Starting with the ISBI HealthCheck utility – First Steps

Body

ISBI offers a powerful tool in order to check the health state of your ISBI system: the HealthCheck utility provides system diagnostics, error analysis, and reporting for ISBI. It is also a means to help you to maintain or improve your system performance. The HealthCheck utility includes best practices and suggested actions to help your system perform efficiently. The recommendations given by the HealthCheck tool are only suggestions for the implementation of best practices in ISBI. It is the responsibility of the ISBI user to implement those suggestions and these recommendations are not a guarantee that the performance is increased or issues are resolved.

Overview of HealthCheck scanners

HealthCheck works with so-called scanners. The scanners are collections of tests that are categorized in different functional groups. Currently there are nine scanners available:

• Business Process,
• Config,
• Database,
• Dynamic Tracking Data,
• Host System,
• Log,
• Schedule,
• Static Config, and
• System Process.

For example the Host System Scanner ensures that the OS-settings are optimized for ISBI. The Host Scanner comprises the following tests:

• Dump Files
• Disk Free
• Document Directory Count
• Old Logs
• Thread Count
• ULimit
• CPU Used
• IO Wait
• Processes
• NFS Mount.

More information on scanners can be found in the ISBI knowledge center:

HealthCheck Scanners Overview

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SS3JSW_5.2.0/com.ibm.help.healthcheck.doc/com.ibm.help.healthcheck.reference.doc/healthcheck_scanners.html?lang=en

The HealthCheck utility is available from ISBI 5.2.5 interimFix 4 or higher and is automatically installed.

It is invoked from the browser via the following URL:

http://<SI_install_IP_address>:<port_number>/healthcheck

Depicted below is the login screen of the HealthCheck utility:

After entering user name and password the "Tests" page of the HealthCheck is shown:

You can see the nine scanners. All of the scanners are enabled in this scenario. When running the HealthCheck utility reports are generated. The names of the reports and the types of the reports are determined in the "Tests" ==> "Reports" field. In our example a report for all enabled scanners is created (= _All in the above configuration) with name Report_All_<date>__<time>.pdf and a second report for the Database Scanner (= _Database:TestName=Database_Scanner) with name Report_Database_<date>__<time>.pdf .

Customizing and running the HealthCheck utility

HealthCheck ensures that ISBI is configured correctly by comparing the settings of your system and your ISBI with the settings provided in the scanner and test property pages of your HealthCheck utility.

The scanner and tests configuration in the HealthCheck can be customized in order to apply for your specific needs.

There are two possibilities to change or customize the scanner and tests configuration:

• change scanner and tests properties in the browser-UI of the HealthCheck utility
• change properties in the HealthCheck properties files. This should be done by using the customer_overrides.properties file to change the HealthCheck properties.

The next screenshot shows the Host System scanner with the tests included in this scanner. Some of the tests are expanded showing sub-tests that can be modified:

In the above example we could modify the default values for "Test Timeout" or for the "Threshold" value. It is also possible to enable/disable tests or even scanners. As pointed out in the above section, it is also possible to change those values via the HealthCheck properties files.

After you customized the your HealthCheck you can run the HealthCheck utility. Just press the "run" buttom on the left corner of the web page. The "run"-window is displayed while running the HealthCheck. After the HealthCheck is completed the "results" page is displayed showing the results and summary of your HealthCheck run. Here you can also download the configured reports in pdf-format:

The HealthCheck report consists of the following sections:

• summary
• recommended plan of action
• results.

Every item in the report is associated with a severity showing the importance of the issue.

It is also possible to run the HealthCheck utility from the command line. The utility is invoked from

<ISBI_install_dir>/bin/ healthCheck.sh -<options> (for Linux/Unix) or <ISBI_install_dir>\bin\healthCheck.cmd -<options> (for Windows). An overview of the available options is given in the KnowledgeCenter: HealthCheck commands http://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SS3JSW_5.2.0/com.ibm.help.healthcheck.doc/com.ibm.help.healthcheck.reference.doc/healthcheck_commands_overview.html?lang=en

Additional information about the HealthCheck utility can be found in the ISBI KnowledgeCenter:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SS3JSW_5.2.0/com.ibm.help.healthcheck.doc/com.ibm.help.healthcheck.welcome.doc/healthcheck_welcome.html?lang=en

and the links referenced therein.