HP Network Node Manager i Software Smart Plug-in Performance for Metrics/
Network Performance Server
Release Notes

for the Windows® and Linux operating systems

Software version: 9.00

Publication date: March 2010

This document is an overview of the HP Network Performance Server (NPS) version 9.00 and the associated HP Network Node Manager i Software Smart Plug-in Performance for Metrics (iSPI Performance for Metrics). It contains important information that is not included in books or online help. You can find information about the following in this document:

Product Overview
Installation Notes
Known Problems, Limitations, and Workarounds
Documentation Errata
Documentation Updates
Support
Legal Notices

Product Overview

The NPS stores, aggregates, and provides reports for collected performance data. It is the foundation for operational reports on NNMi. Other iSPIs rely upon the NPS for report presentation functionality. The iSPI Performance for Metrics adds the performance management capability to NNMi by analyzing, processing, and aggregating a range of standard metrics collected by NNMi from different network elements. This release of the iSPI Performance for Metrics includes the following features:

• Interface Health Reports
• Component Health Reports
• Path Health Report
• Custom Polled Reports

Installation Notes

Installation requirements, as well as instructions for installing the NPS and iSPI Performance for Metrics, are documented in the Installation Guide for the iSPI Performance for Metrics/ Network Performance Server provided in PDF (.pdf) format. You can find the Installation Guide at the root directory on the product installation media.

For a list of supported hardware platforms, operating systems, and database, see the support matrix available at the root directory of the product media or at this location:
HP Support matrices.

Known Problems, Limitations, and Workarounds

This release contains certain unresolved problems, some limitations, and there are workarounds to help solve certain problems.

Issues Related to Installation

• If you are running the NPS enablement script on NNMi and you choose to stop when the script presents you with a list of tasks, the message that displays does not take account of the fact that you have not done anything yet.
• The iSPI Performance for Metrics does not support non-ASCII user names on a Windows system.
• If jboss is not running when you run the iSPI Performance for Metrics enablement script on NNMi, an error message will appear.
• An error relating to ‘ovcatgets fails’ may appear on Linux systems. Ignore this error.
• On Windows systems, the event log warning messages relating to dbsnmp11.dll may appear. Ignore these messages.
• Upgrade from the version 8.13 to the version 9.00 does not retain any changes made to the email and notification server settings for the BI Server. If you have configured the email and notification server settings for the BI Server of the iSPI Performance for Metrics 8.13, you must perform the configuration again (with the help of the runBIConfigGUI.ovpl utility) after upgrading to the version 9.00.

Issues Encountered While Removing the Product

• For distributed systems (when the NPS is installed on a dedicated system; not on the NNMi management server), running the NNM PerfSPI Disablement utility (nnmdisableperfspi.ovpl) will remove the license and it will also remove actions from the NNMi menu; however, you must remove the configured operating system user and the network drive share using appropriate tools.
• Running the nnmlicense.ovpl PerfSPI command on the NPS system is a useful way to examine license usage. However, it can have the effect of re-enabling a previously disabled iSPI Performance for Metrics license. While using this tool, make sure that the licenses that were deliberately removed in the past have not been inadvertently re-enabled.
• On a Windows system, after removing the product, Sybase IQ items may remain in the Add/Remove Programs list. You may see errors in the uninstallation log file regarding installer32.dll. You can ignore these errors.

Issues Related to Report Appearance

• Some buttons and links that appear within the BI Server components of the product do not work as a result of the BI Server running as an embedded component. The Lineage feature does not work.
• All reports can be viewed in the HTML, PDF, and Microsoft Excel formats. The NPS enables you to generate reports in other formats such as CSV or XML. Ready-to-use reports available with the iSPI Performance for Metrics are not suitable for the CSV and XML formats. If you require specific report layouts in these file formats, you must create your own custom report in Query Studio.
• The Self Diagnostics – Top 10 Task Duration report includes a malfunctioning ‘Add Bookmark’ panel.
• If you launch the Report Menu page after selecting an interface from the NNMi console, you may see empty Component Health reports. To resolve this, reset the Topology Filter setting.
• The Topology Filters pane contains selectors for each topology attribute in an extension pack. The single value selectors for numerical ID type values can sometimes have the text topo_ showing in front of the name.
• A warning sign appears within an HTML report when incorrect selections are made. At times, this warning sign can be visible in the PDF version of a report where the warning is not actually relevant. Ignore the warning signs on PDF reports.
• If you select the Time Range as "Last X," the setting of the Start Date/Time becomes ineffective.
• Some static reports (such as reports saved into the ‘My Folders’ area) may include inactive links for Time Controls.
• The Top N report may fail with an error if you choose to group the output data by more than one column and use one of the ‘countDistinct’ metrics.
• If you create a custom collection for reporting purposes within NNMi, you will see the reports within the reporting server. If you modify the custom collection , for example, to add a new MIB variable, you may see an error similar to the following when you attempt to launch a report on the custom collected data:
  
  QE-DEF-0359 The query contains a reference to at least one object '[<ExtensionPack>].[<Table>].[<Column>]' that does not exist
  
  This error is a result of NNMI and the NPS reports not being synchronized. To resolve the issue, wait for one hour, and then install the extension pack into NPS manually using the following commands:
  • On Linux
    /opt/OV/NNMPerformanceSPI/bin/installExtensionPack.ovpl –e extensionpacks/<ExtensionPack>.tar.gz
  • On Windows
    <Install_Dir>/NNMPerformanceSPI\bin\installExtensionPack.ovpl –e extensionpacks\<ExtensionPack>.tar.gz
    
    In this instance, <Install_Dir> is the directory where the NPS is installed, <ExtensionPack> is the name of the extension pack to install (mentioned in the error message).
• The Chart Detail report can display a table and a chart. The data in the table may not be ordered correctly. While the values for each time entry displayed are correct, the times may appear to be out of sequence when compared to the chart.

Issues Related to Report Navigation

• Drill-through capabilities are not available in reports presented in the PDF format despite the fact that URLs are embedded in them. Clicking these links will result in the browser 404 (Page not found) error.
• The BI Server utilizes an asynchronous communications mode between the user browser and the report server. Opening multiple browser windows and launching simultaneous reports may result in the following error: Absolute affinity request ‘asynchWait_Request' failed. This error may also be displayed if a local firewall is interfering with the operation of the BI Server or if the system specification is significantly less than the minimum required for the iSPI Performance for Metrics.
• Many report URLs rely on Javascript. Various browser controls (for example, forward, back, and refresh) and bookmarks based on displayed URLs will not work as expected. You will either see the asynchWait_Request error or you will return to the BI Server Portal.
• Navigating between reports with metrics with non-ASCII names will cause the metric value to return to the default for the report with each report transfer. This problem can apply only to customPoll reports as standard Metrics reports use predefined ASCII metric names. The workaround is that users of non-ASCII systems who define custom collections should avoid creating metrics with non-ASCII names.
• Using the report zoom controls to zoom in or out when the current Time Range selection is ‘Until Now’ will have no effect. Modify the Time Range to some other values for the zoom in or out buttons to operate correctly.
• Navigating to the Heat Chart or Calendar report with a Time Range of Until Now but a total time interval of less than 24 hours can cause these reports to appear blank.
• Using the same browser session to log into more than one NPS instance may result in the ‘Session capability’ or ‘HMAC value’ errors. To resolve this, Shut down all browser sessions between logging into different NPS systems.
• When you navigate from a report into Query Studio using the ‘Query Studio’ link embedded in the Report Links section (which appears when you click Show Links), some important header details (like the link to the My Folders section) disappear from the browser page. As a result, you cannot navigate from Query Studio into ‘My Folders’ to view currently saved reports. To avoid this, always launch Query Studio through the BI Portal link.
• In a High Availability (HA) cluster, the language properties files, which provide text for the tabbed report navigation area of the NPS, may not get replicated between each HA node at the event of failover. No data will be lost and you can continue to navigate between reports after failover, but the report names will show error messages similar to ‘Chart Detail not found in Interface_Health translation message file.’ To resolve the issue, follow these steps:
  1. Go to the following location on the server that was active before failover took place:
  • On UNIX/Linux:
    /opt/OV//nonOV/cognos/c8/webapps/PerfSpi/WEB-INF/classes/com/hp/ov/perfspi
  • On Windows:
    %nnminstalldir%\nonOV\cognos\c8\webapps\PerfSpi\WEB-INF\classes\com\hp\ov\perfspi
  2. Collect all properties files available within the perfspi directory.
  3. Transfer the properties files into the same directory on the server that is currently active.
  4. Restart the BI Server using the stopBI.ovpl and startBI.ovpl commands.
• Using the in-built bookmark for the Chart Detail report does not record whether the chart, or table, or both should be displayed. The report will always render with just the default option, which is the chart.
• Logging on to the NPS using a bookmark and a Japanese browser will show a login screen with garbled text where Username and Password should appear. Set your browser language to English and the page will appear correctly.
  

Browser Specific Issues

The Firefox browser does not support the dragging and dropping of metrics within Query Studio. Other methods of inserting metrics are available (double-click or the ‘Insert’ button).

Miscellaneous Issues

• The Headline Report, a part of the Interface Health package, is slower to execute than other reports. This can be observed on systems supporting large networks.
• Systems that are low on resources and have had multiple install/uninstall cycles of the product on them may fail to start the embedded database. This will be flagged as an error in the log files with the following message: failed to allocate SYSV semaphore. To resolve this, restart the system.
• Some reports may be difficult to interpret when printed unless a color printer is used.
• NNMi administrators have access to extensive configuration options on the BI Server Portal. Administrative users should familiarize themselves with portal features and capabilities. Use online help and the tutorials available from the help link on the BI Server Portal.
• NNMi and the NPS must exist on the same network domain. They can exist in different sub-domains. Placing NNMi and the NPS on separate systems that are on completely different network domains will result in double login issues when moving between NNMi and the reports.
• When you run a report, you may see an hourglass and an invitation to let your report run in the background. To do this, you must select an alternative delivery method. Additional configuration is required to ensure that sending reports via email will work. To view a saved report, use the BI Server Portal.
• The NPS supports application failover settings within NNMi, but does not support them for the NPS itself.
• When running the Reset Utility (resetSPI.ovpl) and selecting the option 2 (restore archived data for reprocessing) on a Windows iSPI installation, which is paired with a Linux NNMi installation using Samba for sharing the drive, the act of copying the files from the iSPI machine to NNMi may fail due to permissions of the iSPI user. The workaround is to copy the files back to the NNMi machine manually.
• While running the NPS scripts—such as startALL.ovpl—on a Linux system from a read-only file system, an error like this appears : FATAL: Error in tempfile() using XXXXXXX.sh: Could not create temp file 5XZjbM1.sh: Read-only file system at /opt/OV/NNMPerformanceSPI/lib/perllibs/lib/perfspi.pm line 612. You must change the directory to a writable file system area, and then run the script again.
• If you do not interact with a report browser page for an extended period, you may find that the session times out. When this happens, you will see an error saying The 3rd party provider returned an unrecoverable exception (and associated details of 'Security Violation - Untrusted source'). If this error appears, you must close all browsers with reports visible and re-launch the Report Menu page from NNMi.
• If you use the restore.ovpl command on a system where the location of OvPerl is in a different location from where the backup was originally made, the data loading procedure (ETL routines) will not run. ETL routines will start and continuously attempt to launch sub-processes and will immediately fail without reporting any errors. Also, running checkConfig.ovpl from the Start menu will fail, but opening a command prompt and running the script will show that there is an issue with this setting.
  To fix this issue, open <Data_Dir>\NNMPerformanceSPI\rconfig\NNMPerformanceSPI.cfg, locate the line defining perl_dir, and then change the directory so that it matches the current location.
• The changeDBname.ovpl command may fail to completely change the name of the database. If the current database name is not the same in the 64-bit DSN and configuration files, changeDBname.ovpl will change the DSNs, but not the configuration files. To fix the issue, change the name of the database manually in the database configuration files.
• The Managed Inventory report may run quite slowly. This can become an issue on 'Very Large' scale systems when running the Managed Inventory report from the Interface Health package where total report execution time can be several minutes.
• The checkConfig.ovpl script does not have the -h option to advise the user with associated help text.
• Within the Online Help pages, the link to 'command list' will not function if you have started the help system from the Windows Start Menu.
• When running in a High Availability (HA) cluster, if the primary server partially fails and the system switches over to the secondary server, the BI Server processes may remain running. This will not cause any problem. The processes can be manually stopped using the Windows Service Manager on Windows or from the command line on Linux.
• When backing up a system using the in-built backup routine, language properties files associated with custom collections will not be saved.
• Bookmarks and links to reports generate by the BI Server does not preserve user-selected settings. If you want to preserve the settings of the report, use the 'Show Bookmark' panel and record the bookmark shown.

Problems and Workarounds

• Multiple problems caused by multi-byte values for Node Group Names, Interface Group Names, or other fields used as topology attributes:
  • Multi-byte filter values do not work correctly on Windows.
  • The ETL service performs repeated ‘attribute change’ actions when it encounters multi-byte attribute values on Windows.
  • Navigation problems occur with the Firefox browser when multi-byte topology filter is set.
    
  Workaround: Use ASCII characters for group names and other topology attributes.

Limitations

• The Windows version of this software is only supported on 64-bit versions of Windows; installation on 32-bit Windows systems is not supported.
• Although you can install this application on systems supporting non-ASCII characters (such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean), the install directories (both the application and data directories) must not include any non-ASCII characters.
• This version of this software is available only in English. The product user interface, documentation, command-line utilities, and messages are not available in non-English languages.

Documentation Errata

The Glossary of Metrics topics in iSPI Performance for Metrics online help do not contain the complete list of the metrics used by default.

Documentation Updates

The first page of this release notes document contains the following identifying information:

• Version number, which indicates the software version.
• Publish date, which changes each time the document is updated.

To check for recent updates or to verify that you are using the most recent edition, visit this URL: HP Software Product Manuals

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2. Version list.
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Legal Notices

©Copyright 2009-2010 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.

Confidential computer software. Valid license from HP required for possession, use or copying. Consistent with FAR 12.211 and 12.212, Commercial Computer Software, Computer Software Documentation, and Technical Data for Commercial Items are licensed to the U.S. Government under vendor's standard commercial license.

The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.

The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.

For information about third-party license agreements, see the license-agreements directory on the product installation DVD-ROM.

To view open source code, see the license-agreements/source and license-agreements/CygwinSources directories on the product installation media.

Trademark Notices

Adobe® is a trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated.
Java™ is a U.S. trademark of Sun Microsystems,Inc.
Microsoft®, Windows® and Windows® XP are U.S. registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
UNIX® is a registered trademark of The Open Group.

Acknowledgements

This product includes libjpeg library. This software is copyright (C) 1991-1998, Thomas G. Lane.
The Graphics Interchange Format(c) is the Copyright property of CompuServe Incorporated. GIF(sm) is a Service Mark property of CompuServe Incorporated.
This product includes libxml2 library. Copyright (C) 1998-2003 Daniel Veillard. All Rights Reserved.
This product includes libxp library. Copyright © 2001,2003 Keith Packard.

© 2009-2010 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.