About OS Manager

OS Manager is a powerful tool that has the ability to update hundreds of network devices simultaneously. The operating systems of these network resources can be easily upgraded using the OS Manager user interface. Individual resources may be specified for an upgrade, or all resources of a given VTMOS may be updated.

The Network Specialist is responsible for creating and maintaining the OS Registry in ITNCM - Base. Typically, a new OS would be downloaded from the hardware vendor's support web site. For devices not currently on the ITNCM - Base OS Upgrade supported list, new support can be added by creating a new OS upgrade device script. The OS Upgrade utility allows the user to define their own “user-defined” parsers using Regex. The user must ensure they only include supported operating systems in the OS Registry XML file.

When a new OS has been applied against a network resource, the user not only has to upgrade to the new OS, but they must also execute a configuration change and reboot the resource in order to move the new OS to “running”. A config sync is then also required to get the database copy of the configuration in sync with the running and current configs on the resource. The OS Upgrade utility includes options to perform these other necessary steps.

Security rights

In order to update the OS on a network resource, any user must belong to an Netcool Configuration Manager - Base security group with the following permissions:

  • OS Upgrade
  • Execute Direct Commands
  • Manage Work
  • Execute Configuration Synchronization activities

The groups must also have view and modify rights on the appropriate realms.

High-level procedure

The following steps provide the high-level procedure required to upgrade the OS on one or more network resources. The remainder of this chapter describes the specifics of each step.

  1. Create FTP Resource. See the Netcool Configuration Manager - Base User Guide for further information.
  2. Create an OS Registry.
  3. Create an OS Specification Resource.
  4. (Optional) Create a command set to be run during the Upgrade.
  5. Select the Resources to upgrade.
  6. Schedule the OS Upgrade UOW.