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Visual Configuration Explorer


Introduction

Visual Configuration Explorer (VCE) is available as an add-on for IBM Support Assistant (ISA) Version 4.0 and supports...

VCE can be installed only on Microsoft Windows systems; however, it can load configuration data exported from compatible products running on other operating system platforms.

For further information, see the readme files and help information included with VCE. The following article also provides an overview of VCE...

www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/techjournal/0710_supauth/0710_supauth.html


Downloading, Installing, and Customizing VCE

  1. Download the Workbench component of ISA Version 4.0 for Windows via the following URL: http://www.ibm.com/software/support/isa/

  2. After unzipping the installation files to an empty directory, run the file setupwin32.exe. Then use the installation wizard to install ISA.

  3. Start ISA via the Windows Start menu.

  4. If you are running ISA for the first time, the Customization Wizard will be displayed automatically. (You can also define these settings via the Preferences window. To display the Preferences window, click File > Preferences.)

    • If necessary, use the Network Connections page of the wizard to define proxy server and/or SOCKS server settings necessary for ISA to connect to the Internet. Then click Next.

    • On the Updater Preferences page, customize the ISA update settings as necessary. Then click Next.

    • On the Products and Tools page, click Finish.

  5. If you are running ISA for the first time, the Find New Product Add-Ons Wizard will be displayed automatically. (You can also add, update, and remove add-ons via the selections on the Update menu.)

    • On the Tools Add-Ons page, select (at a minimum) Configuration Tools > Visual Configuration Explorer (Tech Preview). Then click Next.

    • On the License page, specify whether you accept the terms of the license agreement. If you accept the terms, click Next; otherwise, click Cancel.

    • On the Summary page, verify that the following components are listed: Visual Configuration Explorer Topology Collector and Visual Configuration Explorer (Tech Preview). Then click Finish.

    • After the add-ons are downloaded and installed, click Finish. Then restart ISA.

ISA Version 4.0 allows you to collect configurations (and other problem determination information) from remote systems. In order to use ISA in this manner, three different ISA components must be installed and configured:


Headless Runtime option

  1. Go to...

    File > Preferences > VCE > Utilities

  2. Upload ZIP file to my WAS server

  3. Unzip

  4. Review the readme file that is generated: VCEHeadlessRuntimeReadme.txt

  5. Run the command for wasexporter (check out help.html) providing WAS_HOME of the WAS install.

    cd /opt/isv/WAS70/vce
    ../AppServer/java/jre/bin/java -jar startup.jar -buildfile wasexporter/wasexport.xml -Dwas.root="/opt/isv/WAS70/AppServer"

    Output goes to wasexporter/output

  6. Downloaded the resulting configuration file to desktop and feed to VCE plugin in ISA


Collect WAS configuration information.

Visual Configuration Explorer has an exporter utility that...

  1. instantiates a ConfigService instance
  2. reads the entire contents of a WebSphere Application Server configuration
  3. writes that information to a portable format that can be handled natively by the Visual Configuration Explorer

The exporter module is provided within the Visual Configuration Explorer installation as part of the websphere-tools package. You must deploy this package on all target servers that you want to analyze with Visual Configuration Explorer.

  1. Extract the contents of the package into...

    $WAS_ROOT

  2. Run...

    cd $WAS_ROOT/vce
    vceexport -profileName

  3. The resulting exported configuration will be placed in...

    $WAS_ROOT/vce/output

    ...in the form of a .configuration file, which can be dragged directly into Visual Configuration Explorer's Providers navigator.


Collecting and Loading Configurations

  1. If ISA is not running, start it via the Windows Start menu.

  2. After the ISA Welcome page appears, click Analyze Problem.

  3. On the Select Collectors page, first select Visual Configuration Explorer Topology Collector > Collect Topology. Next, click Add. After the Collect Topology task is added to the Collector Queue table, click Collect All.

  4. After the Select Products window appears, select the product configuration data to collect. Then click OK.

  5. If you are collecting WebSphere Application Server configuration data, complete the following tasks:

    • After the Specify Application Server Root Directory window appears, specify the appropriate product directory, e.g., C:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer. Then click OK.

    • If multiple configuration profiles exist, the Select Profiles window will appear. Select the appropriate WebSphere Application Server profiles. Then Click OK.

    • After the Install WebSphere Application Server Topology Exporter window appears, specify whether the WebSphere Application Server Topology Exporter should be installed on the application server system.

    If you are collecting topology information from the application server for the first time, click OK to install the Exporter in the application server root directory. Additionally, if the VCE Topology Collector component has been updated (within ISA), click OK to install any updates to the Exporter. (The existing copy of the Exporter will be retained if it is already up-to-date.)

    Note: If the Exporter is not present in the application server root directory, WebSphere Application Server configuration data can not be collected.

  6. After the Remove Sensitive Information window appears, click OK to remove potentially confidential information from the configurations; otherwise, click Skip.

  7. After the configuration information has been collected, click the Current Status tab. The location of the VCE-compatible configuration file is listed at the end of the output.

  8. Click the Tools tab. Next, select the Visual Configuration Explorer tool. Finally, click Launch.

  9. After VCE appears, click File > New VCE Workspace to create a new workspace. Each workspace file contains configuration information, configuration views, and topology views. You can use workspaces to save the state of one or more VCE sessions for future use, either by you or by others.

  10. Add the exported configuration information to VCE:

    • Click the Add VCE Providers button. (A provider is simply a source of configuration information.)

    • After the Add VCE Providers window appears, first enter a prefix for the provider, for example, Server A. Next, specify the location of the configuration export file described in step 9. Finally, click OK.

      Note: In some cases, VCE can not load the configuration file directly from the export directory due to Windows path length and format limitations. To work around this problem, move (or copy) the file to a new directory that possesses a short, simple path. Then load the file from the new location.


Using VCE

See the online help and the following article for information about using VCE:

www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/techjournal/0710_supauth/0710_supauth.html