Administration overview

With IBM® InfoSphere® Information Server, you can administer security, entitlements, clusters and high availability configurations, logs, schedules, and services, and back up data. Both the IBM InfoSphere Information Server console and the IBM InfoSphere Information Server Web console provide administration capabilities.

Security administration

As part of InfoSphere Information Server administration, you set up and manage suite security. Security administration includes the following tasks:

  • Configuring and administering the user registry

    The user registry holds user account information, such as user names and passwords, that can be accessed during authentication. You choose a user registry for the suite to use. You can choose the internal InfoSphere Information Server user registry, or an external local operating system or lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP) user registry. Depending on the registry you choose and the topology of your installation, you might also have to map credentials from one user registry to another.

  • Controlling access

    You create user accounts and groups. You assign roles to users and groups to specify which features users can use and which projects a user can access. User roles can be defined at several levels that build on one another.

  • Auditing security-related events

    Security-related events include all activities that set or modify security-related settings and all user authentications and application access attempts. You configure which events to log and how much information to include. You monitor and analyze the log information to help prevent unauthorized access to sensitive data.

  • Administering account passwords

    You periodically change administrator account passwords to comply with your security policies.

  • Managing active user sessions

    You view current active sessions, and manage session limits. If necessary, you can force one user or all users to disconnect.

Entitled IBM InfoSphere DataStage edition and feature pack administration

As part of InfoSphere Information Server administrator, you control activation of InfoSphere DataStage® editions and feature packs to comply with your Proof of Entitlement from IBM. Administration includes the following tasks:

  • Initial edition and feature pack activation

    When you install InfoSphere DataStage, the InfoSphere Information Server installation program prompts you to select the InfoSphere DataStage editions and feature packs to install and activate. Select the items for which you have a valid Proof of Entitlement from IBM. The installation program activates the features that are associated with the items that you select. Any other editions or feature packs are deactivated and cannot be used.

  • Maintaining the list of activated items

    If you later acquire entitlements for an additional InfoSphere DataStage edition or feature pack, you must activate the item within InfoSphere Information Server. If you no longer have entitlement for an item, you must deactivate it. When you deactivate the edition or feature pack, the features within the item are no longer available for use.

Clusters and high availability configuration and administration

If a portion of your installation is set up in a clustered or high availability configuration, you administer the cluster. Administration includes the following tasks:

  • Administering an active-passive configuration administration

    If one or more software tiers in your installation is set up in an active-passive configuration, you monitor and manage the server pair. If a hardware or network error causes a failover to the passive server, you recover projects and restart any interrupted jobs. You can also force a failover to free the active server for maintenance or upgrade tasks.

  • Administering an application server cluster

    If the InfoSphere Information Server services tier is implemented in an IBM WebSphere® Application Server cluster, you administer and maintain the cluster. Tasks include adding cluster members, adding managed nodes, synchronizing information between nodes, and restarting processes.

  • Administering an IBM Db2® high availability configuration

    If the metadata repository tier is implemented in a Db2 cluster or high availability disaster recovery (HADR) configuration, you monitor the cluster. If a failover occurs, you recover from a failover and restore service.

Scheduling administration

Many of the product modules use scheduling capabilities. For example, a report run and an analysis job in IBM InfoSphere Information Analyzer are scheduled tasks. Scheduling administration includes the following tasks:

  • Creating, updating, and managing schedules

    Schedule management is done within the product module. For example, you create a schedule for a column analysis job to run weekly in an InfoSphere Information Analyzer project in the console.

  • Viewing schedules

    You can obtain a global view of all the scheduled activities for all product modules. With this data, you can ensure that enough resources are available to process the schedules. You can monitor who schedules tasks and how often.

  • Querying schedules

    You can query all the schedules that are defined across all product modules. You can check their status, history, and forecast. You can also do maintenance tasks such as purging the scheduled execution history. You can stop or start existing schedules to prevent system overload.

Backup administration

To prevent the loss of data and to prepare for disaster recovery, you administer regular backups. Backup administration includes the following tasks:

  • Backing up InfoSphere Information Server components

    You schedule and perform regular backups of all databases, profiles, libraries, and other data.

  • Restoring components

    To recover your data in the event of a hardware failure or other disaster, you can restore the data that you have backed up.

Service administration

You administer InfoSphere Information Server services and WebSphere Application Server services. Administration includes the following tasks:

  • Placing InfoSphere Information Server in and out of maintenance mode

    You can place InfoSphere Information Server in maintenance mode to prevent non-administrator users from logging in while you run maintenance tasks.

  • Stopping and restarting services

    Many maintenance and administration tasks require that you stop and restart various InfoSphere Information Server services or WebSphere Application Server services.

  • Checking the status of services

    You can determine the status of services for troubleshooting or other maintenance tasks.

Asset administration

Assets include projects, templates, configuration specifications, parameter sets, and all other information that is produced within the InfoSphere Information Server product modules. The assets are stored in the metadata repository. Administration includes the following tasks:

  • Importing and exporting assets

    To move assets from one InfoSphere Information Server installation to another, you export the assets from one installation and import them into another. For example, if you have a development system, a test system, and a production system, you move assets between the systems.

  • Querying and deleting assets

    You can query certain assets and delete them as necessary.

Administration tools

To administer InfoSphere Information Server, you use the following software tools:

  • IBM InfoSphere Information Server console

    The IBM InfoSphere Information Server console ("the console") is a rich client-based interface for activities such as profiling data and developing service-oriented applications. In the console, you can complete administration tasks, reporting tasks, and the tasks that are associated with IBM InfoSphere Information Analyzer and IBM InfoSphere Information Services Director.

  • IBM InfoSphere Information Server Web console

    The IBM InfoSphere Information Server Web console ("the Web console") is a browser-based interface for administrative activities such as managing security and creating views of scheduled tasks. In the Web console, you can perform administration tasks, reporting tasks, and the tasks that are associated with IBM InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog.

For certain tasks, you also use the WebSphere Application Server administrative console.

To administer assets, you use the istool command line.