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This page provides answers to some of the most frequently asked questions regarding the Autonomic Computing Toolkit.
What is this announcement about?
A new version of the IBM Autonomic Computing Toolkit is being made available for software developers who are designing and testing autonomic solutions.
The new version has additional standards and platform support of JSR-168 portlets by the Integrated Solutions Console (ISC), includes a Web services interface in the Autonomic Management Engine and in the Generic Log Adapter. The Resource Model Builder (RMB) tool used by AME (for AIX 5.3, Solaris 9, and Red Hat Linux AS 3.0) now uses a Java-based programming model, rather than JavaScript. Self-Managing Autonomic Technology, integrated with Tivoli products, are now able to send events from the Generic Log Adapter and the Autonomic Management Engine to the Tivoli Enterprise Console. The Common Event Infrastructure is now supported by GLA. In addition, performance enhancements now address larger and more complex applications.
Why is this announcement important?
No competitor has provided an equivalent to the IBM Autonomic Computing Toolkit in the form of an integrated collection of assets and tools to assist developers. The toolkit will help developers move towards on demand environments.
Why was the toolkit developed?
In interactions with product professionals within IBM and in the business partner community, it became clear there was a need for a single point of reference to aggregate these technologies and demonstrate how they work together. This project, the IBM Autonomic Computing Toolkit, is such an aggregation vehicle.
We are working with many partner companies to help our customers take the first step toward the IBM Autonomic computing vision by utilizing the toolkit, including Aduva, BlueStorm, BridgeStream, Chorus Systems, Corente, Criston, Data Power, Forum Systems Inc, GigaSpaces, Hitachi Software, ITRS, LeoStream, Macrovision (InstallShield, Zero G), Motive, mValent, Net Integration, NetFuel, Network Performance Dynamics, Network Physics, nLayers, NS Solutions, Opalis Software, Pedestal Software, PerformanceIT, Scapa Technologies, Secure Elements Inc., SenSage, Singlestep Technologies, Solid Information Technologies, Tango/04,Tech Laboratories, and Toshiba Solutions.
How much will it cost to access the toolkit?
The intent is currently to offer a no-charge package for testing and development. In the future, when the technology is integrated into IBM and Partner products, charges may apply. ISVs will be required to request a license to enable them to incorporate the technology into their products for a production environment.
Which technologies are available in the toolkit?
The Autonomic Management Engine (AME) monitors events, analyzes them, then plans and executes corrective action on a computing resource. When combined with the other toolkit technologies, the AME is the facilitator of an autonomic self-management system.
The IBM Integrated Solutions Console provides a Web-based infrastructure using industry-standard technologies to address the need for common system administration in a customer's IT environment such as setup, configuration, run-time monitoring and control, with a consistent look and feel. The IBM Integrated Solutions Console Toolkit includes the runtime, documentation on developing components, Java doc for the Integrated Solutions Console APIs and related APIs, sample components, and plug-ins for WebSphere Studio.
The Generic Log Adapter for Autonomic Computing converts existing log files to the Common Base Event format. This component helps software developers adapt their applications to the common format without the need to re-write the applications.
The Log and Trace Analyzer for Autonomic Computing supports reading logs in the Common Base Event format, correlating the logs based on different criteria and viewing the correlated log records -- enabling faster root cause analysis and problem determination in the end-to-end heterogeneous environment.
What tools are available in the toolkit?
The IBM Integrated Solutions Console tools provided include the runtime, documentation on developing components, Java doc for the Integrated Solutions Console APIs and related APIs, sample components, and plug-ins for WebSphere Studio.
The Resource Model Builder is used to customize Autonomic Management Engine.
The Adapter Configuration Editor is used to develop rules for the Generic Log Adapter for those cases where the Autonomic Computing Toolkit does not already include the necessary rule sets.
What scenarios are included in the toolkit?
Solution Installation
The solution installation and deployment scenario targets the self-configuring aspect of autonomic computing. There are five levels of autonomic maturity: basic, managed, predictive, adaptive, and autonomic (see the Autonomic Computing Toolkit User's Guide for more information on autonomic maturity levels). The solution installation and deployment scenario aims to be predictive in nature (level 3), enabling the software installation process to require less user intervention. The installation process can predict and alert you when a key dependency is missing. This predictive behavior enhances the reliability and maintainability of the system.
Problem Determination
The Problem Determination scenario represents a simple self-managing system that uses an intelligent control loop to collect system information, analyze it, plan appropriate responses, and then make necessary adjustments to resolve problems. This scenario exposes the specific technologies that make up a realistic self-healing system, and demonstrates how they work together to achieve an adaptive level (level 4 of the autonomic maturity levels) of self-management.
What other resources are available on the toolkit?
The toolkit also includes documentation such as schema specifications, on-line tutorials, user guides and developer guides.
What changes or enhancements were made in the new version of the Autonomic Computing Toolkit Release 3?
The enhancements for Release 3 of the Autonomic Computing Toolkit are listed in the What's new section.
What platforms are supported by the IBM Autonomic Computing Toolkit?
This table lists the platforms supported by the IBM Autonomic Computing Toolkit.
What's the difference between the Emerging Technologies Toolkit (ETTK Toolkit) on alphaWorks and IBM Autonomic Computing Toolkit?
The ETTK is a software development kit for designing, developing, and executing emerging autonomic and Web service technologies. The ETTK provides an environment in which to run emerging technology examples that showcase recently announced specifications and prototypes from IBM's emerging technology development and research teams. The specifications and prototype may not be adopted or implemented in existing IBM products or become products in the future, but it is a vehicle to understand what technologies IBM is investigating.
The IBM Autonomic Computing Toolkit is a collection of technologies, tools, scenarios, and documentation that is designed for developers who want to learn, adapt, and develop autonomic behavior in their products and systems. Scenarios are provided to show how the technologies can be used in realistic situations. The technologies, tools, scenarios and documentation represent standard architecture that IBM is promoting in the industry and technology components that may be incorporated into IBM products or business partner products in the future.
What standards bodies have accepted Solution Installation?
IBM has been working with leading industry vendors like Novell and Macrovision to develop the specifications. The specifications have been published by W3C to make these available to the Industry on a royalty free license basis. We are making a call to the Industry to form and participate in a standards workgroup to formalize a standard to address the needs addressed by these specifications.
How can I take advantage of this new technology against already deployed software applications?
The package schema can declare requirements against the existence of software not installed using Solution Install technology. The Solution Installation technology provides a mechanism for discovering software that was not installed using Solution Install technology.
What specific pain points would the Solution Installation technology address?
Today, each component of a solution has its own way of describing dependencies and capturing the metadata. This means that when installing a solution made up of multiple components, the amount and quality of information about the components and its dependencies varies and compromises the chance for a successful installation. In addition, dependency checking is largely a manual process and knowledge of the environment is often not available or complete - through the use of standardized packaging and manageability interfaces, customers will be able to clearly identify dependencies and verify their environments.
What are the plans for IBM brands to adopt Solution Installation technology?
IBM's brands are in various stages of adoption of the technology into their products, so that they can be all packaged and installed in a consistent way. We anticipate that the brands will be announcing products, as their development plans solidify.
By partnering with the tool vendors like Macrovision Corp., IBM is sharing with the rest of the industry the same technology it is encouraging its own brands to use. We are launching this effort across the industry, based on Open Standards. We anticipate that the IT industry will see and reap the benefits of the technology soon.
How does this technology work with Rational Clearcase?
Clearcase from Rational automates Software Change Management processes in the production and modification of files, directories, components, and systems. By providing a way to capture dependency information in an open industry format and providing a framework to automatically process the same during installation, Solution Installation technology enhances the operational capabilities of Clearcase.
Can the newly announced technology be used to package software in the Java development environment - files like EARs and JARs, and so on?
Yes. The architecture is agnostic to the type of files, one would like to package. You can use the Solution Installation technology to package Java files and install them on the target platforms.
How does Solution Installation differ from RPM?
Solution Installation can invoke any Native Installer like RPM. The Solution Installation technology has built-in actions for deploying native installers like RPM, ISMP (InstallShield MultiPlatform), MSI ( Microsoft installer ).
How does Solution Installation differ from Microsoft's DSI?
Microsoft's SDM (Systems Definition Model) addresses the consistent packaging and distribution of software, as part of their Dynamic Systems Initiative (DSI). DSI today focuses on packaging and distributing the operating system and associated files, primarily in the windows environment.
IBM's initiative is much broader than that. By embracing the industry-standards where they exist (XML) for packaging the files, adopting a common set of specifications in collaboration with industry leaders like Macrovision Corp. and Novell, and intending to take the specifications to the appropriate standards bodies, IBM is making a call to the Industry to come and embrace the open-standard format for packaging & installation of components.
In addition, IBM's efforts go beyond just the Operating systems as the target platform. The Solution Installation technology for Autonomic Computing is applicable for a variety of target platforms including operating systems, databases and application servers.
How does Solution Installation differ from Shell scripts?
Shell scripts can be used to deploy software, but are limited by their platform-specific nature and lack of encapsulation. Solution Installation allows you to create software packages which contain all of the files necessary to install and which declare the steps necessary to deploy in a platform-independent XML schema In addition, Solution Installation provides an action for invoking external commands like a batch file or shell script.
What are the hardware/software requirements for Solution Installation Technology?
Solution Installation requires approximately 70MB of disk space on the target machine over and above the deployed application. This is a one time allocation of space for the Solution Installation runtime that will be used by all products deploying using SI. Typical usage of Solution Installation requires approximately 256 megabytes of RAM.
Can existing Tivoli products use packages created using this new technology?
Yes, this standard has no impact on Tivoli products such as Tivoli Configuration Manager or Tivoli Provisioning Manager. These products transport and leverage installation packages today as part of their ability to deploy and manage an entire system or environment, and installations developed with this technology would be completely compatible with Tivoli solutions.
How do we get support for the Solution Installation technology?
The Solution Installation technology is being made available through our partner – Macrovision Corp. Macrovision Corp. will provide support to those customers who get the technology through them. For those customers who get these technologies through these partners, they will get support through these partners.
Those who are interested in procuring the SI technology and use this natively in their environment are encouraged to contact their IBM representative.
What standards bodies have accepted Problem Determination?
IBM has been working with leading industry vendors, like Cisco, to develop the specifications. IBM has submitted the Common Base Event specification to the Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM) technical committee of the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). Ratification of WS-DM V1.0 Spec as an OASIS Standard occurred in March 2005.
How can I take advantage of this new technology against already deployed software applications?
The Generic log Adapter can be used to convert log files into the Common Base Event format.
What specific pain points would the Problem Determination technology address?
Today, each component of a solution has its own log file format. This means that an administrator must manually sort through all the log files to interpret them in a standard way, so they can be analyzed and a root cause can be determined. By having all log files in a common format and using the Log Trace Analyzer, an administrator can easily perform the necessary comparisons that are required to isolate the source of a problem.
What are the plans for IBM brands to adopt Problem Determination technology?
IBM's brands are in various stages of adoption of the technology into their products, so that their log files are in the Common Base Event format. Over 30 products have already been announced and more are planned. Examples of products that support the Common Base Event Format today are DB2 V8.2, WebSphere Application Server 6.0, Rational Performance Tester, Rational Application Developer, and Virtualization Engine.
What are the hardware/software requirements for Problem Determination?
The Autonomic Computing Users Guide contains all the requirements for the individual problem determination components in the toolkit.
What's the goal of the IBM Integrated Solutions Console?
The primary goal of the IBM Integrated Solutions Console is to provide a single Web -based platform from industry-standard technologies. The IBM Integrated Solutions Console can host the administrative console functions for managing industry solutions rather than specific products. The solutions could include IBM hardware and/or software and business partner applications and/or customer applications. Administrative console functions range from setup and configuration to run-time monitoring and control.
What's the benefit for customers to use the IBM Integrated Solutions Console?
Many companies that provide installed administrative consoles are being pressured by customers to provide Web-based consoles so that administrators can configure and manage servers remotely without having to install and maintain console software on their desktops. These customers want to do this without creating a parallel but separate infrastructure from their e-business investment. The same problems of user interface design, personalized presentation, security, reliability, and availability must be solved for administrative and end-user applications.
There is a growing awareness of the expense of solving the technical problems accompanying conversion from an installed to a Web-based console. By providing a way to reuse existing hardened technologies for administration, specifically application server and portal technologies that already solve many of these problems for end-user applications, the Integrated Solutions Console gives products a less expensive way to bridge to the Web.
How does this technology work?
The IBM Integrated Solutions Console consists of a WebSphere-based framework for hosting administrative components developed for applications. The console components are created using industry-standard technologies such as portlets, XML, HTML, and JSPs. Administrative activities are executed as portlets that have access to all of the standard services within the Java™ Enterprise Edition (J2EE) environment provided by the underlying WebSphere Application Server.
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