Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Create a virtual data center with POWER7 and IBM Tivoli Provisioning Manager

 
 

Sent to you by Frank Tate via Google Reader:

 
 


Have you ever wondered how to bundle together data center resources? Do you ever have to manually deploy and configure your servers, operating systems, middleware, applications, storage and networking devices? They can be managed as a single entity using physical and virtual IBM servers. In this article, you will learn what a virtual data center is, how to create one using POWER7 VMControl and IBM Tivoli Provisioning Manager, and how to use a virtual data center to manage your IT systems and virtualization technologies as a single point of control access. In the process, we'll show you an example of how you can use the Tivoli product for patch management, which is one of the most difficult tasks to manage in a large server farm.

 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 

5 things you didn't know about ... Java performance monitoring, Part 1

 
 

Sent to you by Frank Tate via Google Reader:

 
 


Blaming bad code (or bad code monkeys) won't help you find performance bottlenecks and improve the speed of your Java applications, and neither will guessing. Ted Neward directs your attention to tools for Java performance monitoring, starting with five tips for using Java 5's built-in profiler, JConsole, to collect and analyze performance data.

 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 

Friday, June 18, 2010

HTML 5 TEP Interface

I think this where i will focus any free time. This should allow for mobile browsers to render the interface and be a lot quicker.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Never watch 8 episodes of the Sopranos

This is not technical, just a word of advice. I watched 8 episodes of the Sopranos on DVD back to back. I started swearing at truly inapprpriate moments. Probably good to throw a Brady Bunch episode in the mix.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

How to enable file transfer feature in ITM 6.2.2 FP 2

One of the coolest and long awaited feature introduced in ITM 6.2.2 FP2 is the file transfer feature. Using this, you should be able to transfer monitoring scripts, dependency files and config files down to the monitored agent. ITM provides necessary CLI to transfer files to/from the agent using "tacmd getfile" and "tacmd putfile".


However this feature is not enabled in the TEMS by default. TO enable this feature, you need to do the following steps.


1. Edit $CANDLEHOME/config/*_ms_*.config

2. Add the following enviornment variable at the end of the config file.

KT1_TEMS_SECURE='Y'

3. Restart the TEMS.

4. Now run "tacmd login" followed by "tacmd getfile" or "tacmd putfile".


Hope this helps.

Who needs an agent?

What agent should I build and offer for free next? Let me know and I
will see what I can do.

Silent Install for Agent Builder Files

To install an agent from the Agent Builder, you use the option to Create a Solution Installer Image

There is also a silent installation option. A silent.txt, is included with the final package - configure this silent file with all the connection details required. If you require additional template options - I will cover that later.

Run the appropriate installer for the operating system with the -silent option. 

For example:
setupwin32.exe -silent -options response_file


A better alternative to free virtualization.

A recently had to build a new server, really big server... 48 cores, 128gb RAM and 16tb of local storage. I wanted to use VMware ESXi server - the free bare metal hypervisor, but it is limited to 32 cpu's. I looked at Microsoft's HyperV and I have never been less impressed by a product. So I looked at Citrix Xenserver 5.6 - free version. It supports up to 64 cpu's and is a true bare metal hypervisor. There are desktop clients to manage from a workstation, it manages disk stores very niceley and has tools for all the guest OSes. It's not quite as friendly as VMware, but IMHO much more usable and easier to setup clusters.

Hushing those Navigator Updates in TEP

Add these to the cq.ini


KFW_CMW_DETECT_AGENT_ADDR_CHANGE=N
The Navigator function detects when the IP@ for an Agent is discovered. If the Agent environment is constantly changing or has improper configurations that generate excessive Navigator tree rebuilding, consider adding this environment variable to have any discovery of changes or additions of IP address ignored.

KFW_CMW_DETECT_AGENT_HOSTNAME_CHANGE=N
This variable is like the one for detecting Agent address change except that it prevents the Navigator rebuilding if an agent hostname is changed.

KFW_CMW_DETECT_AGENT_PROPERTY_CHANGE=N
Similar to the above except that it prevents the Navigator rebuilding if an agent affinity or affinity version changes.