What is TADDM stuck doing?

Yesterday I ran a discovery in an environment and after the sensors finished scanning the servers, the topology builder started it's work.

2%..4%..6%..9%..11%...75%.

It breezed through the first percentiles quickly and smoothly, but stuck on 75% for ages. Eventually we left and came back the next day.
The good news is that it completed successfully.

I don't like not knowing what and why computers are doing something. Why did it get stuck on 75% but nowhere else?
The percentiles that the topology builder show us are now percentiles such as displayed when copying a file. I.e. 9% doesn't mean that 9% of the work has been done, it means that 4 "steps" have been completed. So TADDM was stuck on the step represented by 75%.

per this Note, the various steps are represented in the file $COLLATION_HOME/dist/etc/TopologyBuilderConfigurationDefault.xml and there are nearly 40 steps.

Each step represents the topology builder generating the dependencies and links for a sensor. Part of creating a brand-new sensor is updating this file, so that after the discovery is done the topology builder will fold the items found by the new sensor into the list of links it holds.

Here are the sensors and the percentile they are represented by:

2 DatabaseServerCleanupAgent
4 ComputerSystemConsolidationAgent
6 ComputerSystemTypeAgent
9 RuntimeGcAgent
11 DeletedObjectGcAgent
13 SystempConsolidationAgent
16 VmwareVirtualCSConsolidationAgent
18 J2EEServerDeploymentAgent
20 AppServerClusterAgent
23 JDBCDependencyAgent
25 JBossClusterAgent
27 WeblogicClusterAgent
30 OracleAppClusterAgent
32 OracleDependencyAgent
34 WebConnectionDependencyAgent
37 WebSphereConnectionDependencyAgent
39 SAPDependencyAgent
41 SoftwareHostReferenceAgent
44 DNSServiceAgent
46 LDAPServiceAgent
48 DNSDependencyAgent
51 NFSDependencyAgent
53 HostDependencyAgent
55 ConnectionDependencyAgent
58 GenericAppAgent
60 AppDefinitionAgent
62 AppDescriptorAgent
65 ObjectDisplayNameAgent
67 DiscoveryLogCleanupAgent
69 DominoConnectionAgent
72 DominoClusterDomainAgent
74 PortableAgentWrapper
76 l2.L2Agent
79 l2.CDPAgent
81 CompositeCreationAgent
83 MQServerAgent
86 CitrixAgent
88 ExchangeDependencyAgent
90 VCSDependencyAgent

Seeing as I was stuck on 75% I see that the L2 (communications layer 2) sensor was very busy. In retrospect this makes prefect sense, since this discovery was the first time I found a new type of switch in the environment. It makes sense that the builder would take much longer for this step than when I'm only discovering servers.

What happens after step 90%?

I don't know. I'll try to find out and let you know!
If anyone does know, please drop a line

-- 2011 Update

In TADDM 7.2.x, the log file dist/log/TADDM.log details each step, so if your discovery is stuck on step x, just check the last line of the log and you'll see what class the Topology Builder is working on.

-- Robert

TADDM OMP Change Event Module on TADDM 7.1.2

The TADDM OMP Change Event Module (http://www-01.ibm.com/software/brandcatalog/portal/opal/details?catalog.label=1TW10CC1Q) is a module you install on TADDM servers so that you will get alerts on various monitoring systems when a change (any change or specific changes) are detected.

This module works very well on TADDM 7.1, but it fails on TADDM 7.1.2.

The error message is:
com.collation.proxy.api.client.ApiException: java.rmi.ServerException: RemoteException occurred in server thread; nested exception is:
java.rmi.UnmarshalException: invalid method hash
at com.collation.proxy.api.client.DataApiImpl.findModel(DataApiImpl.java:954)

Apparently there were changes in the Java files between 7. 1 and 7.1.2.

The solution is to change following line in /bin/changeevents.sh:

omp_classpath=.:"$TADDM_PATH"/lib/platform-model.jar:"$TADDM_PATH"/lib/api-client.jar:"$TADDM_PATH"/lib/api-dep.jar:"$TADDM_PATH"/lib/edm-server.jar:"$TADDM_PATH"/lib/oal-api.jar:"$TADDM_PATH"/lib/oal-common.jar:"$TADDM_PATH"/lib/oal-topomgr.jar:"$JAR_DIR"/evd.jar:"$JAR_DIR"/log.jar:"$JAR_DIR"/taddmomp.jar

to

omp_classpath=.:$TADDM_PATH/sdk/clientlib/taddm-api-client.jar:"$JAR_DIR"/evd.jar:"$JAR_DIR"/log.jar:"$JAR_DIR"/taddmomp.jar

Hope this helps whoever encounters this problem.

 

-- Robert

PDFs

I read a lot of things which are written in Portable Document Format, some relevant to my work and some to my studies.

In any case, I often find myself wanting to "do something" with the PDFs - copy specific pages, modify or add something.

The proper way of doing this used to be using Adobe's programs - but these are expensive.

Here's a link to a list of tips relevant to PDF manipulation.

 

-- Robert

I've never really wondered how the did multiplication...

http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2008/12/roman_numerals_and_arithmetic_1.php

But now that I've read about it - it's fascinating...

It's amazing how some things that seem so obvious and second nature are actually really very dependent on the time and culture one comes from.

No wonder it's difficult for different ethnic groups to get along :(

-- Robert

How writers, artists, and other interesting people organize their days.

This is one of the best sites I've found in quite some time.

I'd like to be a in the Scientists & Mathematicians in that list, but for now I'll have to make do with being a procrastinator...

 

-- Robert

Ancient Rome on your Modern Computer

Google has added a new twist to its popular 3D map tool, Google Earth, offering millions of users the chance to visit a virtual ancient Rome.

 

Google has reconstructed the sprawling city - inhabited by more than one million people as long ago as 320 A.D..

Users can zoom around the map to visit the Forum of Julius Caesar, stand in the center of the Colosseum or swoop over the Basilica. 

Google's site

BBC link & Associated Press link

 

 

-- Robert

A planetary snapshot

Since Copernicus showed that the Earth orbits the Sun, we've known that we're not the only planet in the universe. 20 years ago was the first discovery of an exo-planet - a planet which orbits a different star. Over 350 of them have been discovered over the years. BUT... until this week, all these discoveries were made with various techniques which detected the planet, but did not show it. This is similar to knowing that an airplane is flying near you because you can see it on radar or see it's contrail, but not ever seeing one.

Last week the Hubble Space Telescope took a picture of Fomalhaut and saw .. really saw a planet.

Picture courtesy Astronomy Picture of the Day

For a better articulated explanation - and information about another stunning exo-planetary discovery, click here.

 

-- Robert