® IBM Software Group © IBM Corporation IBM Support Assistant V4.0 General information about ISA...

®

IBM Software Group

© IBM Corporation

IBM Support Assistant V4.0

General information about ISA v4.0

IBM Software Group | Tivoli software

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Agenda :

Introduction to IBM Support Assistant (ISA)

Getting Started - some basics.

Activity based approach to troubleshooting

Where do I find information ?

How do I analyze problem ?

Gathering information at remote site

Managing cases and share

More Information

Questions ?

Demo

Backup Slides


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What is IBM Support Assistant (ISA) ?An FREE application helping customers resolve questions and problems

with IBM software products.

Value: meeting client’s need to simplify self assist. Q : Where can I find information I need from ibm.com?

Q : How do I troubleshoot a product problem?

Q : What logs and traces should I collect to investigate a product problem?

Q : What tools can I use to look at my log and trace files?

Q : How can I manage my service request with IBM?

Q : How can IBM help my own support organization?

Its FREE, and crosses ALL SWG Brands !


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What’s in it for me? Search for an answer to your question or problem in many

different locations at the same time.

Run troubleshooting and diagnostic tools to identify the issue.

Gather useful information about the problem automatically and shorten the problem resolution time.

Provide one-stop access to all your problem determination needs.


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ISA V4 Basics

Two parts to ISA core delivered:

ISA Serviceability Workbench This is where user does most of

the interaction with ISA.

Build on top of Lotus Expeditor.

ISA Agent/ Remote Agents. Code to be installed to enable

remote data collection capabilities on target machine.

Leverages Tivoli’s Common Agent Services (CAS) technology.


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Product specific contents:

Product add-on’s Delivered by each SWG Brand.

Categorized by Brand for ease in locating products..

Tool add-on’s Delivered by various IBM teams.

JVM and Configuration tools.

Enabling more content for ISA V4


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“The new Face of ISA” - Activity based UI

First Steps & Tutorials:Information to get you started.

Find information & Analyze Problem:

Basic activities when trouble-shooting a

problem

Open & work with service requests for IBM software & hardware


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Finding information: Client facing docs… What are the resources available for this product ?

NEW!

Product RSS Feeds incorporated!

Select a product from the dropdown menu to view information for that product

Basic product Information – including

education, system requirements, forums

and download sites

Note direct link to DCF Key

Content Types!


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Finding Information : Has it happened before? Do you know all the places where you can look for information ?

The Basics:

IBM Support Docs (DCFs)

developerWorks

Newsgroups & Forums.

Google

Product Information Center

Configure and save your common search settings under advanced search


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What’s next ? Getting information.

There are three ways to leverage data collection Local data collection - on the same machine as ISA.

Useful if ISA is already installed.

NEW : Collect data remotely : leverage remote agent data collection.

Deploy collector code to remote machine

When collector finished, will automatically ftp the data back.

Useful if ISA is already installed, and agents configured.

Easier! Collect data (local or remote) using a portable collector Footprint : ~6M . Can be distributed to client.

All you need is a JVM (1.4 or higher).

Data collectors enable consistent & automated way to gather information.


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So I have the data.. ? Then ?

There are some tools to help you analyze the data you’ve gathered.

Tools now available:

Log Analysis : Log Analyzer. Interface to help browse and analyze log files. Allows easy correlation between logs

produced by multiple products.

JVM related issues IBM Monitoring and Diagnostic Tools for Java – Dump Analyzer. Analyzes Java Dump Files.

WAS modules extensions available.

Thread Analyzer. Analyzes Java Thread Dumps. Can detect issues such as deadlock

IBM Pattern Modeling and Analysis Tool for Java Garbage Collector. Garbage collector analysis, heap usage, and

Symptom Editor: Keeping track of symptoms and known issues just gotten easier !!

Configuration related issues Visual Configuration Explorer. Visualize the configuration files between WAS, portal settings.


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Document, Manage your data and share ….Keep track of & share your work with Case Manager

Cases are containers to store related troubleshooting artifacts Organize data with folders

Add notes & description to a case.

Export & Import cases to share


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Two things to walk away with....

ISA - can help you!

Suggestions & input welcome by the ISA team ([email protected]) .


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More Information…

ISA Home : http://www.ibm.com/software/support/isa/

ISA IEA modules http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/ieduasst/v1r1m0/topic/com.ibm.iea.isa/plugin_coverpage.html

IBM Support Assistant Demo sessions– http://www.ibm.com/software/support/isa/demo.html


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Questions ?


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DEMO


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Backup Slides

System Requirements & Supported Platforms

First Steps: Tutorial & Migration

IGAA integration.

Manage Service Request

ISA Remote Agents System Explorer & Remote system inventory

Tools - Descriptions and Screen shots of various tools within ISA

More Information…


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Supported platforms and versions ISA V4.0 Workbench supported platforms:

Windows: Win XP Pro SP1 / SP2 , Vista , Vista Business & Enterprise

Linux: RHEL 4.0 WS with GIMP GTK – update 5, RHEL 5.0 w/ GTK update 1, SuSE 10.0 FP 1 (w/ XGL)

ISA V4.0 Agent/ Agent Manager platforms. Windows (Agent only): Win XP Pro SP 1,

Windows: Win Server 2003 Std, Ent, or Datacenter

Linux: RHEL AS V4.0 or V5.0 , SUSE Linux Enterprise V9.0 or V10.0

Solaris V10.0 (lacks support for inventory reporting)

AIX 5L V5.3 (requires APAR IY91085) , V6.1.

Portable Collector (console version of autoPD within ISA) All above platforms. Required JDK 1.4 or higher.

Limited i5/OS , z/OS support.


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Improved First steps… The first time you launch the workbench after installation, the

customization wizard will run Can also be launched later from the First Steps page

Configure network connections Set up a proxy server to access

the internet

Configure update notifications When and where to check for

updates

Search for product and tool add-ons


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Tutorials Tutorials on five common user activities on ISA.

Access the tutorials from the Home page of your V4 workbench, under Tutorial Five common activities are listed. Select on the tutorial that you

want to learn about. This will launch a browser with a

flash viewlet displayed.


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Help user migrate! Wizard migrates product plug-ins and tools from your V3 workbench

Functionality of tools will not change

Access the migration wizard from the Home page of your V4 workbench, under First Steps Click the Migrate icon to start

the wizard Provide the installation location

of your V3 workbench Select the product plug-ins and

tools you want to migrate You will be prompted to accept

the plug-in migration IBM Support Assistant will need

to restart after migration is complete


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Analyze Problem activity : IGAA Integration & Tools

Start the Analyze Problem activity

from the Home page or the

Launch Activity dropdown menu

Use Collectors (system or product

collectors) to gather diagnostic data

locally, or create a portable Collector

Use the Guided Troubleshooter to walk through the problem troubleshooting process

Launch tools from add-ons that you have installed from the Tools tab


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Manage Service Request activity

Start the Manage Service Request

activity from the Home page or the

Launch Activity dropdown menu

Use the Guided Activity Assistant to walk through the

steps you should perform before engaging IBM

support

Click the bar to collapse the Guided Activity Assistant

Use Collectors to gather diagnostic data

In the Service Requests tab, open and work with service requests for IBM software and hardware


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ISA & Remote Systems (via agents) ISA leverages the Agent Manager/Agents for:

Remote Data collection.

Exploring remote systems.

Agent manager is a lightweight server component Needs to be installed on a system that is visible to remote machines, workbenches

There should be one agent manager in your environment

Provides authentication and authorization services for communication from workbench to service agents

Maintains a registry of configuration information about the managed systems in your environment

Agents are based on the Tivoli Common Agent runtime Provide services such as data collection, software inventory, file transfer, and log filtering

Install the agent on any system you want to manage

Agents can be customized with product-specific content


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Remote Agent - deployment architecture

DB/2

IBM HTTPServer

WebSphereApplication

Server

ISAAgent

ISAAgent

ISAAgent

AgentManager

yourcompany.com

IBMSupport

AssistantWorkbench

SoftwareProblems IBM

Repository


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Systems explorer & Software inventory

You can access the systems explorer after the workbench has registered with an agent manager

The systems explorer allows you to: Create a software inventory of products

installed on a remote system Browse the remote file system, after

authenticating with the remote operating system

Collect files from the remote system and add them to cases in your workbench

Open the explorer under Administration > Explore Systems


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Tool: Java Dump Analyzer

Java™ Virtual Machine diagnostic tool

Troubleshoot hang, crash, memory management

Automated analysis of virtual machine dump files

Leverages Diagnostic Tooling Framework for Java

Analysis results are one of the following two types:

Root cause and solution Suggestions for continuing

analysis


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Tool : Garbage Collection and Memory Visualizer


Troubleshoot memory usage and performance

Graphic viewer of Java Verbose Garbage Collection logs

Raw logs Tabulated data Graphic views

Stores analysis results as: HTML JPG Comma-separated values (.csv) for

use in spreadsheets

Extensible to parse and plot other types of input


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Tool : Memory Dump Diagnostic for Java™


Troubleshoot memory leaks Single heap dump analysis Comparative heap dump

analysis

Analysis results include: Summary List of suspects Context of suspect objects Types of suspect objects Browser to view objects in the

analyzed heap


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Tool: Thread Analyzer Java™ Virtual Machine

diagnostic tool

Troubleshoot deadlocks

Analysis results presented as: Simple bar graph summary Tabular view of all threads Tabular view of all monitors Tabular view of servlet

thread pool Tabular view of ORB thread

pool

Customized for WebSphere Application Server


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Tool : Log Analyzer

Diagnose cross-product problems

Correlate logs from different products

Build new log correlations

Browse logs

Maps proprietary log formats into the Common Base Event format

Symptom Editor extends functionality


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Tool : Visual Configuration Explorer

Visually explores cross-product configurations

Graphically view configurations

Diagnose problems with configurations

Search for property values

Compare configuration snapshots

Share configuration analysis results


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More Information…

ISA Home : http://www.ibm.com/software/support/isa/

ISA IEA modules http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/ieduasst/v1r1m0/topic/com.ibm.iea.isa/plugin_coverpage.html

IBM Support Assistant Demo sessions– http://www.ibm.com/software/support/isa/demo.html

® IBM Software Group © IBM Corporation IBM Support Assistant V4.0 General information about ISA...

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Transcript of ® IBM Software Group © IBM Corporation IBM Support Assistant V4.0 General information about ISA...