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

for the Windows® and Linux operating systems

Software version: 9.11

Publication date: July 2011

This document applies to HP Network Performance Server (NPS) version 9.11 and the associated HP Network Node Manager i Software Smart Plug-in Performance for Metrics (NNM iSPI Performance for Metrics), and provides an overview of these products. 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
What's New in This Release?
Installation Notes
Localization Support
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 NNM 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 NNM iSPI Performance for Metrics includes the following features:

• Interface Health Reports
• Component Health Reports
• Path Health Report
• Self Diagnostics Health Report
• Frame Relay PVC Health Report
• ATM PVC Health Report
• Custom Polled Reports

What's New in This Release?

The NNM iSPI Performance for Metrics contains new features, feature enhancements, and other changes.

New Features

Usability

• Ability to save scheduled Top N and Top N chart detail reports in CSV format

New Extension Packs
The following new extension packs are available with NNM iSPI Performance for Metrics 9.11:

• Frame Relay PVC Health
• ATM PVC Health
  

Product Features and Architecture
NNM iSPI Performance for Metrics 9.11 includes the following new feature:

• New "Type 1" node groups (Node group that represents a set of nodes/interfaces and the group can then be used to scope reports that go back in time from before the time the group was created. The required functionality does not preserve the historical record of changing group definitions, but rather it overwrites the previous group definition with the current one, behaving like a "Type1 Slowly Changing Dimension")

Apart from the new features, NNM iSPI Performance for Metrics 9.11 also includes several defect fixes, a list of which is available in the Patch Text.

Installation Notes

NNMi 9.1x and NNM iSPI Performance for Metrics Software must have equivalent versions. NNM iSPI Performance for Metrics Software version 9.10 is only supported with NNM 9.10. NNM iSPI Performance for Metrics Software version 9.11 is supported only with NNMi 9.11. Failure to ensure that NNMi 9.11 is installed before installing NNM iSPI Performance for Metrics 9.11 may result in the inability to process data and display reports.

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.

Localization Support

The following table lists the localized languages and supported Locales for each operating system:

To install the localized version of NPS and NNM iSPI Performance for Metrics on Linux system, set the following environment variables:

Japanese

$LC_ALL = ‘ja_JP.utf8’

$LANG = ‘ja_JP.utf8’

Simplified Chinese

$LC_ALL = ‘zh_CN.utf8’

$LANG = ‘zh_CN.utf8’

Localization Support for Documentation

• The Release Notes and Support Matrix are localized in Japanese and Simplified Chinese.
• The Installation Guide and Online Help are localized in Japanese and Simplified Chinese.

Known Problems, Limitations, and Workarounds

This release contains certain unresolved problems and some limitations. These problems are listed below, with available workarounds where applicable. Where a problem is only applicable to users operating in a non-English environment, the text is preceded with 'Non-English only:'.

• Non-English only: When configuring an installation of the Network Performance Server in a Windows 2008 High Availability, non-English environment, the resource-group will fail to start because the data directory cannot be found.
  • Workaround:The user should create the symbolic link to the data directory manually after the High Availability configuration. Use the command:
    mklink/D "$NPSDataDir" "$HA_MOUNT_POINT/datadir/NNMPerformanceSPI"
    where $NPSDataDir is the standard data directory for NPS and $HA_MOUNT_POINT can be determined by running 'nnmhaclusterinfo.ovpl -config NNM -get HA_MOUNT_POINT'
    
• Non-English only: The authentication screen which appears when launching a bookmarked report will contain some text in English.
  • Workaround:There are two text entry fields - the upper is for Username, the lower is for Password.
• Non-English only: The 'Report History' panel on the left side of the Network Performance Server screen will contain report names which are in English.
• Non-English only: The Time Zone in the Time Controls area on the left side of the Network Performance Server screen is not translated and will contain time zones in English.
• Non-English only: Some items in the BI portal pages, including the 'About' link, will appear in English.
• Non-English only: In a Windows environment, some menu items in the Start Menu, will appear in English.
• Non-English only: Some log messages produced by the product are not translated into the local users language, but instead appear in English.
• Non-English only: Some text, appearing in the installer and uninstaller for the product, remains untranslated and will display only in English.
• Non-English only: Range filters used for restricting the data shown in a report are not translated and will appear in English.
• Non-English only: Users who choose to enable the demonstration database may see some messages in English appear temporarily on the screen for a few seconds.
• Non-English only: The log viewer tool opens in English, regardless of the language in use on the local system.
• Non-English only: When launching a report using a saved bookmark, the status panel in the top left side of the Network Performance Server may display garbled characters for the report name or folder.
  • Workaround:These garbled characters will be replaced by proper text when the next report is launched.
• Non-English only: The 'Reporting - Report Menu' action item within NNM will appear in the language of the server, not the browser. The result is that a non-English browser accessing an English installation of NNM will see most drop down actions in their own language, but the 'Reporting - Report Menu' will appear in English.
  • Workaround:If the NNM server is installed on a non-English system then the menu item will appear in that language.
• Non-English only: When drilling down on data within a report, the user is passed through to an intermediate screen, at which point they must select a new report to open. On a non-English system this intermediate screen will appear in English, not translated.
  • Workaround:The same screen appears fully translated when the user first launches the product. Users should familiarize themselves with the content.
• On Windows 2008, in a High Availability installation, the user is instructed to place the online node of the cluster into maintenance mode before the product upgrade. However, a failure will occur.
  • Workaround:Please see defect QCCR1B90246 on http://support.openview.hp.com for updated information regarding this issue before proceeding with the upgrade.
• Following the upgrade of a Windows 2008 based Network Performance Server, where the associated NNM is installed on a separate platform which is also Windows 2008, the NPS will no longer be able to collect data from NNM and may produce error messages in the prspi.log file.
  • Workaround: In the main configuration file for NPS, the PRSPI_NNMDIR parameter tells the NPS where to locate NNM data. The upgrade process can inadvertently remove one or more slash characters '/' from the PRSPI_NNMDIR parameter. This can be fixed by modifying the following file %NPSDataDir%/rconfig/NNMPerformanceSPI/NNMPerformanSPI.cfg to add missing backslash.
    i.e. change
    From: PRSPI_NNMDIR \nnmhostnamePerfSpi
    TO: PRSPI_NNMDIR \\nnmhostname\PerfSpi
    
• When the Network Performance Server is installed on Linux and NNM is on a separate Solaris or HPUX machine, the NPS may not have sufficient permissions to archive collected data from NNM. This can result data collections ceasing and in an error message in the prspi.log file similar to the that listed below:
  May 27, 2011 12:39:50 PM [PID:29059] FATAL /opt/OV/NNsuMPerformanceSPI/bin/.etl-runtime.Component_Health.ovpl[464] ETL.Component_Health Failed command move(/net/nnmsolt22.ind.hp.com/var/opt/OV/shared/perfSpi/datafiles/topoDump/final/ComponentTopology_Incr_20110527182151905.csv.gz,/var/opt/OV/NNMPerformanceSPI/Component_Health/archives/topology): Permission denied
  
  • Workaround:The configuration of the NNM share needs to be changed to allow root access from NPS.
    
    Login to the NNM system as root.
    After running nnmenableperfspi.ovpl edit the following file:
    /etc/dfs/dfstab
    Locate the line:
    share -F nfs -o rw=NPSSERVERNAME -d PerfSpi /var/opt/OV/shared/perfSpi/datafiles
    Replace with:
    share -F nfs -o rw,root=NPSSERVERNAME -d PerfSpi /var/opt/OV/shared/perfSpi/datafiles
    
    Run the command:
    share -F nfs -o rw,root=NPSSERVERNAME -d PerfSpi /var/opt/OV/shared/perfSpi/datafiles
    
    
    Where NPSSERVERNAME if the fully qualified name of the NPS server (this will already be present after running the Enablement script).
• Report group names, created in NNM with custom collections, and exported to the Network Performance Server reports, should not include multi-byte characters.
  • Workaround:Users should avoid creating report group names which include multi-byte characters.
• If the user is upgrading their installation, and the upgrade fails for any reason - a failure window will appear which references an 'Exit' button. There is no exit button available.
  • Workaround: The user should simply close the window using the standard window controls.
• During an upgrade in a High Availability installation on a Linux platform, the installation may fail with the following error message (or similar):
  Install Metrics ExtensionPacks
  Finalize action for com.hp.ov.installer.ovapp.core.ActionRunner@ef27e3
  INFO: Installing Metrics ExtensionPacks
  FATAL ERROR: metricsExtensionPacks.ovpl install failed. You can retry this step after the installation is complete, by running 'metricsExtensionPacks.ovpl install' (Logfile /var/tmp/PerfSPI_MetricsExtensionPacksInstall.ovsh.txt)
  Problem installing Metrics ExtensionPacks. Look at the log files in the /var/tmp directory. You can retry this step after the installation is complete, by running 'metricsExtensionPacks.ovpl install'.
  

• Following an upgrade in a High Availability installation on a Linux platform reconfiguring HA on inactive nodes may fail to correctly determine the HA_MOUNT_POINT
  
  • Workaround: After configuring HA but before removing the maintenance flags run the following commands at the command line:
    /opt/OV/misc/nnm/ha/nnmhaclusterinfo.ovpl -config PerfSPIHA -set HA_MOUNT_POINT mtpt
    where mtpt is the name of the HA mount point
• Following an upgrade in a High Availability installation, reports may refuse to run. The user may notice the report control panel status displaying the message 'Preparing to launch report'.
  • Workaround: This situation may be caused by the internal report server not reconnecting to the database after the upgrade procedure has completed. It can be forced to reconnect using the command: 'changeDBname.ovpl group_name' where group_name is defined as part of the High Availability configuration. You can use the following commands to get the required group name from an already configured system:
    For a standalone system: %NNMInstallDir%/misc/nnm/ha/nnmhaclusterinfo.ovpl -config PerfSPIHA -get HA_RESOURCE_GROUP
    For an add on system: %NNMInstallDir%/misc/nnm/ha/nnmhaclusterinfo.ovpl -config NNM -get HA_RESOURCE_GROUP
    
• There is a defect in the nnmhaunconfigure.ovpl script used to unconfigure HA.
  
  • Contact support for a workaround
• Following an upgrade, reports may refuse to run and an error message of 'Content Manager did not return an object for the requested search path .....' may be visible.
  • Workaround: Users should clear their browser cache and attempt to run the report again.
• Pressing the 'Play' button in the top right of the report screen may result in input prompts being displayed, with no explanatory text regarding their content.
  • Workaround: Users can ignore these prompts and scroll to the bottom of the screen where an 'OK' button is displayed. This issue can be avoided by using the navigation panel to the left of the screen to modify report controls such as time and topology then submitting the report in the usual way.
• Changing the value of a selected metric, or a grouping construct, can sometimes propagate the value to those below in the prompt area - overwriting previously selected values.
  • Workaround: Users should avoid changing the values of selected Metrics or grouping constructs when there are visible Metrics or grouping constructs below the item being changed.
• After authenticating with NNMi, the user can potentially change the hostname of the NPS server contained in a bookmark in order to direct access to another NPS server (in the same network domain) not paired with the NNMi used for authentication.
• Attempting to drill down on a data point within a PDF, or mailed HTML, version of a report will display the top level BI portal page, instead of a useful navigation point.
  • Workaround: Do not attempt to drill down when viewing reports in PDF format. Instead, change the display setting to HTML and then drill down on interesting data points.
• The session time-out settings for NNMi are not set to match NPS. Users may find that their NNMi browser is still logged in but their reporting browser is not, or vice versa.
  • Workaround: Users should simply close the browser, relaunch it and log in to become authenticated again.
• There is a lack of documentation regarding the audit and activity logging features of the product.
  • Workaround: Search online for the latest documentation updates.
• It is possible for users to save reports into the 'All Extensionpacks' folder when this is not an appropriate storage location for saved reports.
  • Workaround: Users should avoid saving reports into this publicly accessible folder area, especially in multi-tenancy deployments.
• The Calendar report layout may be 'stretched' under some circumstances when less than 7 days.
• Many reports offer the option of displaying 2 or more Metrics It is not possible to have these reports display with just one visible metric.
  • Workaround: Selecting the second metric to be the same as the first will cause the report to display as if it only had one selected and avoid confusion.
• Temporary files may be left behind in the /tmp directory after using the extractData.ovpl tool.
  • Workaround: These files can be removed - an explicit list of all files created is displayed by the tool when running.
• Right clicking and selecting the 'Lineage' option from within a report can show an error page. This option is not supported within the product.
• The nnmenableperfspi.ovpl script which is bundled on the NNMi system does not warn the user if Samba is chosen but is not actually available on the system.
• When running in PDF format, the Interface Health Overview report includes additional lines which represent table headings but are of no value to the reader.
• Displaying any report with a selected grain which is finer than the polled frequency of the displayed data will result in displayed charts which appear to have 'holes' where no data was available.
  • Workaround: Do not display collected data with a finer grain than is available. This issue is particularly noticeable when using the 'As Polled' display grain.
• Reports include an 'Auto refresh' option, to have them refresh automatically after a preset interval. This refresh should continue indefinitely. Occasionally, the refresh will stop after an indeterminate period.
  • Workaround: If this happens the user should manually refresh the report.
• Drillthrough will fail from the Gauge reportlet.
• Report templates suitable for scheduling include pre-run prompt pages. Sometimes, JavaScript errors are visible when running these prompt pages.
  • Workaround: The errors have no effect on the functionality of the page and can be ignored.
• In previous releases of NNMi it was possible to click on an interface within the layer-3 neighbor view and then launch a report based upon that selection. This option is no longer available.
  • Workaround: Select a node instead of the interface and launch the report, then filter the report using the topology filter area.
• The pre-run prompt pages for the Baseline and Threshold reports have their Confirm button greyed out on the third prompt page. Workaround: Select the 'Finish' button visible at the bottom of the report instead.
• In some areas of the product, the HP logo used is not the current version of the corporate branding.
• Users will find that the scheduled reports have a 'Most Recent Complete x' where x is Hour, Day Week or Month time selection. These options are not available in the main navigation control panel and as such are inconsistent.
  • Workaround: The user has the option of specifying a start and end time in the navigation panel so therefore can explicitly define the time interval they need.
• When drilling through from the Component Health Overview report, the selected Metrics in the destination report are not well placed - for example, a volume style metric is on the same y-axis as a percentage.
  • Workaround: The user can rearrange the Metrics as they see fit using the Metrics options panel available where appropriate within reports.
• The navigation panel display area uses a slightly different display style to that of the main NNMi interface.
  • Workaround: This does not cause any functionality issue.
• When saving a report in PDF format, the system will suggest a file name. These suggested names are mostly random characters and have little relevance to the content of the report being saved.
  • Workaround: The user should rename the saved file to something more meaningful.
• The times displayed in the navigation panel representing the start and end range of the available data do not follow local time display settings.
  • Workaround: The format used is MM/DD/YY hh:mm
• The resetSPI.ovpl routine does not reset the size of the existing database files, located at /var/opt/OV/NNMPerformanceSPI/database, or the equivalent location on Windows.
  • Workaround: Reinstalling the product will reset the database files if required.
• The new forecasting algorithms include a set of associated Metrics which the user may view. Some of these Metrics, including the slope of a line, may have negative values. These negative values cannot be displayed on the existing charts.
  • Workaround: Negative values will appear in tabular display reports.
• The options page on some reports is wide. This can result in the user needing to scroll left or right to reach certain parts of the page if they are using a low resolution display.
  • Workaround: Higher resolution screen settings and making use of browser zoom function can both help with this issue.
• The colors used to display Metrics in a chart will change depending upon how many Metrics are chosen to display. This means, for example, that on subsequent runs of the same chart a metric which was green on one iteration may then appear as blue.
• When drilling through from a report which had filters for the from: and to: values of a metric, for example: Availability from 1% to 5%) the filter values will not carry forward in the drillthrough if they are equal. Workaround: Modify your filter from: and to: values to cover a range, rather than a single value.
• Customer haves the ability to create their own custom poll collections and report on these. Each reporting package is created within the NPS with a generic set of reports. If the name of the package exceeds 32 characters the hourly summaries within the product will fail with a database error.
  • Workaround: Ensure the length of custom collection package names remains at 32 characters or less.
• Using the 'Cross Launching' panel and drilling back to NNMi to an interface configuration screen can result in a broken link within the browser.
• While scheduling reports, users may be presented with a list of untidy input prompts.
  • Workaround: Users wishing to schedule reports for automated execution need to start by copying templates from the "Report templates suitable for scheduling" folder. The reports in the next folder up are used by the system for dynamic execution and are not suitable for scheduling.
• CSV report options are available on all tabular reports from the navigation panel, however, they are only available on the Chart Detail report when setting up automated scheduling. Workaround: Users can run any of the tabular reports using the navigation panel and specify CSV as the output type.
• Custom collections within NNMi fail to be created if ReportGroupName contains multi-byte characters.
  • Workaround: When creating custom collections in NNMi - make sure that the ReportGroupName does not contain any multi-byte characters.
• After enabling SSL for NPS, Internet Explorer 8 installed in Windows 2008 does not launch reports from the NNMi console. An error of 'Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage' will be seen. Workaround: Either use the Firefox browser instead, or else launch Internet Explorer 8 with Cipher Strength : 128-bits version (8.0.6001.18702) from another, non Windows 2008, system.
• The SSL certificate request file that is generated by the embedded Third Party Certificate Tool is a 512-bit key. At this time it cannot be certified by third party Certificate Authorities
  
• Changing the BI password will restart the BI server. Other processes monitoring the BI server may also attempt to restart it. The combination of two attempted restarts at the same time may cause an error message to appear. Workaround: The error message can be ignored, but statistical will give the true state of the BI server at any time if there is doubt as to it's status.
• It is not possible to open browsers to two different NPS systems at the same time on the same system. An error regarding session capability will appear. Workaround: It is possible to connect to two separate NPS systems from the same client if different browser types are used - Firefox for one and Internet Explorer for another.
• Upgrading from a previous release of NPS will cause customizations such as e-mail server or file save directory to be lost. Workaround: Use the export mechanism for Cognos Configuration to back up the settings, then re-import them after the upgrade. The primary items of interest are remote e-mail server identities and file save directory locations.
• Occasionally, perl.exe processes will terminate abnormally on Windows. This will cause a message to be logged to the Windows event viewer under 'Applications'. This message has been seen during custom collection package creation.
• The drop down selectors for integer topology attributes will not display the proper English name for the attribute, instead they display what appears to be a variable name which is close to, but not equal to the English text.
• When logging into the PerfSPI authentication screen, if an incorrect password is provided the screen simply refreshes without displaying a warning message. Workaround: Re-enter the password and authentication will take place as usual.
• The Installation Guide notes that for Single Sign On to work as designed, a FQDN is required. However, it continues to explain that using the IP address will achieve the same results in certain circumstances. This is an error and is not the case - an FQDN is required.
• If NNM iSPI Performance for Metrics 9.11 is installed on a system that has both NNM iSPI Performance for Traffic and NNM iSPI Performance for QA already installed, it may take a long time for the NPS navigation panel to load the first time a report is launched. Once the navigation panel finally loads, the system will work normally.
• The drill through feature, when used from the following reports may open the Public Folder page:
  
  • Saved PDF reports
  • E-mailed HTML Reports (attachments)
  • E-mailed PDF Reports (attachments)
    

Documentation Errata

• The Glossary of Metrics topics in NNM iSPI Performance for Metrics online help do not contain the complete list and definitions of the Metrics used by default.
• The link Log on to Network Performance Server (NPS) may not work from all the report/reportlet help pages. To open this topic, use the following navigation path in the help system:
  Administration Overview > Overview of NPS Operations > Single Sign-On Security (SSO)

Documentation Updates

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Legal Notices

©Copyright 2009-2011 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.

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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

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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.

© 2009-2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.