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Sterling Control Center 5.4.2 Release Notes

Product Documentation


Abstract

The IBM Sterling Control Center V5.4.2 Release Notes document supplements Sterling Control Center V5.4.2 online documentation.

Content

Release notes contain last-minute changes and other important product information. Read the document before installation.

What is new in version 5.4.2

To meet your business needs, IBM® Sterling Control Center introduces important new features and enhancements. Sterling Control Center V5.4.2 introduces the following new features:

  • An enhanced dashboard in the web console with four widgets that show rolled up information for recent file transfer activity, active alerts, transfer failure to success ratio, and environmental health of monitored servers.
    • Ability to drill down from the widgets to existing or new Sterling Control Center pages for more detail
    • Capability to save or print a snapshot of each of the widgets
  • A Completed File Transfers list in the web console that shows a filterable list of completed file transfers, which improves troubleshooting server issues.
  • Sterling B2B Integrator data tables to improve the speed of generating reports and to make customization of reports easier. Important: Do not run Sterling B2B Integrator or Sterling File Gateway reports for data that was collected before the upgrade until you have migrated your data.
  • Ability to secure connections between Sterling Control Center and the databases and between Cognos Business Intelligence server and the databases.
  • Use of SHA-2 (Secure Hash Algorithm) to protect passwords.
  • Sterling Control Center REST application programming interfaces (APIs) that enable other applications to integrate with the Sterling Control Center web client.
  • A reorganized information center that is based on high-level user tasks to improve usability.

See the Sterling Control Center Information Center for more information about these features.
What has changed in version 5.4.2

To meet your business needs, IBM® Sterling Control Center provides changes to existing features for V5.4.2.
  • The Liberty server has been updated to v.8.5.5.
  • The JRE has been updated to IBM Java 1.7.0.
  • The web console dashboard has been replaced with a new dashboard.

Accessibility

Accessibility features help users who have a physical disability, such as a visual impairment, hearing impairment, or limited mobility, to use software products successfully.

Sterling Control Center provides the following accessibility features in the web console:

  • A keyboard that is used for navigation instead of the mouse.
  • Interfaces that are commonly used by screen readers.

    • Tip: When using a screen reader, the user may need to toggle the virtual PC cursor mode in order to hear the content correctly while navigating within the web UI application.
  • Each field, button, and widget in the user interface has a focus indicator when it is in focus.
  • All information is communicated independent of color.

Accessibility testing was completed with Firefox 21 and JAWS 14.

Although the web console meets accessibility requirements, the IBM Sterling Control Center Console does not.

The documentation includes the following features to aid accessibility:

  • All documentation is available in HTML formats to give the maximum opportunity for users to apply screen reader software technology.
  • All images in the information center documentation are provided with alternative text so that users with vision impairments can understand the contents of the images.

IBM and accessibility

See the IBM Human Ability and Accessibility Center for more information about the commitment that IBM has to accessibility.

System requirements

System requirements changed significantly between version Sterling Control Center versions 5.3 and 5.4. If you are upgrading from version 5.3 or prior, use the system estimation tools in Determining engine and database requirements on the Sterling Control Center Information Center prior to upgrading. For information about hardware and software compatibility for Sterling Control Center, see Detailed system requirements.



Important: Some Sterling Control Center functionality applies only to specific server types. See Functionality by server type in this document.

See Determining engine and database requirements in the Sterling Control Center Information Center for information about determining configurations for the Sterling Control Center engine.



Required operating system patches

Sterling Control Center uses Cognos Business Intelligence V10.1.1 as the reporting engine. Install required operating system patches before you install Sterling Control Center. Required patches can be found at Cognos Business Intelligence 10.1.1 Software Environments.

Important: In addition to the libraries listed on the Cognos Business Intelligence web site, the following libraries are required for Cognos to operate with Sterling Control Center: libstdc++.so.6, libX11.so.6, libXau.so.6, and libXdmcp.so.6.

APAR fixes

For information about fixes for Sterling Control Center, see Fix Central.

Configuration management functions supported for each Sterling Connect:Direct platform

Sterling Connect:Direct functionality supported in Sterling Control Center varies by Sterling Connect:Direct platform.

The following table lists major components of Sterling Control Center Configuration Management functionality broken down by Sterling Connect:Direct platform. Support request-generated and other fixes required to use central management components are referenced.

Sterling Connect:Direct Platform and ReleaseSterling Control Center Functional AuthorityInitialization ParametersNetmapSterling Connect:Direct Secure PlusUser ProxyDirectory Restrictions
Sterling Connect:Direct for UNIX version 3.8QC 20638QC 20403QC 20638Not SupportedSupportedN/A
Sterling Connect:Direct for UNIX version 4.0QC 20638QC 20403QC 20638, RTC140646QC20035, APAR IC85987SupportedN/A
Sterling Connect:Direct for UNIX version 4.1.0Fix Pack 3 (4.1.0.3)Fix Pack 3 (4.1.0.3)Fix Pack 3 (4.1.0.3)APAR IC85987SupportedSupported
Sterling Connect:Direct for Microsoft Windows version 4.5SupportedSupportedSupportedSupportedSupportedSupported
Sterling Connect:Direct for Microsoft Windows version 4.6SupportedSupportedSupportedSupportedSupportedSupported
Sterling Connect:Direct for z/OS® version 4.7SupportedNot SupportedSupportedNot SupportedN/AN/A
Sterling Connect:Direct for z/OS version 4.8SupportedNot SupportedSupportedNot SupportedN/AN/A
Sterling Connect:Direct for z/OS version 5.0SupportedSupportedSupportedSupportedN/AN/A
Sterling Connect:Direct for z/OS version 5.1SupportedSupportedSupportedSupportedN/AN/A


Functionality by server type

The following table lists Sterling Control Center functionality broken down by server type:


Sterling Connect:Direct Platform and ReleaseBase FunctionalityHigh Watermark ReportProcess goes to Hold QueueProcess Interrupted EventsPush LicensesResolved Missing and Omitted Statistics
Sterling Connect:Direct for HP NonStop version 3.5
Yes
No
No
No
No
No
Sterling Connect:Direct for HP NonStop version 3.6
Yes
No
No
No
No
No
Sterling Connect:Direct for OpenVMS version 3.4
No
No
No
No
No
No
Sterling Connect:Direct for OpenVMS version 3.5
No
No
No
No
No
No
Sterling Connect:Direct for OpenVMS version 3.6
No
No
No
No
No
No
Sterling Connect:Direct for z/OS version 4.7
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Sterling Connect:Direct for z/OS version 4.8
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Sterling Connect:Direct for z/OS version 5.0
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Sterling Connect:Direct for z/OS version 5.1
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Sterling Connect:Direct for i5/OS™ version 3.6
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
Yes
Sterling Connect:Direct for i5/OS version 3.7
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
Yes
Sterling Connect:Direct for UNIX version 4.0
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Sterling Connect:Direct for UNIX version 4.1
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Sterling Connect:Direct for Microsoft Windows version 4.5
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Sterling Connect:Direct for Microsoft Windows version 4.6
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Sterling Connect:Enterprise for UNIX version 2.4
Yes
No
No
No
No
No
Sterling Connect:Enterprise for UNIX version 2.5
Yes
No
No
No
No
No
Sterling Connect:Enterprise for z/OS version 1.4
No
Yes
No
No
No
N/A
Sterling Connect:Enterprise for z/OS version 1.5
No
Yes
No
No
No
N/A
Sterling B2B Integrator version 5.0
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
N/A
Sterling B2B Integrator version 5.1
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
N/A
Sterling B2B Integrator version 5.2
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
N/A

Considerations

Review the following considerations before installing Sterling Control Center.

General considerations

Sterling Control Center has the following general considerations:

  • A database with partitioned Sterling Control Center tables is the preferred database setup over a staging database for performance reasons. If you set up a production database with partitioning, do not set up a staging database. However, if your database does not support partitioning, it is a best practice to use both production and staging databases.
  • During the upgrade process, Sterling Control Center creates tables to capture Sterling B2B Integrator activity. If you have data that was collected from Sterling B2B Integrator prior to upgrading to Sterling Control Center V5.4.2, run the convertB2BData utility to migrate your existing data to the Sterling B2B Integrator tables. This utility migrates data previously stored in the EVENTS table to where it is stored now in the following tables: Sterling File Gateway activity (FG_STATS_LOG), protocol activity (AFT_STATS_LOG), and business process activity (BP_STATS_LOG). Important: Run the migration utility after you upgrade Sterling Control Center, while the engine is stopped. Do not run Sterling B2B Integrator or Sterling File Gateway reports for data that was collected before the upgrade until you have migrated your data. Depending on the volume of your data, the migration utility can take several hours to complete the migration process. You may want to run the migration utility on a test or development environment before you run it with production data. See Migrating EVENTS table data to Sterling B2B Integrator activity tables in the Sterling Control Center Information Center.
  • Built-in status change rules cannot be edited, deleted, or managed from the Sterling Control Center console by any user, including unrestricted users. Although these built-in rules cannot be edited or deleted from the console, it is possible to change them to meet your monitoring needs. An authorized user can edit the RuleService.xml configuration file in installation directory/conf/services/system/. Important: If you decide to edit the rules definitions, edit the RuleService.xml configuration file immediately after you upgrade, before you start the engine for the first time.
  • The time required to install and configure Sterling Control Center V5.4.2 has increased from the time required by previous releases due to architectural changes. The typical time to install and configure Sterling Control Center V5.4.2 is one hour or less.
  • Sterling Control Center Mobile V1.1.01 is supported.
  • When the “NO” symbol is displayed on a server icon, Sterling Control Center does not attempt to reconnect to the server until the login information is updated, or monitoring is paused and resumed, or the Sterling Control Center engine is stopped and restarted.
  • Some Sterling Control Center functionality is not available for all versions of managed server types. Ensure full Sterling Control Center functionality by having the latest version of your managed server software.
  • If the console loses connectivity to the engine, it attempts to reconnect to the engine every 30 seconds until it reconnects, or until you exit the console.
  • If you are upgrading the engine and have not stopped and restarted the browser, or refreshed the browser, confirm that the Sterling Control Center engine is included in the browser list of trusted sites.
  • When you launch the Sterling Control Center console from the launch page, you may receive security warnings if Java 1.7 Update 51 or above is installed on the desktop computer. You may receive the following warnings:
    • "This application will run with unrestricted access . . ." - To continue starting the console, click Run. You may receive a second security warning:
    • "This application will be blocked in the future Java Security update . . ." - To continue starting the console, click Install. If you want to suppress this warning in the future, click Do not show this again for apps from the publisher and location above.
    • If the console fails to start with one of these security warnings, click the following link to view other possible security warnings and steps that you can take to launch the console: https://www.java.com/en/download/help/appsecuritydialogs.xml.
  • If the Sterling Control Center engine is running on the Microsoft Windows 2003 Server operating system, to prevent the loss of a connection to the MS-SQL database when you are adding servers, change the HKLM/System/Current Control Set/TcpIp/Parameters/MaxUserPort parameter in the registry to 65534.
  • Configuring Sterling Connect:Direct Secure Plus objects on a Sterling Connect:Direct server requires a secure connection between the server and the Sterling Connect:Direct engine unless a non-secure connection is allowed by the Sterling Connect:Direct server initialization parameters. For instructions on setting up a secure connection, see Configuring a secure connection in the Sterling Control Center Information Center. Disable this requirement by setting s+cmd.enforce.secure.connection=n in the initialization parameters.
  • If the reporting engine (Cognos Business Intelligence) process BmtMDProviderMain gets the CCL-SRV-0513 error, then the issue could be caused by the ulimit setting being too high.
    The following ulimit parameters are sufficient to run the Sterling Control Center engine on Red Hat Linux 64-bit platform:
    core file size          (blocks, -c) 0
    data seg size           (kbytes, -d) unlimited
    scheduling priority             (-e) 0
    file size               (blocks, -f) unlimited
    pending signals                 (-i) 30720
    max locked memory       (kbytes, -l) 32
    max memory size         (kbytes, -m) unlimited
    open files                      (-n) 4096
    pipe size            (512 bytes, -p) 8
    POSIX message queues     (bytes, -q) 819200
    real-time priority              (-r) 0
    stack size              (kbytes, -s) 10240
    cpu time               (seconds, -t) unlimited
    max user processes              (-u) 30720
    virtual memory          (kbytes, -v) unlimited
    file locks                      (-x) unlimited
  • On a SUSE Linux 10 system, you may receive the following message during installation:

    • user1@qaxxxx10:~> ./CCInstall.bin
    Preparing to install...
    Extracting the JRE from the installer archive...
    Unpacking the JRE...
    Extracting the installation resources from the installer archive...
    Configuring the installer for this system's environment...
    awk: error while loading shared libraries: libdl.so.2: cannot
    open shared object file: No such file or directory
    dirname: error while loading shared libraries: libc.so.6: cannot
    open shared object file: No such file or directory
    /bin/ls: error while loading shared libraries: librt.so.1: cannot
    open shared object file: No such file or directory
    basename: error while loading shared libraries: libc.so.6: cannot
    open shared object file: No such file or directory
    dirname: error while loading shared libraries: libc.so.6: cannot
    open shared object file: No such file or directory
    basename: error while loading shared libraries: libc.so.6: cannot
    open shared object file: No such file or directory
    Launching installer...
    grep: error while loading shared libraries: libc.so.6: cannot open
    shared object file: No such file or directory
    /tmp/install.dir.22159/Linux/resource/jre/bin/java: error while loading
    shared libraries: libpthread.so.0: cannot open shared object file:
    No such file or directory

    If you receive this message, run the following commands:

    cp CCInstall.bin CCInstall.bak
    cat CCInstall.bak | sed "s/export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL/#xport LD_ASSUME_KERNEL/
    " > CCInstall.bin
    rm CCInstall.bak

    After you run these commands, you will be able to run the installer to completion.

  • Do not kill a Sterling Control Center process unless you first try to stop Sterling Control Center with the Sterling Control Center console stop Control Center option or the stopEngine.bat/sh option.
  • You can change default system server group names by editing the systemGroups.properties file in Installation Directory\conf\servergroups\ (Windows) or Installation Directory/conf/servergroups/ (UNIX). You must change the system server group names before you define objects that reference them.
  • Sterling Control Center has the following globalization considerations:
    • Free form text input fields support all language strings; however, they are not translatable.
    • Pre-defined reports are displayed in the authored language.
    • Messages generated by server engines other than Sterling Control Center are not translated.
  • For greater efficiency, Sterling Control Center keeps caches of information rather than going to the database repeatedly. For example, Sterling Control Center keeps a cache of alerts for each data visibility group (DVG) defined to the system in addition to a cache for all completed processes. Before Sterling Control Center V5.4, these caches of information were not initialized until they were needed the first time. Starting with Sterling Control Center V5.4, all of the caches are being initialized during startup. New engine logs are produced as this initialization is done; as a result, it can take a long time to initialize these caches. To turn off the initialization of these caches at startup, you edit the CCEngineService.xml configuration file. For more information, see Performance and Tuning in the Sterling Control Center Information Center.
  • To secure the connection between the engine and the web console, use an HTTP/S connection by configuring secure ports and disabling non-secure ports. For more information, see Configure secure connections in the Sterling Control Center Information Center.
  • If you need secure web client access, the non-secure HTTP port cannot be disabled. However, it can be limited to accept connections from localhost only.
  • The Sterling Control Center web console presents data in a grid format. You can adjust the width of each grid column by clicking the border of the grid column heading and dragging it to the right or left. There is a minimum width that a column can be adjusted that is based on the length of the column title. You cannot drag the column boundary beyond this minimum width. When grid column widths are adjusted, the column widths and locations are persisted in browser cookies if you are using Firefox browser. In Internet Explorer, column changes are not persisted due to cookie limitations imposed by the browser.
  • Sterling Control Center can be run in a virtual machine environment provided that enough resources (memory, processing power, and storage) have been allocated to the virtual machine.
  • If you want to restrict a user to all the activities from one or more servers, use the server group restriction instead of a data visibility group (DVG) for optimal performance. With the server group option, you create a server group with one or more servers and associate that group to a user role.
Sterling Connect:Direct for Microsoft Windows considerations

Observe the following considerations when monitoring Sterling Connect:Direct for Microsoft Windows servers:

  • When Sterling Control Center is connected to a Microsoft Windows node and the application is stopped, the following statistics records may generate:
    • LSDI010I— Call to recv() in sdipc_srvr_recv() failed
    • LIPT027I—Call to recv() failed. OS message=&OSMSG
    • LCOT000I—comm thread termination has started. API connection comm channel failed with LSDI010I

Sterling Connect:Direct for UNIX considerations

Observe the following special considerations when managing Sterling Connect:Direct for UNIX servers:

  • For best results, apply the latest maintenance for the Sterling Connect:Direct for UNIX server.
  • When Sterling Control Center runs on a UNIX platform and polls a Sterling Connect:Direct for UNIX server, multiple cmgr exited messages are written to the Sterling Connect:Direct statistics file.
  • For Sterling Connect:Direct Secure Plus configuration management, Sterling Connect:Direct for UNIX 4.00 or above is required.


Sterling Connect:Direct for i5/OS considerations

Observe the following considerations when managing Sterling Connect:Direct for i5/OS:

  • Set up the following items before you begin using Sterling Control Center:
  • Create a relational database entry (ADDRDBDIRE or WRKRDBDIRE).
  • Create a user profile with access rights to the Sterling Connect:Direct library. Do not use the user profile called CDADMIN.
  • Ensure that the DDM server is active.
  • If a firewall is configured between a Sterling Connect:Direct for i5/OS server managed by Sterling Control Center, Sterling Control Center uses the following i5/OS services and ports. The ports listed are the default values. These port assignments can be modified using the WRKSRVTBLE command. Sterling Control Center uses ephemeral ports to establish connections to the i5/OS services. For more information on the WRKSRVTBLE command, refer to the i5/OS manuals.
    • ServicePort
    drda446
    as-svrmap449
    as-central8470
    as-database8471
    as-file8473
    as-rmtcmd8475
    as-signon8476
  • The Sterling Connect:Direct statistics record may incorrectly report the submitter ID as the SNODEID. This situation results when the Process SNODEID and the submitter ID are different.
  • When invalid authentication credentials are provided for a node, Processes do not write a Process start record, SMPST, in the statistics file.
  • Guided Node Discovery requires Sterling Connect:Direct for i5/OS version 3.5 or later.

Sterling Connect:Direct for HP NonStop considerations

Observe the following special considerations when managing Sterling Connect:Direct for HP NonStop servers:

  • In order for Sterling Control Center to manage a Sterling Connect:Direct for HP NonStop server, create three API Managers pointing to the same port in the network map and one adjacent node record which is referenced by all of the API managers on the Sterling Connect:Direct for HP NonStop server. This configuration allows Sterling Control Center to attempt three simultaneous connections, which may occur if Sterling Control Center is polling a managed Sterling Connect:Direct for HP NonStop server and performing Guided Node Discovery at the same time. Refer to Defining and Maintaining the Network Map in the IBM Sterling Connect:Direct for HP NonStop Administration Guide.
  • A problem in Sterling Connect:Direct for HP NonStop causes events for some Process step end records not to be generated. This situation could result in rules not triggering and SLCs generating erroneous events. To address this issue, apply the fix for SR135624.
  • Guided Node Discovery requires Sterling Connect:Direct for HP NonStop version 3.4.02 or later.

Sterling Connect:Direct for z/OS considerations

Observe the following special considerations when managing Sterling Connect:Direct for z/OS servers:

  • Only PKCS #12 base64 encoded certificates can be imported into Sterling Connect:Direct for z/OS version 5.0. Binary encoded PKCS#12 certificates cannot be imported.
  • When Processes end for reasons such as session outages, and remain in the Sterling Connect:Direct TCQ to attempt to run again, rather than generate a Process End event Sterling Control Center now generates a Process Interrupted event (see Functionality by server type).If you have rules in a previous Sterling Control Center release that watch for Process End events, these rules will no longer be triggered under such circumstances. Therefore, to achieve the same behavior add rules that watch for events with an event type of Process Interrupted. Likewise, SLCs satisfied with a Process End event may not be satisfied under the same conditions with Sterling Control Center version 5.4.2.
Sterling Connect:Direct Browser User Interface considerations

Observe the following special considerations when using Sterling Connect:Direct Browser User Interface:

  • The version of Sterling Connect:Direct Browser User Interface that is embedded within Sterling Control Center uses the same keystore and truststore files as Sterling Control Center. If you want to use a different keystore and truststore file, use the stand-alone version of Sterling Connect:Direct Browser User Interface.

Sterling Connect:Enterprise for UNIX considerations

Observe the following when managing Sterling Connect:Enterprise for UNIX servers:

  • When choosing the API port value during set up a Sterling Connect:Enterprise for UNIX server, see the Sterling Connect:Enterprise for UNIX documentation on how to find the correct API port value.

Sterling Connect:Express considerations

Observe the following considerations when monitoring Sterling Connect:Express servers:

  • Sterling Connect:Express logs errors differently than other server types supported by Sterling Control Center. If you want to use the predefined Bad Return Code rule or create a rule to watch for failed Sterling Connect:Express transfers, you need to watch for non-zero return codes in the Server Status and Server Error event types in addition to the Process Step Ended event type.
  • For Sterling Connect:Express for UNIX and Sterling Connect:Express for Microsoft Windows, you must specify a monitor rest time that is less than the API time-out for Sterling Connect:Express.

Important: The API timer for Sterling Connect:Express for UNIX is not currently configurable. It will be configurable in fix pack 1.5.0.7. Until the fix pack is available, specify a monitor rest time of less than 30 seconds.
  • For Sterling Connect:Express for z/OS users, processes that are held or deferred are not shown in the Sterling Control Center Queued Activity Monitor.

Sterling B2B Integrator considerations

Observe the following considerations when managing Sterling B2B Integrator servers:

  • To monitor Sterling B2B Integrator activity, Event Persistence must be enabled on the Sterling B2B Integrator server.
  • In Sterling B2B Integrator, set the Opsserver.commandTimeout parameter located in centralops.properties file so that it is greater than or equal to the time-out value provided in Sterling Control Center. After you adjust this parameter, restart the Sterling B2B Integrator server.

QuickFile considerations

Observe the following considerations when monitoring QuickFile servers:

  • No step start or step end events are generated for failed transfers.
  • If the same QuickFile appliance will be monitored multiple times, by one or more Sterling Control Center engines, the subscriber name value specified when adding the server must be a unique value each time.
  • If the JMS Queue Manager on the QuickFile Appliance has been password protected, which it is by default, the User ID and password values must be specified when adding the server to Sterling Control Center.

    • Important: The default JMS Queue Manager ID and password for QuickFile appliances are eventmon and password, respectively. Be sure to check the current values to determine if the default JMS Queue Manager ID and password have been changed.


FTP Server considerations

Sterling Control Center supports both z/OS FTP servers and non-z/OS FTP servers (including WS_FTP). All FTP servers produce logs or SNMP traps to record transfer activities and you need to make sure that Sterling Control Center can properly use the information in these logs or traps to display statistics so that you can monitor these servers.

FTP server reference information

For additional information on working with FTP servers in Sterling Control Center, see the following topics on the Sterling Control Center Information Center.

Topic
See
FTP xferlog and IIs Log FormatsManaging servers
How to translate the fields shown in Sterling Control Center statistics into FTP termsKeys and fields
Configuring the WS_FTP Server to use the FTP AgentSetting up Sterling Control Center to monitor an FTP server


Accommodating changes to IIS logs

Sterling Control Center V5.4.2 has the following default IIS log format:

c-ip cs-username date time s-sitename s-computername s-ip time-taken
cs-bytes sc-bytes sc-status sc-win32-status cs-method cs-uri-stem parameter

If the layout in future releases of IIS logs changes, you can modify the layout for IIS by clicking the Advanced button on the Server Properties Connection page. The only restriction is that the layout must match your actual IIS log layout and the following fields are required: date time, cs-username, s-sitename, time-taken, cs-bytes, sc-bytes, sc-win32-status, cs-method, and cs-uri-stem.

If fields are added to an IIS log that are not listed on the Advance File Format panel, you can use the <ignored-field> place holder. For example, if a future version of IIS adds a new field such as transfer-mode after the parameter, the layout can be changed to be:

c-ip cs-username date time s-sitename s-computername s-ip time-taken cs-bytes
sc-bytes sc-status sc-win32-status cs-method cs-uri-stem parameter <ignored-field>



Configuring an xferlog format

Prior to Sterling Control Center V5.1, only FTP servers that wrote transfer activities in the following standard xferlog format were supported:

%T %Xt %R %Xn %XP %Xy %Xf %Xd %Xm %U ftp %Xa %u %Xc

which translated into the following format:

current-time transfer-time remote-host bytes-transferred filename transfer-type
special-action-flag direction access-mode username service-name
authentication-method authenticated-user-id completion-status

To accommodate different third-party FTP log formats, Sterling Control Center gives you the ability to modify the xferlog format and layout. You can move fields or eliminate certain fields. To modify the layout, click the Advanced button on the Server Properties Connection page.

For Sterling Control Center to read an xferlog, the following requirements must be met:

  • The layout must match the actual xferlog log layout
  • The following fields are required: current-time, transfer-time, file-size, file-name, direction, username, service-name, completion-status.
  • The current-time field must be the first field.

Following is a valid xferlog format because it has required fields and the first field is current-time:

current-time transfer-time direction file-name username service-name
file-size access-mode completion-status

The following is an invalid xferlog format because username is missing:

current-time transfer-time direction file-name service-name file-size
access-mode special-action-flag completion-status

If you have an xferlog FTP server running with an FTP Agent, you can continue to run with that FTP Agent as long as you do not need to change the xferlog layout or the log filename to a rotating log. To change the layout or to support rotating logs, for example, a log based on day or hour, install the Sterling Control Center FTP Agent.

Cognos Business Intelligence server and WebSphere Application Server considerations

Observe the following special considerations regarding IBM Cognos® Business Intelligence server and IBM WebSphere Application Server:

  • Important: Operating system patches required for Cognos Business Intelligence V10.1.1 must be installed before you install Sterling Control Center. See Cognos Business Intelligence 10.1.1 Software Environments.
  • If you stop Sterling Control Center using the Microsoft Windows Service stop option, Cognos Business Intelligence server and IBM WebSphere® Application Server are not stopped.
  • A Microsoft Windows Service created by InstallAnywhere does not provide a shutdown hook to stop Cognos Business Intelligence server and WebSphere Application Server. To perform an orderly shutdown, use either the Sterling Control Center console Stop Control Center option or the stopEngine.bat/sh option.
  • If you kill a Sterling Control Center process on Microsoft Windows or UNIX, Cognos Business Intelligence server and WebSphere Application Server processes have to be stopped or killed separately. To perform an orderly shutdown, use either the Sterling Control Center console Stop Control Center option or the stopEngine.bat option.
  • Upon initial startup of Sterling Control Center, the Cognos Business Intelligence server may take up to 4 minutes or more to start. The amount of time it will take on your system will vary depending on the performance of your system and the number of servers being monitored.
  • To prevent a cross site scripting filter warning message from displaying, add Cognos Business Intelligence to the list of Trusted sites and Local intranet sites in Internet Explorer. To access these trusted site lists in Internet Explorer, select Tools > Internet Options > Security.
  • Each time a user creates a report in the Sterling Control Center console, the Sterling Control Center engine creates temporary reports in Cognos Business Intelligence Report Studio. These temporary reports have a prefix of "ControlCenterReport". Do not edit these reports in Cognos Connection. When you close the Reports Wizard from the Sterling Control Center console, the Sterling Control Center engine deletes the temporary reports.
  • When you are naming reports in Cognos Business Intelligence Report Studio, you can interfere with the operations of the Sterling Control Center engine. As a best practice to prevent naming conflicts, create separate folders in Cognos Business Intelligence Report Studio for your user defined reports.
  • To meet Cognos Business Intelligence requirements, ensure that the host name is resolvable to the engine server IP address.


DB2 Considerations
  • To address performance considerations, set the DB2 statement concentrator (STMT_CONC) setting to OFF.

Known restrictions

Sterling Control Center has the following restrictions:

  • Sterling Control Center 5.4.2 does not support validating the Init Parm options that are introduced with IBM Sterling Connect Direct V5.3.
  • Daylight Saving Time rules for Brazil are not correct for 2009 and beyond. The fix for SR 1367170 addresses this problem by allowing the user to add or update time zone definitions. See Changing engine settings after installation in the Sterling Control Center Information Center for help in configuring time zone definitions.
  • When a node receives a log in failed message, the node is shunned until the node service is recycled. Recycle the node by pausing and resuming the node or by changing information in the node properties.
  • At peak volume, the number of events processed per second may be decreased by up to 20%, caused by an additional database operation during event processing.
  • If you mix private permissible objects when you create objects such as rules, SLCs, and automated reports, that reference permissible objects such as calendars, schedules, and actions, you may prevent other users from updating the created object.

    • For example, the administrator creates schedule A that is private to Role A and schedule B that is private to Role B. The administrator then creates an Automated Report that includes both schedule A and schedule B, two private schedules. Only the administrator can edit the Automated Report because Role A does not have permission to see Schedule B and Role B does not have permission to see Schedule A.

  • Server-group restricted users (as determined by the role assigned to their user ID) cannot use the batch creation utility to create a server.
  • The Report Studio feature of Cognos Business Intelligence V10.1.1 that is integrated with Sterling Control Center V5.4.2.1 does not work with Internet Explorer 9 with HTTPS. You can run reports and see the output in the Cognos Viewer, but you cannot open the report in Report Studio. This limitation is due to a bug in Cognos Business Intelligence V10.1.1. Report Studio in Sterling Control Center V5.4.2.1 does work with FireFox HTTP, FireFox HTTPS, and Internet Explorer HTTP.
  • In Internet Explorer 10, the frame line does not display correctly in the Active Alerts, Current Activity, Environmental Health, and Quality Scorecard widgets when you are saving or printing a snapshot. To correct this issue,
    1. From the Tools menu, click Internet Options.
    2. Click Reset to reset the Internet Explorer settings.
    3. Click the Advanced tab.
    4. In the Settings list, in Advanced Graphics settings, select the Use software rendering instead of GPU rendering check box.
  • Sterling Control Center cannot monitor Sterling B2B Integrator servers using IPv6. You must specify an IPv4 address or a DNS name for the connection.
  • The context-sensitive Help in the Sterling Control Center Console provides definitions for new fields added with this release. However, some Console fields do not have context-sensitive Help. To access the complete product documentation, click the Console Help button, which goes to the Sterling Control Center Information Center.
  • If Sterling Control Center 5.4.2 is configured with a DB2 database, a bug in the JDBC service logic prevents the Active Alerts report from being executed. A fix for this is available in APAR IC93051.

Installation notes

All Sterling Control Center maintenance releases and specific fixes require that you perform a complete installation and include previous maintenance release fixes. For information about installing Sterling Control Center, as well as maintenance and fixes, see the Sterling Control Center Information Center.

Important: Operating system patches required for Cognos Business Intelligence V10.1.1 must be installed before you install Sterling Control Center. See Cognos Business Intelligence 10.1.1 Software Environments.

Important: If you are installing on an Oracle partitioned database, be aware that there are six incorrectly defined indices which, if not corrected, can cause a production down situation. Sterling Control Center fails with "ORA-01502: index 'SCCADMIN.SEQ_NUM_INDEX' or partition of such index is in unusable state" error message after upgrading from a pre-5.4.2 installation to 5.4.2 base release on a system using a partitioned Oracle database.

Do one of the following:

  • If you have not yet installed v5.4.2, you should upgrade from your pre-5.4.2 version directly to v5.4.2.0, iFix01 available on Fix Central. This iFix contains the properly defined indices.
  • If you have already upgraded to v5.4.2 and your indices are not correctly defined, you should run the commands listed below to correct the six index definitions.
      DROP INDEX SEQ_NUM_INDEX;
      CREATE UNIQUE INDEX SEQ_NUM_INDEX ON EVENTS (DATE_TIME, SEQ_NUM, NODE_ID, XFER) LOCAL;

      DROP INDEX EVENT_XFER_INDEX;
      CREATE INDEX EVENT_XFER_INDEX ON EVENTS(XFER) LOCAL;

      DROP INDEX EVENT_FILE_SEARCH;
      CREATE INDEX EVENT_FILE_SEARCH ON EVENTS(DATE_TIME, SEQ_NUM, XFER, NODE_ID, NODE_TYPE, SOURCE_FILE, DEST_FILE) LOCAL;

      DROP INDEX CD_STAT_PROC_INDEX;
      CREATE INDEX CD_STAT_PROC_INDEX ON CD_STATS_LOG(PROC_NAME, NODE_ID, PROC_NUMBER) LOCAL;

      DROP INDEX CE_RECORD_INDEX;
      CREATE INDEX CE_RECORD_INDEX ON CE_STATS_LOG(RECORD_ID) LOCAL;

      DROP INDEX CE_MAILBOX_ID_IX;
      CREATE INDEX CE_MAILBOX_ID_IX ON CE_STATS_LOG(MAILBOX_ID) LOCAL;

For more information, see the ControlCenter_5.4.2.0_iFix01_Fix_List.rtf. This document is also available for download with the iFix on Fix Central.


Migrate data from MySQL databases

Releases of Sterling Control Center that are V5.4.1 and later do not support MySQL as a database type. You must migrate your MySQL database to one of the databases supported by Sterling Control Center: DB2, Oracle, or SQL Server 2008. See the Sterling Control Center Information Center for information about migrating data from MySQL databases.

Migrate existing EVENTS data to Sterling B2B Integrator tables



During the upgrade process for Sterling Control Center releases prior to V5.4.2, Sterling Control Center creates tables to capture Sterling B2B Integrator activity. If you have data that was collected from Sterling B2B Integrator prior to upgrading to Sterling Control Center V5.4.2 and you are upgrading from an Sterling Control Center release prior to V5.4.2, run the convertB2BData utility to migrate your existing data to the Sterling B2B Integrator tables. This utility migrates data previously stored in the EVENTS table to where it is stored now in the following tables: Sterling File Gateway activity (FG_STATS_LOG), protocol activity (AFT_STATS_LOG), and business process activity (BP_STATS_LOG).

Important: Run the migration utility after you upgrade Sterling Control Center, while the engine is stopped. Do not run Sterling B2B Integrator or Sterling File Gateway reports for data that was collected before the upgrade until you have migrated your data. Depending on the volume of your data, the migration utility can take several hours to complete the migration process. You may want to run the migration utility on a test or development environment before you run it with production data. See Migrating EVENTS table data to Sterling B2B Integrator activity tables in the Sterling Control Center Information Center.

Contacting IBM Software Support

If you encounter a problem with this product that cannot be resolved using the information outlined in the documentation, contact IBM Software Support. See the Sterling Control Center Information Center for information about contacting IBM Software Support.

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Document Information

Modified date:
17 December 2019

UID

swg27039265

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