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Using IBM Tivoli Monitoring to trigger an IBM Support Assistant Collection
In this article, discover how to run an automated data collection based on problems detected by IBM Tivoli Monitoring (ITM). Learn how to setup your environment and create IBM Tivoli Monitoring situations to trigger a data collection during error scenarios. We'll run through an example on how to set up an ITM situation for when IBM WebSphere Application Server goes down unexpectedly.
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Articles |
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21 Nov 2008 |
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J2EE application logging using CEI and Web 2.0
This article enables a J2EE architect to implement effective application logging and provides an approach to persist the log events in a standard format to a database with minimal effort. It also explains how an architect can asynchronously retrieve log events from a Common Event Infrastructure (CEI) repository using a simple Web application.
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Articles |
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06 Nov 2008 |
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Automated System Recovery in Static IP environments using Tivoli Storage Manager
The current Tivoli Storage Manager Automated System Recovery Process supports Networks which supports DHCP. In networks that does not support DHCP and uses Static IP's,the local backup sets are used to recover these systems in case of a crash or total failure. In very large environments, servers cannot be ported on DHCP as the applications hosted in the servers are IP conscious. A typical example of such an environment would be a datacenter with multiple application servers that access the multiple database servers. In these environments, the servers are necessarily configured with static IP's. This article describes an Automated System Recovery process which facilitates system recovery in Static IP environments.
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16 Oct 2008 |
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Extending the Simplified Policy Language with custom expressions
SPL has a wide set of useful expressions designed to satisfy the need to express
a wide variety of conditional statements as well as a macro feature that helps reduce
the buildup of complex expressions. However, even this large collection of expressions
may not be sufficient to address the end user's requirements. The end user can easily
extend SPL by introducing custom expressions. In this article, learn how to extend SPL with custom expressions through a simple example.
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13 May 2008 |
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Solution Deployment Descriptor (SDD), Part 1: An emerging standard for deployment artifacts
The Solution Deployment Descriptor (SDD) is an emerging standard for a set of
XML documents that define deployment metadata about deployment artifacts and the
aggregation of deployment artifacts. Externalizing deployment knowledge that has been
more commonly buried in code or documentation provides multiple benefits. Consumers of
SDDs, including humans and software, can use the knowledge provided about both the
requirements for and results of successful deployment to better plan for and execute
successful changes to their software environments. This article describes the SDD and
provides a high-level overview of the support provided.
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29 Apr 2008 |
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Autonomic computing in Canadian academia, Part 1
As IBM grows and develops autonomic technologies, the autonomic computing
initiative relies heavily on research and development to present innovative ideas,
improve existing technologies, and prototype in the most rapidly expanding development
areas. In this article, take a look at two autonomic computing academic projects that are bringing new
developments to IBM. The first project looks at converting legacy code to source code
that is autonomic-ready, while the second project focuses on new methods for identifying problems in large-scale applications. For each project, you will understand the current research direction and then explore the project in detail. Finally, you will see how each project contributes to the Monitoring-Analysis-Planning-Execution (MAPE) loop design model and what future research directions are planned.
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Articles |
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15 Apr 2008 |
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The autonomic computing edge: Can you CHOP up autonomic computing?
The autonomic computing architecture provides a foundation on which self-managing information technology systems can be built. Self-managing autonomic systems exhibit the characteristics of self-configuring, self-healing, self-optimizing, and self-protecting; these characteristics are sometimes described with the acronym CHOP. This article discusses the self-CHOP attributes and, in particular, explains why they are not independent of each other and how self-managing autonomic systems can integrate the CHOP functions.
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Articles |
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19 Mar 2008 |
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Getting started with Simplified Policy Language (SPL)
Get an introduction and overview of policy systems. Using the Apache Imperius as
an example, this article describes the SPL language and evaluation engine and shows you
how to install the SPL environment, write an SPL policy, and execute that policy using
the SPL engine. See how SPL can simplify mundane administrative tasks.
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Articles |
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11 Mar 2008 |
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Managed Agent Explorer, Part 2: Advanced features
Explore how you can use the Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM) standard and the Managed Agent Explorer (MAX) together to create an endpoint and monitor a system in the network using the created endpoint. This article demonstrates how to use a set of WSDM endpoints that helps monitor a computer and its major components to show the various advanced features of the MAX.
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04 Dec 2007 |
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Enable the WSDM Event Format using the Generic Log Adapter
Get the details of the mapping between Common Base Events and the Web Services
Distributed Management (WSDM) Event Format (WEF). This mapping helps when you already
have adopted the Common Base Event format, but want to transform native log events
further into WEF events. Then, learn how to turn a Common Base Event adapter into a WEF adapter.
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Articles |
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20 Nov 2007 |
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Automate data collection for problem determination, Part 6: The IBM Support Assistant Lite tool
Discover a major extension to the IBM Support Assistant Lite tool: extended
analysis. Explore how the extended analysis function works and work through a checklist on how to set up extended analysis for your collections.
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Articles |
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30 Oct 2007 |
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Managed Agent Explorer, Part 1: Test and inspect your WSDM endpoints
Get an introduction to the Managed Agent Explorer, a test tool to help with the
development of your endpoint using the Eclipse TPTP tooling and a test and introspection
tool for already deployed endpoints. This article explains how to automatically invoke
the Managed Agent Explorer when building an endpoint in the tooling and also how to
connect to a deployed endpoint. You learn how to use the various views in the Managed Agent Explorer
and how to do basic operations such as setting properties and invoking operations.
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Articles |
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04 Sep 2007 |
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Symptomatic event visualizer, Part 4: The Events Tool view of LTA-JD
Get the most out of the Log and Trace Analyzer for Java Desktop (LTA-JD)
using this four-part series as an overview, installation, and configuration usage
guide. This series explains how your data can be more consumable from start to
finish, as well as how to reduce your problem determination and maintenance costs. The series includes an installation/configuration/customization/usage/troubleshooting guide, performance-enhancing tips, integration and hands-on scenarios, and data on the IBM Tivoli Monitoring 6.1 Events Tool. This article, the series finale, explains how to run the LTA-JD from the IBM Tivoli Monitoring 6.1.
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Articles |
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21 Aug 2007 |
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Symptomatic event visualizer, Part 3: A visual tour of the Log and Trace Analyzer for Java Desktop
This four-part series is a comprehensive usage guide that gives you an
overview of the Log and Trace Analyzer for Java Desktop, instructs you in the
installation process and teaches you to configure the tool correctly. The series
includes performance-enhancing tips, integration and hands-on scenarios, as well as
data on the IBM Tivoli Monitoring 6.1 Events Tool. Discover how your data can be more consumable from start to finish and learn how to
reduce your problem determination and maintenance costs. In part three, go on a
visual tour of the technology (a screenshot is worth a thousand words), gain
troubleshooting tips, and learn how to get the best performance out of the LTA-JD.
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Articles |
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07 Aug 2007 |
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Autonomic computing tip: So you want SSL security on ISC
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) provides encryption, certificate-based
authentication, and security negotiations, allowing you to bring data security over open communications channels to your Integrated Solutions Console (ISC). This is a quick checklist of step-by-step instructions on enabling SSL certificates on your ISC versions 5.1 and 6.0.1.
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Articles |
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31 Jul 2007 |
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Symptomatic event visualizer, Part 2: Meet the Log and Trace Analyzer for Java Desktop
This four-part series is a comprehensive usage guide that gives you an
overview of the Log and Trace Analyzer for Java Desktop, instructs you in the
installation process and teaches you to configure the tool correctly. The series
includes performance-enhancing tips, integration and hands-on scenarios, as well as
data on the IBM Tivoli Monitoring 6.1 Events Tool. Discover how your data can be more consumable from start to finish and learn how to
reduce your problem determination and maintenance costs. In part two, get an overview of the LTA-JD, discover an installation and configuration guide
for the tool, and view a table of the main functions of the tool.
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Articles |
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24 Jul 2007 |
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Build a custom static parser plugin for LTA-JD
The huge amount of data to analyze after system failures poses the initial difficulty
in problem determination -- this is especially true when the failures are related to
concurrent usage and stress. The Log Trace Analyzer for Java Desktop (LTA-JD) is a
powerful tool for problem determination and analysis once the text logs are properly
extracted as Common Base Events. But what's the easiest way to extract, say, Java
Virtual Machine (JVM) logs from the WebSphere Application Server (WAS) so they can be used by the LTA-JD? This
article introduces the design of a custom static parser as a plugin for LTA-JD to
construct a meaningful, common language from the plain text WebSphere Application Server JVM logs.
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Articles |
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17 Jul 2007 |
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Designing manageable resources with Apache Muse
Learn to design and develop a system with multiple manageable resources without resorting
to lots of cut-and-paste hacks. With the help of WSDLMerge, an overlooked tool in the Apache Muse project
arsenal, you can discover best practices for creating manageability interfaces that are
optimized for reuse.
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Tutorials |
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10 Jul 2007 |
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Designing manageable resources with Apache Muse
Do you want to evolve from creating WSDM-compliant projects with Apache Muse to creating
WSDM-optimized projects? Any new user can use Apache Muse to design the Web
services interface for a manageable resource, generate the necessary Java code, and
build a deployable artifact with little thought towards the underpinnings of the Apache
Muse runtime. But if you are creating Web services to expose a large number of manageable resources or even just a single resource that is fairly complex, it pays to understand the core concepts behind the Muse programming model. Read this article, and the following tutorial, to
discover the core concepts that will take you from creating WSDM-compliant projects with
Muse to
creating WSDM-optimized projects with Muse.
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Articles |
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03 Jul 2007 |
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Craft custom query dialects with Apache Muse
The Apache Muse project provides an implementation of WS-ResourceProperties
(WSRP) that includes support for QueryResourceProperties and XPath queries. The
project also has an API that allows you to add support for your own query languages.
Learn how to add this support using just a little Java code. In addition, review all
of the different filtering options available with the project and see how you can
leverage them in your Muse-based Web-service endpoints.
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Articles |
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26 Jun 2007 |
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Symptomatic event visualizer, Part 1: Challenges in data collection
This four-part series is a comprehensive usage guide that gives you an
overview of the Log and Trace Analyzer for Java Desktop, instructs you in the
installation process and teaches you to configure the tool correctly. The series
includes performance-enhancing tips, integration and hands-on scenarios, as well as
data on the IBM Tivoli Monitoring 6.1 Events Tool. Discover how your data can be more consumable from start to finish and learn how to
reduce your problem determination and maintenance costs. In part one, identify the challenges in data
collection and see how a common event format and a symptom repository help address
those challenges.
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Articles |
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19 Jun 2007 |
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Enabling WSDM Advertisement with Apache Muse
One of the most powerful features of the WS-DistributedManagement (WSDM) standard is the Advertisement capability -- it defines a standard for notifications describing the life cycle of a manageable resource. When combined with WS-Notification (WSN), WSDM Advertisement can help solve one of the trickiest problems in a self-managing IT system -- how to "bootstrap" the system by alerting management clients to the manageable resources they should be monitoring. Today this configuration can be done with manual intervention and the hardcoding of resource information, but this does not make for a very adaptable system. In this article, the author will show how manageable resources that are implemented with Apache Muse can take advantage of its WSDM Advertisement features to make startup and discovery a more dynamic and flexible process.
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Articles |
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12 Jun 2007 |
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Three keys to enable a WSDM/Apache Muse metrics reporting system
WS-DistributedManagement (WSDM) is an OASIS standard that defines Web service
interfaces for the most fundamental parts of a manageable resource. Part of the WSDM specification is about metrics, or resource properties whose values are collected over a period of time; examples of Web service metrics might be the number of requests handled per minute, the amount of disk space consumed per day, or the percentage of transactions that failed due to server timeouts. This article explains three important tasks associated with using WSDM metrics -- deciding which of your resource properties should be metrics, leveraging Apache Muse to create metrics, and evaluating metric values from a Web service client.
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Articles |
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05 Jun 2007 |
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Define, configure, and process topics for notification producers
WS-Notification (WSN) is an OASIS standard that describes, among other things, a
system for categorizing the types of notifications that are emitted from a manageable
resource. By grouping notifications into categories, the designer of a resource's Web
service interface makes it much easier for clients to find the data they need while
ignoring data that is irrelevant. The Apache Muse project contains an implementation of
WS-Notification, including all of the topic data structures and processing logic described
in the specification. This article reviews how to define and configure topics for your notification producers, as well as how to process topic-based notifications in your notification consumers.
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Articles |
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29 May 2007 |
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Monitor a WSDM resource with Tivoli Monitoring Universal Agent
Discover how you can use the IBM Tivoli Monitoring (ITM) Universal Agent to
consume and monitor a Web Services for Distributed Management (WSDM)-compliant interface for a manageable resource. Learn how to download, install, and configure the ITM Universal Agent to monitor the Apache HTTP Server.
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Tutorials |
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22 May 2007 |
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Report Data Analyzer: Interpret EWLM performance data
As a workload manager (and not a capacity planning tool), the IBM Enterprise
Workload Manager focuses on real-time data and, thus, only retains performance data
covering the past 24 hours. There was a customer requirement, however, to have this data
available for later analysis. And so, the Data Hardening plug-in was added. This plug-in
allows on-the-fly dumping of performance data onto the file system. But, the
dumped data can't be directly exploited: Enter EWLM Report Data Analyzer.
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Articles |
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15 May 2007 |
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Optimal message processing with WS-Notification filters
WS-Notification (WSN) is an OASIS standard that describes a system for subscribing to and receiving notifications from a manageable resource; these notifications may reference changes in state, fatal errors, status updates, and more. The standard also describes a way of filtering notifications so that clients can specify a subset of a resource's notifications that they are truly interested in. The Apache Muse project contains an implementation of WS-Notification that includes all of the filtering options. This article reviews all of the different filtering options, the positives and negatives of each, and shows you how you can leverage them in your Muse-based Web service endpoints.
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Articles |
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08 May 2007 |
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SSL on ISC, Part 2: Configuring and enabling SSL on the Integrated Solutions Console 5.1/6.0.1
Achieve data security over open communications channels with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), which provides encryption, certificate-based authentication, and security negotiations. In part one of this three-part series, you learned what SSL is and why you should implement it on your Integrated Solutions Console. In this article, learn step-by-step how to implement SSL on version 5.1 and 6.0.1 of the Integrated Solutions Console.
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Articles |
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01 May 2007 |
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Autonomic computing tip: So you're building a WSDM interface
When you've built your Web Services Description Language (WSDL), this quick tip will remind you to how to map your interface to httpd-specific commands and settings using the Muse code-generation tool, WSDL2Java.
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Articles |
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24 Apr 2007 |
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Enforce resource property semantics with metadata
The WS-ResourceProperties specification defines a standard for declaring strongly-typed properties as part of a Web service interface, but it does not say anything about permissions, validation, and other important topics. Fortunately, the WS-ResourceFramework authors have provided a new specification, WS-ResourceMetadata, that can help you deal with these issues in a standard way. The Apache Muse project provides implementations of both of these specs and lets you associate metadata with your resource properties with just a small XML file. This article describes how to use metadata to secure and validate your properties and how to test different metadata settings.
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Articles |
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24 Apr 2007 |
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Log files in action: Convert z/OS logs in a snap
Discover how to find z/OS log files and how to convert them to a format useful for autonomic computing components. Before log files can be used for such autonomic computing purposes as problem determination, they must be in a common language (such as the Common Base Event format). Not only can binary-format z/OS logs not be used by autonomic computing systems in their native state, they are often difficult to locate. This article explains how to find and convert z/OS logs to a text format, rendering them useful for autonomic computing components.
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Articles |
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17 Apr 2007 |
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Build a framework for problem determination triage, Part 2
So how do you set up "triage" problem determination? This article describes aspects of event visualization for triage problem determination that use concepts of autonomic computing -- such as Log and Trace Analyzer for Java Desktop (LTA-JD) -- and symptoms to represent, detect, evaluate, and resolve incidents and problems related to business mission-critical infrastructure management and operations. This two-part article also covers event and symptom visualization and processing methods of LTA-JD to enable efficient proactive avoidance of these incidents and problems. In this second part, you'll take a more detailed tour of the framework in action.
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Articles |
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10 Apr 2007 |
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Muse and WEF eases event reporting
The Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM) Event Format (WEF) is an OASIS standard that describes how to serialize events related to systems management in XML. The standard goes into detail about required values, optional values, and the semantics of both, but it offers no instruction for actually implementing the system. Fortunately, the Apache Muse project has an implementation of WEF that lets you create, send, and receive WEF events using a simple Java API. This article shows you how to handle these tasks from within an Apache Muse application.
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Articles |
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03 Apr 2007 |
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Build a framework for problem determination triage
So how do you set up "triage" problem determination? This article describes aspects of event visualization for triage problem determination that use concepts of autonomic computing -- such as Log and Trace Analyzer for Java Desktop (LTA-JD) -- and symptoms to represent, detect, evaluate, and resolve incidents and problems related to business mission-critical infrastructure management and operations. This two-part article also covers event and symptom visualization and processing methods of LTA-JD to enable efficient proactive avoidance of these incidents and problems. In this first part, you'll take a tour of the underlying concepts.
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Articles |
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27 Mar 2007 |
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Autonomic computing tip: So you are building a WSDM interface
When you're building a Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM)-compliant interface for a manageable resource with Apache Muse, these four simple steps will guide you in designing the necessary Web Services Description Language (WSDL).
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Articles |
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20 Mar 2007 |
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SSL on ISC, Part 1: What is SSL and why should I care?
Achieve data security over open communications channels with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), which provides encryption, certificate-based authentication, and security negotiations. This article, part one of a three-part series, describes SSL and explains why you should implement it on your Integrated Solutions Console. In parts two and three, follow a step-by-step guide to learn how to implement SSL on the Integrated Solutions Console versions 5.1 and 6.0.1, respectively.
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Articles |
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20 Mar 2007 |
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Put Muse and Eclipse TPTP WSDM tools to work
Learn how to install Apache Muse, the stable release of the Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM) Tooling in Eclipse TPTP 4.3, and the latest development builds of WSDM Tooling in TPTP 4.4. With this tutorial, a stand-alone "prequel" to the tutorial on crafting a WSDM endpoint using the Eclipse TPTP Build to Manage tooling, you'll be a master of installation.
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Tutorials |
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13 Mar 2007 |
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Meet the specs: WS-RT 1.0 operations, Part 3
Meet the WS-ResourceTransfer 1.0 initial draft specification, a proposed
open standard that extends certain operations by allowing fragments of XML code in a
single resource to be addressed instead of having to affect the entire resource. This
article provides a closer look at how the WS-ResourceTransfer 1.0 specification handles faults.
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Articles |
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06 Mar 2007 |
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LTA for multievent software problem analysis
Explore a sample symptom catalog and related events that illustrate how the IBM Log and Trace Analyzer (LTA) can help you diagnose software problems when they span multiple systems. This article introduces the LTA and illuminates its problem determination features; discusses symptoms, symptom definitions, events, and the event-symptom relationship; and explains the complexities of multievent symptom management.
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Articles |
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20 Feb 2007 |
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Create a WSDM endpoint using Build to Manage tooling from the Eclipse TPTP project
Build a Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM) interface for the Apache HTTP server without having to worry about Web services artifacts like Web Services Description Language (WSDL) and schema files, using refreshed tooling for WSDM in the Eclipse open source project. In a previous tutorial, you learned how to accomplish this task by hand coding the artifacts required by the Apache Muse run time and using the command-line utilities in Muse. In this tutorial, you do the same but in a faster, easier way. By the end of this tutorial, you will be accomplished at using the tooling integrated into Eclipse to model, generate, and test WSDM interfaces.
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Tutorials |
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13 Feb 2007 |
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Why open source for the WSDM open standard?
Get an overview of the run time and tooling for Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM) available in the Apache Muse and Eclipse TPTP (Test and Performance Tools Platform) projects. This article is a companion to the tutorial on creating a WSDM interface and also describes the motivation of building this in open source. Learn how you can influence both the development of the run time and the tooling. In this article, I share with you my personal views on why open source is the best avenue to develop implementations of the WSDM open standard.
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Articles |
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13 Feb 2007 |
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Meet the specs: WS-RT 1.0 operations, Part 2
Meet the WS-ResourceTransfer 1.0 initial draft specification, a proposed open standard that extends certain operations by allowing fragments of XML code in a single resource to be addressed instead of having to affect the entire resource. This article provides a closer look at how the WS-ResourceTransfer 1.0 specification extends the Create operation.
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Articles |
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06 Feb 2007 |
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Solutions in action: The installation blues
Get concise tips for solving challenges to using autonomic computing technologies. This installment focuses on installation challenges, including installation problems with the Generic Log Adapter and the Tivoli Change and Configuration Database on Windows servers and a problem getting the remote agent controller to run on z/OS.
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Articles |
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30 Jan 2007 |
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High-availability configurations for local SASP-oriented load balancing
Learn how to enable the Server/Application State Protocol (SASP) protocol to be used in local high-availability load-balancing environments that contain multiple load balancers and a single workload manager. This article explains local high-availability load-balancing environments and describes how existing SASP implementations can be applied. The article also provides an example of this environment using the IBM Enterprise Workload Manager (EWLM) and two Cisco Content Switching Modules (CSM).
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Articles |
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23 Jan 2007 |
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Solutions in action: Answers to four Integrated Solutions Console problems
Get concise tips for solving challenges to using autonomic computing technologies. This installment focuses on the Integrated Solutions Console, including installation and implementation problems on Windows servers, when you experience difficulty setting up the Integrated Solutions Console to manage different machines (with a workaround), and if you have trouble achieving a clean uninstall of the console.
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Articles |
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16 Jan 2007 |
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Meet the experts: Cecilia Ekelin on developing an autonomic automotive architecture
Volvo's Dr. Cecilia Ekelin discusses the DySCAS consortium project and its quest to construct an architecture dedicated to enabling automotive electronics to form autonomous, ad hoc networks.
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Articles |
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03 Jan 2007 |
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Hit the ground running with AIDE, Part 7: Better IT management
The IBM Autonomic Integrated Development Environment (AIDE) facilitates a model-driven approach to touchpoint development, which is a useful, factory-style, wizard-assisted pattern for producing generic touchpoints. However, at some point in the AIDE-driven workflow, the touchpoint must be made specific to a given application. You can do this either at the model design stage or manually through hard-coding. In this tutorial -- the seventh in the series -- discover techniques for creating both generic and specific touchpoints, and learn how to produce touchpoints that have the right mixture for a given management application.
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Tutorials |
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19 Dec 2006 |
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Keep your WSDM endpoints trim with Apache Muse
Learn how to use Apache Muse 2.0 to create WS-DistributedManagement (WSDM) interfaces for resource types that have hundreds or thousands of instances. First, this article shows how to create a WSDM interface to represent Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) application resources (which can be quite numerous in any given application server). Second, it shows how to create a "factory" resource that in turn creates the Web application resources as they are installed on the server. Finally, you'll see how to minimize the footprint needed to support a large number of resources so the WSDM endpoint doesn't burden its host.
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Articles |
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12 Dec 2006 |
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Solutions in action: Problems installing ISC 6.0
Get concise tips for solving challenges to using autonomic computing technologies. See how version control can cause problems with installing the Integrated Solutions Console and how error log files can be your best friend.
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Articles |
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12 Dec 2006 |
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Solutions in action: RAC and out-of-box adapters
Get concise tips for solving challenges to using autonomic computing technologies. In this article, uncover a reason why it may be difficult to use out-of-the-box adapters with the Remote Agent Controller. Also, discover what to look for if you have to reinstall an autonomic computing component.
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Articles |
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05 Dec 2006 |
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Toward autonomous automotives
Take a detailed look at the Dynamically Self-Configuring Automotive Systems project's plans for a specification to make automobile systems more autonomous and its first product, the whitepaper entitled "A Future Dynamically Reconfigurable Automotive Software System." In this paper, the author outlines some of the project members' objectives to advance the technologies required to build self-configuration aspects into automotive middleware layers and run-time environments.
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Articles |
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05 Dec 2006 |
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Setting up Tivoli Directory Server replication using the command line
The Web Administration tool that ships with the directory server is the easiest way to setup and manage your replication topology. In some situations administrators might need to set up replication using the command line Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) tools. This article is intended to help administrators to understand the basics of setting up Tivoli Directory Server (TDS) replication using the command line.
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Articles |
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04 Dec 2006 |
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Meet the specs: WS-RT 1.0 operations, Part One
Meet the WS-ResourceTransfer 1.0 initial draft specification, a proposed open standard that extends certain operations by allowing fragments of XML code in a single resource to be addressed instead of having to affect the entire resource. This article provides a closer look at how the WS-ResourceTransfer 1.0 specification extends the Get operation.
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Articles |
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29 Nov 2006 |
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Create a WSDM interface for an HTTP server using Apache Muse
Learn how you can use Apache Muse to create a WS-DistributedManagement (WSDM)-compliant interface for a manageable resource. In this tutorial, you'll see how to design the Web service interface for the resource, generate code for the implementation, and deploy the code as a Web application. The manageable resource focus of this tutorial is the ubiquitous Apache HTTP Server, commonly-referred to as "httpd." After completing this tutorial, you should have a Muse-based application that lets any WSDM-compliant management client manipulate the httpd resource.
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Tutorials |
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21 Nov 2006 |
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Solutions in action: To slash or double backslash
Get concise tips for solving challenges to using autonomic computing technologies. In this article, take a look at how the direction of a simple slash can slow down your work.
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Articles |
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14 Nov 2006 |
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Hit the ground running with AIDE, Part 6: Build an autonomic computing system
This tutorial -- the sixth in the series -- introduces two key elements of the IBM Autonomic Integrated Development Environment (AIDE): Apache Tomcat and Axis. Discover tooling-related gaps that the AIDE online help doesn't cover so that you can become more comfortable with the way the toolkit uses the standard open source components.
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Tutorials |
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14 Nov 2006 |
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Automate data collection for problem determination, Part 5: Incremental analysis in the AutoPD Tool
In this article, Part 5 of this series on using the Automated Problem Determination (AutoPD) tool, discover a new Incremental Analysis function that replaces the tool's original <infocollect> task. With this new function, the results of several independently specified analysis activities can be combined into a single analysis report, creating an additional flexibility that makes it possible for a script writer to reuse previous analysis targets as is, even if those targets were developed in isolation from each other.
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Articles |
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07 Nov 2006 |
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Build a HAL 9000 with IBM autonomic computing technology
In this article (which could have been titled "2006: An Autonomic Odyssey"), see how HAL 9000, the computer in the "2001: A Space Odyssey" movie, the smartest believable artificial intelligence so far in fiction, could predict equipment failure, answer personal questions, learn to sing "Bicycle built for Two," and go insane, based on IBM Build to Manage Toolkit components. By the end of this article, you'll see how autonomic computing can be implemented today; determine if there is such a thing as a Hofstadter-Moebius loop in programming; and discover if HAL stands for Heuristic ALgorithmic computer, Heuristic Autonomic Learner, or is simply the first three letters of a prankster holiday that occurs about this time of the year.
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31 Oct 2006 |
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Solutions in action: Problem Determination condition errors
Get concise tips for solving challenges to using autonomic computing technologies. In this article, take a look at two ideas to help you overcome common problems with the Problem Determination scenario -- fixing the error condition and when the scenario stops at Inducing Condition.
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24 Oct 2006 |
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The autonomic computing edge: Common Base Event Best Practices
Event-driven systems are an important part of enterprise IT management. The autonomic computing architecture defines an event representation called the Common Base Event that is the basis for the Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM) Event Format (or WEF). As the adoption rate of this event format races forward, IBM found it prudent to generate some best practices for its use; these best practices were published earlier this year. This article offers a perspective on those best practices and discusses their application in IT management systems.
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17 Oct 2006 |
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Doing away with manual, real-time management
Manual real-time management of dense services is both uneconomic and difficult -- there is a critical need for automated end-to-end IT management. In this article, learn those needs, discover IBM's place in the on-demand service culture, and see how automated management forms an important part of an on-demand world and why autonomic computing is a key element to achieve it.
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10 Oct 2006 |
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Solutions in action: GLA mismatching
Get concise tips for solving challenges when using autonomic computing technologies. This week, discover why a user's Generic Log Adapter records don't match up between his development and his run-time environments.
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10 Oct 2006 |
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Configure Tivoli Dynamic Workload Broker and EWLM to produce efficient job dispatching and scheduling
Configure Tivoli Dynamic Workload Broker and Enterprise Workload Manager (EWLM) so they can be used together to provide dynamic job dispatching and scheduling by reviewing general configurations, Tivoli Dynamic Workload Broker/EWLM interactions, and classification methods.
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03 Oct 2006 |
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Comment lines: Jason McGee: Dynamic middleware and the six attributes of virtualized application serving environments
Applying virtualization and automation is one way to significantly ease the burden of managing a modern, complex application server environment made up of many applications spread across a large number of machines. When evaluating virtualization for such environments, it is important to look for technologies and products that address the realities of your IT environment head on. Here are six key attributes you should look for in a solution to make sure it really addresses the complexities of your environment.
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20 Sep 2006 |
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Meet the specs: Intro to WS-ResourceTransfer 1.0
Meet the WS-ResourceTransfer 1.0 initial draft specification (WS-RT), a proposed open standard that extends certain operations by allowing fragments of XML code in a single resource to be addressed instead of having to affect the entire resource. This introduction provides an overview of the specification, examines its heritage, and starts climbing the learning curve by uncovering the definition of fragments and discovering the three expression dialects employed in WS-RT.
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19 Sep 2006 |
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Solutions in action: Remote agent controller for z/OS
Get concise tips for solving challenges when using autonomic computing technologies. Learn what happens when you run into multiple difficulties trying to install and implement an Autonomic Computing Toolkit component like the Agent Controller? Follow along and see how the Toolkit support team creates a solid help environment.
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12 Sep 2006 |
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Hit the ground running with AIDE, Part 5: Build an autonomic computing system
This tutorial -- the fifth in the series -- illustrates the management of Apache
Derby databases using touchpoint technology. Learn how to use a touchpoint that contains a
working instance of Derby, and work through a management interface to a Derby database
instance as a Web service-based managed object. You interact with this touchpoint using
the IBM Autonomic Integrated Development Environment (AIDE) resource browser and
a Derby Java client program.
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Tutorials |
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05 Sep 2006 |
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Solutions in action: Three from the Autonomic Computing Toolkit
Get concise tips for solving challenges when using autonomic computing technologies. Learn which is more robust, the Common Base Event or Apache log4j format. Also, learn whether toolkit evaluations localized and how you can you get a list of Generic Log Adapter rule sets.
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29 Aug 2006 |
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Meet the specs: SML models complex IT systems
Meet the Service Modeling Language specification, a proposed open standard that defines a modeling language complete with a set of constructs to help you model complex system hierarchies for components that manage such elements as configuration, monitoring, policy, health, capacity planning, and Service Level Agreements (SLA). One of the effects of SML is to increase the automation of management tasks, thereby reducing the need for a human to intervene in necessary adjustments. This article provides a quick look at the specification.
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15 Aug 2006 |
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Solutions in action: Creating policy for action-based decisions in PMAC
In this new series from developerWorks, you'll get tips to using autonomic computing technologies. This article, the first in the series, focuses on Policy Management for Autonomic Computing (PMAC) and describes how to create a policy rule for an action-based decision.
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08 Aug 2006 |
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Partition management with EWLM, Part 1: The basic rules
You've gathered performance data with the help of the IBM Enterprise Workload Manager (EWLM) -- now you're ready to exploit this data by enabling intelligent partition management of your AIX and Linux partitions running on IBM System p5 servers. In this first part of a two-part series, you get an introduction to logical partitioning. You're guided through the steps to set up your environment for EWLM partition management, and learn how to configure partitions.
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25 Jul 2006 |
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Hit the ground running with AIDE, Part 4: Touchpoint notifications and a simple manager
This tutorial, the fourth in the series, describes how to create a touchpoint that maps instrumented notifications into their touchpoint equivalent. The previous tutorial in this series described how to implement simple GET and SET operations in the touchpoint. This tutorial completes the picture by adding notification handling and paves the way for more complete interaction between your touchpoints and the underlying managed resources. You also learn how to programmatically manipulate a set of touchpoints which lays the foundation for creating a simple autonomic manager.
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Tutorials |
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18 Jul 2006 |
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Partition management with EWLM, Part 2: Partition management in action
You've gathered performance data with the help of the IBM Enterprise Workload Manager -- now you're ready to exploit this data by enabling intelligent partition management of your AIX and Linux partitions running on IBM System p5 servers. Jump into the action by examining the topology of this test environment and the workload used, looking at the domain policy. Then, run the workload and observe the partition management actions taken by EWLM.
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18 Jul 2006 |
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Hit the ground running with AIDE, Part 3: Touchpoint and managed resource integration
This tutorial, the third in a series on the IBM Autonomic Integrated Development Environment (AIDE), describes a basic touchpoint interface for a managed resource. Discover how Eclipse supports the workflows for such development with TODO items and learn how to provide a touchpoint-based platform for arbitrary managed resource management -- a topic that has dogged the telecom and enterprise management arenas for decades.
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Tutorials |
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27 Jun 2006 |
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Meet the experts: Roundtable redux II
Revisit IBM autonomic computing experts and hear their explanations of autonomic computing -- why it is beneficial to managing the increasing complexity of computing and how they think the industry should go about reaching this goal. In this second of two parts, listen again to an expert detail a basic building block of the autonomic process, the Common Base Event format, as well as hear two experts explain how IBM is making autonomic computing a reality with actual customer case studies.
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13 Jun 2006 |
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The autonomic computing edge: If you build it, management will come
Autonomic computing is an industry initiative driving toward self-managing IT systems -- the autonomic computing architecture describes how such systems can be constructed, and IBM and others already have incorporated many autonomic computing capabilities in products and technologies. But how can you build products that realize the autonomic computing architecture, thus enabling them to participate in self-managing autonomic systems? This column discusses new tooling, the IBM Autonomic Integrated Development Environment (AIDE), which is available to accelerate the development of products that include fundamental manageability capabilities based on standards and enables products to realize the value of autonomic computing.
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06 Jun 2006 |
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Meet the experts: Roundtable redux
Revisit IBM autonomic computing experts and hear their explanations of autonomic computing technology -- why it is beneficial to managing the increasing complexity of computing and how they think the industry should go about reaching this goal. In the first of two parts, the experts discuss the beginnings of autonomic computing technology, the causes that spurred it, IBM's approach to mastering these causes, why standards are a critical key to progressing, and details on a bit of the basic plumbing to make it happen -- Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM).
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30 May 2006 |
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Hit the ground running with AIDE, Part 2: Build a real-world touchpoint
This tutorial -- the second in series on AIDE -- moves beyond the basics of building touchpoints using the IBM Autonomic Integrated Development Environment (AIDE) toolkit and covers the use of events and IT management technologies (specifically the Java Management Extensions) and demonstrates how to connect external value-added Java tools to autonomic computing touchpoints. I'll focus on how to tackle the problem of linking autonomic computing touchpoints with external JMX-instrumented software.
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23 May 2006 |
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Common Base Event best practices: Properties and elements at a glance
More on the "Best Practices for the Common Base Event and Common Event Infrastructure" guide -- this time, an interactive, at-a-glance properties and elements datasheet that links you to the appropriate section in the guide for more information.
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09 May 2006 |
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Symptoms deep dive, Part 3: Classify your symptoms
To identify symptoms, a standard symptom taxonomy is an excellent starting point -- although it is not the only tool you need for this task -- because it provides a common framework with which symptoms authors can expand and promote the reuse of their individual symptoms in a more standardized way. This article introduces you to a standard taxonomy of autonomic computing symptoms used to categorize the types of situations described by the symptom. It also presents the methodology used for the identification of these categories, a methodology that also applies when new symptoms are discovered and when new categories need to be created or assigned to the symptoms. I'll also discuss some best practices for deciding whether a taxonomy needs to be extended.
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02 May 2006 |
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Autonomic load balancing, Part 1: Cisco Content Switching Module
Administrators may use a CISCO Content Switching Module (CSM) and the IBM Enterprise Workload Manager (EWLM) to create an efficient, dynamic load balancing environment.
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25 Apr 2006 |
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Hit the ground running with AIDE, Part 1: Building a touchpoint
This tutorial, the first in a series on the IBM Autonomic Integrated Development Environment (AIDE), shows how you can get up and running quickly with the IBM AIDE toolkit. Discover touchpoint creation, modification, and deployment and learn about the internals of the touchpoint in relation to the underlying model.
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18 Apr 2006 |
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Common Base Event best practices: Getting it right the first time
Take a look at how IBM is getting the basics to autonomic computing technology right the first time as developerWorks highlights the recently released manual, "Best Practices for the Common Base Event and Common Event Infrastructure," taking you through the interesting and the cool.
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11 Apr 2006 |
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Combine autonomic computing and SOA to improve IT management
For architects and designers who want to know how to apply autonomic computing and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) to management systems, this article introduces key concepts in autonomic computing and SOA and shows you how they combine to deliver autonomic management systems that address the challenging complexities within the IT organization. Learn how to incrementally automate IT management processes that might span organizational boundaries, and how to integrate an independent autonomic manager into IT management processes.
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04 Apr 2006 |
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Performance monitoring with Enterprise Workload Manager
To meet real-world business commitments, gathering detailed statistics of the transactions in your environment can be critical. Learn how you can set up end-to-end performance monitoring in a functional IBM Enterprise Workload Manager (EWLM) domain and see how to turn on Application Response Measurement (ARM) instrumentation for IBM HTTP Server, WebSphere Application Server (Application Server), and DB2 UDB on AIX and Linux, which enables you to gather detailed statistics. This article also demonstrates how to troubleshoot this implementation.
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28 Mar 2006 |
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WSDM for J2EE provides next-generation management
Can the standards for Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) management (JSR 077) and general IT management (WS-Distributed Management) work together to create robust manageability interfaces? In this article, you'll learn how the IBM Autonomic Integrated Development Environment (AIDE) component, the IBM Manageability Endpoint Builder, and the JSR 077 API can be used to build a Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM)-compliant manageability endpoint for Java application servers. The final product is a Web application that you can deploy on any J2EE-compliant application server.
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28 Mar 2006 |
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Automate data collection for problem determination, Part 4: The Automated Problem Determination Tool
Use the Automated Problem Determination (AutoPD) tool's to analyze log files from IBM WebSphere Portal or WebSphere Application Server that include, but are not limited to, XML documents containing Common Base Events.
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16 Mar 2006 |
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Automate data collection for problem determination, Part 3: The Automated Problem Determination Tool
Simplify problem diagnosis with a key feature of the Automated Problem Determination (AutoPD) tool. In this article, find out how the tool can scan large log files to identify and extract specific log records, helping you to more easily diagnose a particular problem for IBM WebSphere Portal or WebSphere Application Server. In this article, you review the overall architecture for the tool's symptom analysis function and get a detailed description of how to write a symptom specification for a product that emits non-XML-formatted log records.
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14 Mar 2006 |
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Cross-product integrated administration, Part 1: Solution overview and proof of concept
Building IT solutions from multiple products often makes administration tasks dauntingly complex. Simplify and streamline cross-product integrated administration (IA) using this article, the first in a series presenting a solution built on the Autonomic Computing Toolkit's Integrated Solutions Console.
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14 Mar 2006 |
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Automate data collection for problem determination, Part 2: The Automated Problem Determination Tool
Discover how you can extend the Automated Problem Determination (AutoPD) tool to address additional products and problem scenarios simply by creating additional Ant scripts based on the ones included with the tool or by editing the XML documents shipped with the tool. You also review the tool's internationalization capabilities and learn how to use them.
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07 Mar 2006 |
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On demand provisioning of portal servers in a clustered environment, Part 5: Run the solution
This series focuses on how the Advanced Design and Technology team uses IBM Tivoli automation products for rapid deployment of replicated and clustered portal servers. This tutorial, which is the final installment in the series, explains how to use the Portal Provisioning Automation Package and run the team's solution. It covers how to assign server roles, staging strategies for portal servers, using Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator (Intelligent Orchestrator) to add or remove servers from the portal cluster, and migrating the automation package to Intelligent Orchestrator V3.1. Finally, you'll leave with a few thoughts about how to use the workflows to automate the deployment of other software components.
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07 Mar 2006 |
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Automate data collection for problem determination, Part 1: The Automated Problem Determination Tool
Walk through a sample IBM WebSphere Portal problem scenario to get a step-by-step guide to the Automated Problem Determination (AutoPD) tool. In this updated article, the first in a series, learn how the AutoPD tool can help you diagnose problems related to WebSphere Portal. Use the tool in the same manner with other IBM software products, including WebSphere Application Server. And find out about the general design of the tool and how you can use it to diagnose a WebSphere Portal login problem. Other articles in the series focus on how to extend and customize the tool to support additional products, problem types, and log formats.
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24 Feb 2006 |
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Create autonomic computing policies using Simplified Policy Language
Policies help administrators simplify the management of IT systems. This tutorial is for developers and administrators who are responsible for creating, customizing, implementing, and monitoring policies for their business units. You'll learn how to use Simplified Policy Language (SPL), an easy syntax for creating policies.
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14 Feb 2006 |
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Optimize resource usage and reduce costs, Part 3: Use resilient design patterns to reduce total cost of ownership
This is the third article in our series about why and how the IBM intranet portal team implemented WebSphere Extended Deployment to upgrade the IBM internal enterprise application infrastructure. This article discusses design patterns that can help an application achieve autonomic resiliency to protect, optimize, and reconfigure itself, and heal from outages. The authors also discuss a short-circuit pattern to circumvent a deadlock situation, a service availability pattern, and show how to apply a service availability pattern to a sample application.
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14 Feb 2006 |
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On demand provisioning of portal servers in a clustered environment, Part 4: Prepare to replicate and cluster
This series focuses on how the Advanced Design and Technology team uses IBM Tivoli automation products for rapid deployment of replicated and clustered portal servers. This tutorial outlines how to set up Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator in preparation for replicating and clustering portal servers. You'll learn how to install the WebSphere Portal Provisioning Automation Package and how to customize the data center model for automation. Defining potential target servers with Intelligent Orchestrator is also covered.
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07 Feb 2006 |
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Optimize resource usage and reduce costs, Part 2: Migrate your applications to a WebSphere Extended Deployment environment
This article, the second in a series, continues to follow the IBM intranet portal team as they upgrade the IBM internal enterprise applications infrastructure. Migrating WebSphere applications into a WebSphere Extended Deployment environment has several major steps involving server layout, infrastructure building, and capacity and performance testing. This article explains key aspects of moving IBM's internal hosted applications to a WebSphere Application Server and WebSphere Extended Deployment infrastructure.
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31 Jan 2006 |
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Machine learning in network systems
Machine learning is key to building autonomic systems. In this article, the authors present a new network simulator that captures real-world complexities, then introduce learning-based methods for efficient job routing and CPU scheduling in the networks they simulate. Their experimental results show that machine-learning methods outperform heuristic and hand-coded approaches, and that adaptive system components can work better together than they do individually.
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24 Jan 2006 |
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The autonomic computing edge: Autonomic computing: The state of the union
Autonomic computing embodies a progression toward self-managing IT systems. The concept has now been around for a few years, and self-managing autonomic systems are becoming part of the mainstream of the IT industry. This seems like a good time for an autonomic computing "state of the union" address, and it also seems like a good time for The autonomic computing edge to offer up the lighter side of autonomic computing technology. This question and answer article features Otto Nomic, a fictional expert and founder of autonomic computing. Brent Miller (Edge columnist) talks with Otto about how the idea got started.
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17 Jan 2006 |
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Optimize resource usage and reduce costs, Part 1: Strengthen an enterprise intranet using WebSphere
Extended Deployment
Learn how one team, the IBM intranet portal team,
upgraded the IBM internal enterprise applications
infrastructure. This article, the first in a series,
explains the problems to be solved, the proposed solutions,
and how the team uses the features of WebSphere Extended
Deployment to achieve their goals.
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Articles |
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10 Jan 2006 |
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Streamline Common Base Event logging
Common Base Event logging provides problem-determination data rich in activity and control-flow information that the Log and Trace Analyzer uses to accelerate problem determination and increase system serviceability and quality. This tutorial shows how to streamline Common Base Event logging instrumentation in the Java programming language to reduce complexity and instrumentation code size. You'll learn techniques and best practices that reduce maintenance requirements and let you increase customized, vendor-specific content.
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03 Jan 2006 |
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