VA2 released for French Siebel Server Manager

VA2 2.9.5.2 has been released. One of the main enhancements include support for language specific Siebel Server manager output. It can be downloaded here.

Release Notes: (May 2nd 2009)
Version 2.9.5.2
1. Support for French Siebel Server Manager. Add
LANG=FRA in the vconfig.txt for French Siebel Server managers.
2. Added column cp_startmode for Siebel Components
3. Fixed Schema problem in sessions table for tracking Siebel Sessions. Column tk_hung_state was changed from Not Null to Null
4. MMC updates, including support for MSSQL databases in case sensitive mode
5. Additions to siebsrvobj.pm

Monitoring the Cloud

An interesting article by Bob Scheier about monitoring cloud computing systems. I was interviewed for this story but my comments didn't make it in.

He makes a distinction between cloud providers of "infrastructure as a service", such as Amazon, Co-lo facilities, and SaaS, such as Salesforce.com. I think that is a usefull distinction in general, and especially in the monitoring area. If you ware monitoring an application, you don't want or need to get into the guts of the servers and infrastructure, that is the whole point of SaaS. They monitor it. In my comments to Bob, I asked him why would you install monitoring software to monitor SaaS? Just so you can log a ticket with the SaaS vendor? Because you can't control availiblility on your own, so spending money on your own monitoring software for it is questionable.

In the article however, he brings up some good points about the benefit of monitoring availability of SaaS services as the ability to negotiate with the vendor based on their SLA agreements. You might get some ROI there. And for some of the utility computing on-demand models, you may need monitoring systems, as they are your servers, just in a different location.

Troubleshoot VA2 Events and Reactions

Scenario: You have configured VA2 to monitor your Siebel Environment, and have configured Analsyis Rules and Reactions to automatically detect and correct Siebel problems.

However, when you test the condition, you do not get the notification email or the reaction that corrects the system. What to do?

First, make sure you have read the tutorial on Event generation, and understand the requirements.

For troubleshooting steps, the following are suggested steps:

1. Did an event get generated?

You can determine that by checking the Event Table in VA2. You can also check vcs.log on the central server.

2. Was the event Procesed? (You may have to check the logs or the UI for this

3. If both are true, did the Reaction fire (You can tell from the email you recieve, or in your case with no email check the log vcs.log)

4. If the reaction fired, did it do the expected action?

Modifying Siebel Monitoring libraries with VA2 MMC debugger

VA2 MMC is a GUI/configuration application that can run on any server, and connect to the VA2 environment via ODBC and standard network connetions.

The recommended place to run the VA2 MMC for development tasks/rule configuration is on the same host that hosts the VA2 Central Server. That is because when testing an Analysis Rule or Statistic in debug mode, you ideally want the debugger code running on the same machine that as it will be executed on the server, once the rule is in production. Here is a tutuorial on how to use the VA2 MMC to and write a simple analysis rule, and a screenshot of the debugger output.

VA2 MMC Install Directory:

The default VA2 Install directory is C:\Program Files\Vadmin2. You are free to change that during install, but many leave it a default.

Some of the important files it has in it include:
debugger.exe
siebsrvobj.pm

How to test a debugger.exe gets launched:

When you open a VA2 Analysis rule and press 'Launch Debugger' the C:\Program Files\Vadmin2\debugger.exe is launched.

It uses files in that directory, for example siebsrvobj.pm, if checking on Siebel objects.

How to change siebsrvrobj.pm and then promote the code to the Central Server:

VA2 is a (partially) open source application, and it allows you to change the underlying libraries that used for monitoring. One of the most important is siebsrvobj.pm, which contains most of the Siebel Monitoring methods. You might want to extend or modify that file for your own needs, or even write new lmethods and share it with the VA2 community.

If you needed to change siebsrvrobj.pm (or any other local file in the MMC directory) you would first change it there and then run the debugger. You would want to verify the results and make sure your development is done before promoting the code the the VA2 Central Server.

If everything checks out, you could move the siebsrvobj.pm to the VA2 Central Server directory. The default for that C:\Program Files\VA2\centralservice\bin\lib\

Restaring the Central Server:

When changes are made to the \lib directory for the VA2 Central Server, the service must be restarted to pick up the changes to the library.

Monitoring French Siebel Server

The steps below are an outline of how you can change siebsrvrobj.pm. Any user of VA2 has access to this library. In this case, we will modify siebsrvrobj.pm so it is compatible with French output from a French Siebel srvrmgr.

Siebel Memory Leak

A reader asks:

"I have got a question about Siebel memory leak. We have constant problems with memory leaks in Siebel with the siebmtshmw.exe!
I do monitor it every dag and then restart the workflow process manager and this helps. But we need a solution and my question to you is if you know how to solve this problem? "

SQL in the cloud

This is a great idea. SQL and relational databases are probably one of the biggest productivity enhancers in enterprise computing, and back every single application type worth its salt, including any useful web app (*web app as opposed to web page.. which don't need no stinking' db.)

So do I really want to be isolated from the dear data, and forced into layers of abstraction, encapsulated web services calls, responses, html and browsers? For something that used to be a simple "select foo from bar" ? No.

A truly cloud based data access system could eventually take away layers of gunk that has built up between browser UIs and their data, slowing and obscuring things. Browser based data connections won't be far behind...kind of a new type AML (application markup language), not based on display, but applications.

Wow, I was thinking about this back in '99 while righting my first Perl "Web front end' to a database. Microsoft must have hacked into my thought space and created a product out of it 10 years later.

SOQL with Dataloader

How do you execute SOQL? Compared to SQL, where we have our beloved interfaces depending on the RDBMS, SOQL is a lot more tricky to even find an environment to execute it. A good refrence for SOQL is here, but so far have had much more limited sucess actually executing the SOQL.

DataLoader
In my developer account, I go to Setup > Administrative Setup > Data Management > DataLoader. The actual URL is here if : https://na6.salesforce.com/dwnld/DataLoader/ApexDataLoader.exe - but that may vary per SFDC account.

Step 1: (pdf) RTFM!

Step 2. Start DataLoader, log in with your API enabled account.

Step3. Go to Export section to run the SOQL.

What I learned here, only after reading the manual, is that:

“The Data Loader does not support nested queries or querying child objects. For example, queries similar to the following return an error:

SELECT Amount, Id, Name, (SELECT Quantity, ListPrice,
PriceBookEntry.UnitPrice, PricebookEntry.Name,
PricebookEntry.product2.Family FROM OpportunityLineItems)
FROM Opportunity “

Data Loader does support querying parents. For example, you can query the ID of account records that are the parents of contact records:
"SELECT Id, Account.Id, CreatedById from Contact”

The net effect, is most of the examples the SOQL reference don't work. So still trying to find the perfect environment for testing SOQL.

Cloud computing is for real

I had an interesting talk with Kevin from ReadyTech yesterday. His business of hosting training platforms for EMC, Genesys, Documentum, and many other enterprise software vendors is going extremely well. In general ReadyTech hosts training systems on their own servers in their own data centers. These are complex images, with lots of software components that need to be installed to run a proper training class. So when Readytech prepares an image for a class, it has the full stack of software, and customers can access the training platform from anywhere in the world via Readytech APIs.

The surprise to me was that cloud computing has advanced to the level where Readytech can plug their complex images into the "cloud". Amazon, for example, can provide a full system, OS and everything, and Readytech can use this virtual computer to apply a complex immage and provide access to their enterprise clients. Kevin told me that if they don't have a cloud story, they would be in trouble as a hoster within a few years.

I had been thinking of Cloud computing more on the line of web services, and specific integration areas, such as Databases, SaaS. But it is moving pretty fast.

Rimini Street is doing great

Wow, some impressive numbers comming out of Rimini street, with revenue going from $7 million to $89 Million in one year. It makes sense - down economy, cut your support costs in 1/2, why not?