New in this release

The following additions were made to IBM® Tivoli® Monitoring in this V6.3 release:

Jazz™ for Service Management
Jazz for Service Management brings together the Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC) community's open specifications for linking data, shared administrative services, dashboard and reporting services. Through these facets, Jazz for Service Management accelerates deployment, integration, and workflow automation across IBM, partner, and third party tools. Jazz for Service Management is included with IBM Tivoli Monitoring.
Jazz for Service Management has a number of integration services: Administration, Registry, IBM Tivoli Common Reporting, Security, and IBM Dashboard Application Services Hub. These integration services provide key features including:
  • Shared data repository for products integrating through Jazz for Service Management.
  • Consistent UI experience through Dashboard Application Services Hub in Jazz for Service Management.
  • Simplified administration of products and solutions integrating through Jazz for Service Management.
  • Ad hoc, self-service reporting through Tivoli Common Reporting in Jazz for Service Management.
For more information about Jazz for Service Management, go to the Jazz for Service Management Information Center.
IBM Infrastructure Management Dashboards for Servers running on the Dashboard Application Services Hub V3.1 or later
With the IBM Tivoli Monitoring dashboard data provider enabled, Dashboard Application Services Hub users can retrieve managed system groups and events for all monitoring agents and agent health metrics for Linux OS agent, UNIX OS agent, and Windows OS agent using the Infrastructure Management Dashboards for Servers application. This application is installed and configured into Dashboard Application Services Hub V3.1 or later using IBM Installation Manager. For more information, see Installing and configuring the IBM Infrastructure Management Dashboards for Servers and Required software and memory requirements for a dashboard environment.
IBM Tivoli Monitoring dashboard data provider for retrieving monitoring data for display in IBM Dashboard Application Services Hub dashboards
The IBM Tivoli Monitoring dashboard data provider retrieves monitoring agent data for display in the IBM Dashboard Application Services Hub component of Jazz for Service Management. The dashboard data provider is optionally installed during the Tivoli Enterprise Portal Server configuration. With the dashboard data provider enabled, Dashboard Application Services Hub users can retrieve read-only data from the hub monitoring server and monitoring agent for display in dashboards provided by the agents or in custom dashboards. IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6.3 includes the Infrastructure Management Dashboards for Servers that displays data for the OS agents. These server dashboards use the dashboard data provider to retrieve data. A connection to the dashboard data provider must be configured in Dashboard Application Services Hub. For more information, see Preparing your dashboard environment and Creating a connection to the IBM Tivoli Monitoring dashboard data provider.
Tivoli Authorization Policy Server
The Tivoli Authorization Policy Server feature provides you with greater access control capabilities than possible with the existing Tivoli Enterprise Portal Server authorization model. You can protect your resources from unauthorized access by users of monitoring dashboards in the IBM Dashboard Application Services Hub. IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6.3 with the Authorization Policy Server feature enabled provides the following capabilities:
  • The ability to restrict access for dashboard users to specific managed system groups and to individual managed systems.
  • The ability to assign role-based policies to users and user groups in a federated LDAP user registry to simplify policy management.
  • A new command-line interface that is highly automatable.
  • Central management of authorization policies for multiple IBM Tivoli Monitoring environments, also called domains.
To implement the feature you must install IBM Installation Manager packages for the Tivoli Authorization Policy Server and the tivcmd Command-Line Interface for Authorization Policy. The Authorization Policy Server is installed with your Dashboard Application Services Hub and the tivcmd CLI is installed on the computers used by the administrators who will be creating authorization policies. For more information, see Installing and configuring the Tivoli Authorization Policy Server and tivcmd Command-Line Interface for Authorization Policy and Required software and memory requirements for a dashboard environment.
After successful installation of these two packages, you can execute various CLI commands as required to create roles, grant permissions, exclude permissions, and so on. For information on working with policies, see Using role-based authorization policies and tivcmd commands.
Installation Launchpad and IBM Installation Manager
IBM Installation Manager is a tool that is designed to install and maintain your software packages. You can use IBM Installation Manager to install the following IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6.3 components:
  • Tivoli Authorization Policy Server
  • tivcmd Command-Line Interface for Authorization Policy
  • IBM Infrastructure Management Dashboards for Servers
Wizards guide you through the steps to install, modify, update, roll back, or uninstall your IBM products. Use Installation Manager to install software packages on your local machine, or with the IBM Packaging Utility to install software for an enterprise from a network accessible repository. Installation Manager is installed along with the new IBM Tivoli Monitoring components, if it is not already installed on your machine.

For more information aboutIBM Installation Manager and the IBM Packaging Utility, go to http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/install/v1r6/index.jsp.

If you want to install the Authorization Policy Server, tivcmd CLI, or IBM Infrastructure Management Dashboards for Servers from the installation media, you can use theIBM Tivoli Monitoring installation launchpad application. The installation launchpad automatically installs, configures, and starts IBM Installation Manager. Once started, you can use IBM Installation Manager to install and configure the components onto the local system. This approach assumes that you have already installed the IBM Dashboard Application Services Hub component and prerequisites by using one of theJazz for Service Management installation technologies.

Alternatively, you can use the IBM Packaging Utility for IBM Installation Manager to create a network repository that includes the IBM Infrastructure Management Dashboards for Servers component, the Authorization Policy Server, and tivcmd CLI, as well as Jazz for Service Management components and prerequisites. On each system where you want to install an IBM Tivoli Monitoring component for a dashboard environment, you can configure IBM Installation Manager with the location of the network repository and then select the components to install on that system.

For more information about installingIBM Tivoli Monitoring components with IBM Installation Manager, see the following topics:
Open Services Lifecycle Collaboration Performance Monitoring service provider
The Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Automation Server component contains the Open Services Lifecycle Collaboration Performance Monitoring (OSLC-PM) service provider and is installed on the same systems as your hub Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server. The service provider registers monitoring resources with the Jazz for Service Management Registry Services component and supports integration with other products using OSLC linked data interfaces.
For more details about Performance Monitoring service provider and the Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Automation Server, see the following topics:
Creating and maintaining the dimension tables required for Tivoli Common Reporting using the Summarization and Pruning agent
You no longer have to periodically run the Tivoli Common Reporting and OS agent scripts to maintain the IBM_TRAM schema and populate the MANAGEDSYSTEM table. You can configure the Summarization and Pruning agent to create, populate, and maintain the dimension tables. See Creating and maintaining the dimension tables.
Tivoli Data Warehouse range partitioning
Range partitioning is a database data organization feature that can significantly improve pruning and query performance in large Tivoli Data Warehouse databases. You can migrate your existing tables to a partitioned table to take advantage of the performance improvements provided with partitioned tables. Range partitioning allows the database to limit the scope of queries when the column that is part of the partitioning key is used in the WHERE clause. For more information see the following topics:
Filter by table in Schema Publication Tool
You can now filter by table in any mode of the Schema Publication Tool. For more information, see Generating SQL for data warehouse tables.
OS Agents Report Prerequisites Scanner report
The OS Agents Report Prerequisites Scanner report delivered and installed through the OS agent report package, can be leveraged to check that your system’s IBM Tivoli Monitoring prerequisites are configured correctly to use Tivoli Common Reporting without errors. See Running a prerequisites scan.
Take Action identity auditing
You can now audit any commands that are executed on a system at the agent level. The originator's user ID and network information are securely transferred to the agent and then recorded in the agent's audit log. The audit log can be historically collected. You can create situations and monitor centrally from the Tivoli Enterprise Portal. See Take Action and command execution audit logging.
AAGP authorization controls
The Access Authorization Group Profile (AAGP) authorization framework is now integrated with the Take Action identity auditing. The AAGP policies now selectively allow specific users to execute take actions from Tivoli Enterprise Portal or using tacmd executeaction, to execute commands using tacmd executecommand, or to create and modify situations and workflow policies that specify a take action command. The AAGP policy no longer requires the Central Configuration server to deliver the AAGP policy. The policy can be configured from the Agent Service Interface and stored locally on the agent itself. See Access Authorization Group Profile and Centralized Configuration.
SOAP security enhancements and duper process optimization
You can now enable security for CT_EMail and CT_Export requests using the SOAP_IS_SECURE environment variable on the monitoring server. For more information, see Enabling SOAP security.
The duper process now supports situations that contain reflex actions or display items. For more information, see Duper process for optimizing situations.
Changes to default self-describing agent behavior and new tacmd commands
In V6.2.3 and V6.2.3 Fix Pack 1, when the self-describing agent capability is turned on, any available products and versions are automatically installed. As of V6.3, the hub monitoring server blocks all self-describing agent installation until you issue one of the new tacmd commands. You can also use new tacmd commands to enable or disable the state of the self-describing agent function at the hub monitoring server, without having to recycle any hub monitoring servers.

These features provide more control over what products and versions are installed on your monitoring server and portal server by the automatic self-describing agent process.

For more information see the following topics:
Updates for private situations
  • *REGEX predicate function

    IBM Tivoli Monitoring frequently requires text scan and pattern matching upon event and sample data, such as name, address, message, and log record. You can add the Regular Expression predicate filter to private situations to enhance agent monitoring event detection.

  • Dynamically delete a private situation

    You can now use the DELETE= attribute in a private situation to dynamically remove a private situation without recycling the agent or deleting the local private situation XML file.

For more information, see Private situation XML specification.
Ability to clear the Deployment Status table transactions
Each time you issue an IBM Tivoli Monitoring tacmd command or use the Tivoli Enterprise Portal navigator to remotely manage a Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Agent, information about the transaction is preserved in the Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server Deployment Status table. To make it easier to manage the contents of this table, especially in large environments, you can schedule the periodic removal of completed transactions from the table. See Clearing the Deployment Status table.
Use of login daemon scripts available on IBM Service Management Connect
In IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6.3 or later, monitoring servers can now use the IBM Tivoli Monitoring login daemon solution that is available on IBM Service Management Connect to change the monitoring server an agent connects to. See Changing the monitoring server an agent connects to.
Native 64-bit versions of IBM Tivoli Monitoring components on Windows systems
You can install and configure 32-bit components from a separate installation image (intended for 32-bit Windows systems) or install and configure 64-bit server components from a separate installation image (intended for 64-bit Windows systems). In addition, the Tivoli Enterprise Portal browser and Java™ Webstart clients now support operation under a 64-bit Windows browser, for example Internet Explorer 64-bit. For this configuration, you must install a 64-bit JVM supplied by IBM, or from Oracle. Full support for 32-bit browsers under Windows, for example Internet Explorer and Firefox, is also provided.

For more information and the conditions that apply to upgrading the Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server and Tivoli Enterprise Portal Server, see Prerequisites for IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6.3.

Native 64-bit binaries on Linux for AMD and Intel systems
The Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server, Warehouse Proxy Agent, and Summarization and Pruning Agent now provide native 64-bit binaries on Linux for AMD and Intel systems. The Tivoli Enterprise Portal now provides native 64-bit binaries on Linux for Intel systems. All three Tivoli Enterprise Portal deployment modes - desktop, browser, and Java Webstart all support native 64-bit operation under a 64-bit Java Runtime Environment.
Tivoli Enterprise Portal browser support for 32-bit and 64-bit browsers
The Tivoli Enterprise Portal browser client now supports both 32-bit and 64-bit Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers.
Current versions of Mozilla Firefox now supported by the Tivoli Enterprise Portal browser client
Firefox 3.5 and earlier releases of Firefox are no longer supported with IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6.3. If Firefox is your preferred browser to use with the Tivoli Enterprise Portal, then use the most recent Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) available from http://www.mozilla.org. Upgrading to a later version of Firefox eliminates the post-installation configuration of the JVM that is required to successfully operate the Tivoli Enterprise Portal browser client. For more information, see Browser plug-in support for Java applets.
Setting the locale for the browser client
Administrators can no longer set the locale for the Tivoli Enterprise Portal browser client Enterprise-wide. The language can be changed through the Java control panel at the client computer if the underlying OS platform has been installed using a different locale than the one you want to use with the Tivoli Enterprise Portal. See the user.language and user.region parameters in Portal client parameter list.
Tivoli Integrated Portal name change
The V3.1 release of Tivoli Integrated Portal is now referred to as the Dashboard Application Services Hub.
i5/OS™ agent name change
The i5/OS monitoring agent is now referred to as the IBM i monitoring agent.
Tivoli Universal Agent and UNIX Log Agent not included in V6.3
The Tivoli Universal Agent and the UNIX Log Agent are not included with IBM Tivoli Monitoring Version 6.3. If you already have any of these agents installed in your environment, you can still use them with IBM Tivoli Monitoring Version 6.3.
Additional features, capability, and enhancements
For more information, see the following topics in the guides that were updated this release:

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Parent topic: IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6.3 documentation