PI76992:Provide connectivity with IBM Cloud Product Insights

Download Description

PI76992 resolves the following problem:

ERROR DESCRIPTION:
The WebSphere Application Server process should register with
IBM Cloud Product Insights and provide usage metrics.

LOCAL FIX:

PROBLEM SUMMARY

USERS AFFECTED:
All users of IBM WebSphere Application
Server

PROBLEM DESCRIPTION:
Provide connectivity with IBM Cloud
Product Insights

RECOMMENDATION:
None

IBM WebSphere Application Server should provide a mechanism to
register and provide metrics to the IBM Cloud Product Insights
service in Bluemix.

PROBLEM CONCLUSION:
APAR PI76992 provides support for registering a WebSphere
Application server with an instance of the IBM Cloud Product
Insights service.

IBM Cloud Product Insights, an IBM Bluemix service, allows
you to connect your IBM WebSphere Application Server to server
registration and usage information. This includes application
servers hosted both in IBM Bluemix and in other environments.
When an application server is configured to connect to Product
Insights, the following information is reported and can be
viewed in Product Insights dashboards:

- Number of active servers
- Host location of each server
- Product edition and version of each server
- How busy each server is

After installing the APAR, before you connect an IBM WebSphere
Application Server traditional server to Product Insights, you
must have an IBM Bluemix account and create the service in an
organization and space. Follow the "Getting started" steps
to set up an account and allocate the Product Insights service.

Ensure that you have the API host and API key values of the
Product Insights service that you want WebSphere Application
Server to register to. Complete the following steps to obtain
the API host and API key values:

1 - Click your new Product Insights service tile to open it.
The service dashboard is displayed.

2 - Click the Service credentials tab. The list of credentials
for your IBM Software products is displayed, including
the service credential name that you specified for your
new service.

3 - Click View credentials to show the API key that will be
used for the connection to your IBM Integration Bus
integration servers.

4 - Copy the API host and API key from the Service credentials
tab, which you will later use when you configure your
servers.

Important: If your WebSphere Application Server installation
does not have direct internet access and needs to connect to
Product Insights through a gateway or proxy server, see the
developerWorks article on using a gateway or proxy server.

Once the Bluemix service has been created and the API host and
API key are known, then configure the WebSphere Application
Server traditional server using the following procedure:

1 - Create a was-product-insights.properties file with the
following contents, substituting the API host and key
from the service credentials.

# required
url=<apihostFromBluemix>
apiKey=<apikeyFromBluemix>

# optional - to use, remove # and define groups
# groups=<groups>

On the optional groups attribute, you can define sets of
servers to be grouped together for reporting purposes.
You can define multiple nested group levels, and each
server can be included in multiple groups by separating
the group names with a comma:

groups="WASGroup1, WASGroup1/subgroupA"

Top-level groups are specified without a forward slash
(/), and nested groups are specified in the following
format: <parentGroup>/<nestedGroup>. Grouped servers
are displayed hierarchically in the Product Insights
service.

2 - Add the was-product-insights.properties file to your
installation.

- For WebSphere Application Server (base), place the file
in the directory:

<wasInstallRoot>/profiles/<profileName>/config/cells/<cellName>


- For WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment or
WebSphere Application Server for z/OS, place the file in
any of the following directories. You can configure
Product Insights at the server, cluster, node, or cell
level, depending on which directory is used.

- Server directory:
<wasInstallRoot>/profiles/<profileName>/config/cells/<cellName>/
nodes/<nodeName>/servers/<servername>
- Cluster directory:
<wasInstallRoot>/profiles/<profileName>/config/cells/<cellName>/
clusters/<clustername>
- Node directory:
<wasInstallRoot>/profiles/<profileName>/config/cells/<cellName>/
nodes/<nodeName>
- Cell directory:
<wasInstallRoot>/profiles/<profileName>/config/cells/<cellName>

If your environment uses a deployment manager, place the
file in the directory tree for the deployment manager
profile. Then, propagate the file to each of the
managed nodes by starting wsadmin and running the
following commands:

repository=
AdminControl.queryNames('type=ConfigRepository,process=dmgr,*')
AdminControl.invoke(repository, 'refreshRepositoryEpoch')
AdminNodeManagement.syncActiveNodes()

If your environment does not use a deployment manager,
place the file in the corresponding directory for
each server, node, or cell that you want to register.

After you add the file, if the server is running or the
next time it starts, the server registers with the
Product Insights service instance.


Each registered WebSphere Application Server traditional
server - or for Network Deployment, each registered cluster,
node, or cell - reports usage metrics to your Product Insights
service instance.

If you no longer want to report metrics to the Product
Insights service, remove the was-product-insights.properties
file from your WebSphere Application Server installation.

For information about how to use Product Insights at run time,
see the Bluemix documentation at About IBM Product Insights, or
articles about Product Insights on developerWorks.

The fix for this APAR is currently targeted for inclusion in
fix packs 8.5.5.12 and 9.0.0.4. Please refer to the
Recommended Updates page for delivery information:
http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=180&uid=swg27004980