================== 4) DEFECTS THAT HAVE BEEN FIXED IN THIS DRIVER ====================================================================== Defect Problem description ---------------------------------------------------------------------- activate_report_err If you deactivate report and run the service, the service log will show lots of handles and a msg saying it's waiting for all threads to shut down. The service will not work. deactivate_behavior Currently, deactivate report prevents it from being created - manually or on sched. Change to prevent from being created via schedule only. load_summary_shifted load summary information pattern is correct but the pattern is shifted when the report is run interactively. It's correct when run on schedule. process_view_not_ok Process view is not working - hidden copy_paste_context Add copy/paste context menu to dialogs where copy / past would be useful expiration_load_summary Need to add expiration load summary section send_mail Getting unable to load mail dll message in interactive sendmail dialog on some machines and not others. cust_summary_template Custom summary template needs to be XML add_none_entries Several sections still do not display none when there are no entries - node activity summary, missed file summary, missed file details summary monitor_prop_sht_err Property sheet for monitor brings up service prop sheet rather than monitor prop sheet scheduler_wizard_err In the timing section, if a schedule has a window in hours it will show up in days. Set is okay, but init is not ok. install_exec Create version of install.exe that does not require acct and pwd and incl it with pkg cmd_line_toolbar The toolbar button for the command line dialog is not working missed_details Missed file details is only displayed if missed file summary is selected crash_on_update_active If the properties of any report or monitor are modified while a report or monitor is in progress then it's very likely the operational reporting service will crash lines_past_border When using collapsable sections the html headers extend to the right of the report unspecified_error On Windows XP or Windows 2003, when an icon is selected from the TSM management console taskpad and a dialog is popped up and then popped down an unspecified error is displayed no_prompt_on_delete if a person accidentally chooses to delete a report or monitor or an extension within a report or monitor there is not prompt asking for a confirmation. This could easily cause extra work to recreate the items. A confirmation prompt needs to be added. ====================================================================== 5) MVS CONSIDERATIONS ====================================================================== The default custom summary section includes references to the TSM drives and libvolumes tables which don't exist on MVS. The recommended update is included below. ------------- - Start the TSM management console - Expand the tree view until you see the report for your MVS server [] Storage Management ... [+] Tivoli Storage Manager [-] Computer name [-] Server name [-] Reports [-] Operational Reports [] Daily Report <--- Select your report, right-click, and choose Properties... [+] Operational Monitors [+] Web administration [+] Command Line [+] Monitor ---------------------- Properties [x] Custom Summary [ Settings...] <-- select Custom Summary and click Settings... ---------------------- Operational Reporting - Advanced Customization [ default_rep.xml [V] [ Save As... ] <-- click Save As... - enter a new name such as default_mvs.xml - select the line starting with NDS and click Delete - select the line starting with NDO and click Delete - select the line starting with NL (the one immediately following NDO) and click Delete - select the line starting with SV and click Delete Click OK to pop down the Advanced Customization dialog Click Yes to the prompt asking if you want to save changes to default_mvs.xml Click OK to pop down the Properties sheet ---------------------- For any additional MVS reports you can repeat the above process but when you get to ---------------------- Operational Reporting - Advanced Customization [ default_rep.xml [V] <-- click the down arrow and choose default_mvs.xml from the list Click OK to pop down the Advanced Customization dialog Click OK to pop down the Properties sheet End of document