HP Operations Smart Plug-in for Remedy Action Request System

for the Windows operating system

Release Notes

Software version: 04.00 / December, 2009

This document provides an overview of the changes made to the HP Operations Smart Plug-in for Remedy Action request System (REMSPI) for the 04.00 release. It contains important information not included in the manuals or in online help.

In This Version
Documentation Updates
Installation and Upgrade Notes
Enhancements and Fixes
Known Problems, Limitations, and Workarounds
Documentation Errata
Support
Legal Notices

In This Version

New in version 04.00

Documentation Updates

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

To check for recent updates or to verify that you are using the most recent edition, visit the following URL:

http://ovweb.external.hp.com/lpe/doc_serv/

1.    In the Product list, click the product name.

2.    In the Version list, click the version number.

3.    In the OS list, click the OS type.

4.    In the document list, click the document title.

5.    To retrieve the document, click Open or Download.

NOTE: To view files in PDF format (*.pdf), Adobe Acrobat Reader must be installed on your system. To download Adobe Acrobat Reader, go to the following URL:

http://www.adobe.com/

Installation and Upgrade Notes

Installation requirements, as well as instructions for installing the Remedy SPI, are documented in Administrator’s Reference Guide for the Remedy SPI provided in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format. The document file is included on the product's CD media as: 

SPI-DVD for HPOM\Documentation\SPI Guides\Remedy_Config.pdf

Software and Hardware Requirements

The Software and Hardware Requirements are listed in Administrator’s Reference Guide for the Remedy SPI.

Installation Problems

The Remedy SPI server needs the dynamic link libraries (DLLs) from the Action Request System server to run. These have to be copied to the HPOM management server before the Remedy SPI server can be started.  After the Remedy SPI has been installed, the Remedy SPI service is not started automatically. This is because the SPI configuration files have to be created and propagated accordingly and the ARS libraries have to copied in place first.

If, after installing the SPI, the HPOM management server is rebooted before these steps have been completed, an error window is shown after the reboot, stating the inability of the service manager to locate the ARS libraries (because the Remedy SPI service is configured to start automatically on reboot). This error can be ignored until the SPI has been configured and the ARS libraries have been copied.

Installation and Configuration – Overview

The steps needed to install and configure the Remedy SPI are outlined in this section. For a complete and detailed discussion, please see the Administrator’s Reference Guide for the Remedy SPI.

1.    Install the SPI.

2.    Copy the following Action Request System server libraries into the directory %OvInstallDir%\bin\REMSPI. The ARS server libraries may be found on your original Action Request System Install CDs.

§  arapi71.dll

§  arrpc71.dll

§  arutl71.dll

3.    Create and update the Remedy SPI configuration file %OvShareDir%\conf\REMSPI\remspi.cfg according to the detailed description in the Administrator’s Reference Guide for the Remedy SPI. You may use the file remspi.cfg.new in this directory as a starting point.

4.    Create and update the Remedy SPI configuration file %OvShareDir%\conf\REMSPI\rules according to the detailed description in the Administrator’s Reference Guide for the Remedy SPI. You may use the file rules.PR in this directory as a starting point.

5.    Deploy the REMSPI and the SHS Data Collector instrumentation to the managed nodes which will be put in to the  SPI for Remedy ARS node groups in the HPOM console in the next step. For Windows nodes, add the Microsoft Windows instrumentation.

6.    Copy the ARS server and the HPOM management server icons into the appropriate node group in the HPOM console.

7.    Configure the ARS form and ARS filters on the ARS server according to the instructions in Administrator’s Reference Guide for the Remedy SPI to enable the communication from ARS to HPOM.

8.    Start the Remedy SPI service using the HPOM tool Remedy SPI Admin \ Start SPI Server or use the command net start “HP OV SPI for Remedy service” in a command window on the HPO management server.

Upgrade Instruction

If the Remedy SPI is to be upgraded from a prior version, then the following steps should be performed:

If, for any reason, the upgrade has not been performed in this sequence, but the new version was installed while the previous version was still in place, then the following should be noted:

There is no policy group called  “Auto-Deploy” located under these groups as with the previous version. Thus, the old policy groups called  “Auto-Deploy” should now be removed. This applies only if you upgrade from a version older than 02.90.

Enhancements and Fixes

The following items (identified by error tracking number) are fixed in the current software release. To display details about each software fix, click the error tracking number. To hide details, click again.

 

QXCM1000983068: Remedy SPI server cannot connect to AR server after cluster switch

 

PROBLEM:

The AR server blocks connections requests using the same user credentials, but coming from a different IP address if the previous session was not disconnected properly..

 

CAUSE:

Enhancement request.

 

FIX:

The Remedy SPI server now sets the AR sessions configuration variable AR_SESS_OVERRIDE_PREV_IP to ensure that a connection with the same user credentials is possible from a different SPI server system.

 

QCCR1A94083: Need confurable timeout for ARCreateEntry() call

 

PROBLEM:

The Remedy SPI server is a Remedy AR API client and thus the predefined timeouts apply to all requests sent to the AR server. For busy AR server systems, these timeouts may be too short.

 

CAUSE:

Enhancement request.

 

FIX:

The SPI now allows to configure global (remspi.cfg) and TARGET specific (rules) communication timeouts. For details on how to configure these timeout values, look for AR_SESS_TIMEOUT_XXX in the documentation.

 

QCCR1A40890: Remedy SPI multiple annotations

 

PROBLEM:

If multiple OM message annotations are stored in an AR ticket, there is no separator between the texts.

 

CAUSE:

Enhancement request.

 

FIX:

The new global OPTION ANNO_SEPARATOR now allows defining a string to separate multiple annotation texts.

 

QCCR1A93604/QCCR1A98427: Customer needs support for Remedy ARS 7.5

 

PROBLEM:

Remedy ARS 7.5 was not supported before.

 

CAUSE:

Enhancement request.

 

FIX:

Remedy ARS 7.5 is now supported.

Known Problems, Limitations, and Workarounds

Tools

 

PROBLEM:

The tool remspi_qutil does not lock the SPI queues. If executed while the SPI server is running this may lead to inconsistencies in the queue files.

 

SOLUTION:

Use this tool only if the SPI server is not running. If you experience problems due to inconsistencies in the queues, stop the server, delete all files in the queue directories (%OvDataDir%\tmp\remspi\queue.*)and restart the server.

 

 

 

 

PROBLEM:

The tool remspifilter does not use the TARGET specific AR session timeouts and communication ports specified in the rules file. Instead, the tool only applies the global defaults from the remspi.cfg file.

 

SOLUTION:

This will be fixed in a future version. If you need different communication ports, then temporarily define these as global defaults in the remspi.cfg for the duration of the execution of remspifilter.

 

 

 

 

PROBLEM:

The tool remspifilter does not use the correct path to the itoupdate.exe command for a Windows HTTPS agent deployed from a HPOM for Windows 8.1 management server.

 

SOLUTION:

Don't accept the default path proposed by the tool, but instead specify the correct path manually.

 

 

 

Configuration

 

PROBLEM:

The sample rules file rules.PR contains the wrong keyword for setting the TARGET specific TCP communication port for the AR server. However, because this line is commented out, it’s not active.

 

SOLUTION:

If you need to set a TARGET specific TCP communication port for the AR server, use the keyword as described in the SPI documentation, i.e. ARTCPPORT (and not the faulty ARRPCPORT as contained in the sample rules.PR).

 

 

 

 

PROBLEM:

Do not use multiple ON_SUBMIT sections for a TARGET in the rules file. Although syntactically correct, the SPI will only use the statements found in the last ON_SUBMIT section of the TARGET.

 

SOLUTION:

It’s always possible to define all needed ON_SUBMIT statements in one section per TARGET in the rules file. All ON_SUBMIT statements will be executed in a predefined sequence which is not related to the appearance of the statements in the rules file.

 

 

 

Operation

 

PROBLEM:

Message change events will not be queued if the target Remedy ARS server is not available, even if queuing has been enabled..

 

SOLUTION:

This feature will be supported with the next SPI version.

 

 

 

 

PROBLEM:

Internal SPI messages (i.e. Application = "Remedy SPI") are not submitted either automatically or manually nor is the SPI server informed about their update.

 

SOLUTION:

This is not an error of the SPI, but intended behavior to prevent loops.

 

 

 

Installation / Activation

 

PROBLEM:

If the managed nodes (HPOM server, AR server) are assigned to the Remedy SPI node groups before the instrumentation is deployed, error messages regarding scripts and executables which are not found may appear.

 

SOLUTION:

Deploy the instrumentation for Microsoft Windows and REMSPI before you assign the managed nodes to the Remedy SPI node groups.

 

 

 

 

PROBLEM:

If the AR server does not run or if the SPI configurations file rules contains errors or is not updated at all, the Remedy SPI service “HP OV SPI for Remedy service” will not start.

 

SOLUTION:

Make sure the SPI configurations file rules is properly edited and the AR servers specified in this file are up and running when you start the Remedy SPI service.

 

 

 

 

PROBLEM:

If the Remedy SPI server does not start and aborts with the error message “arapi71.dll not found”, then the AR API libraries need to be copied to a directory in the %PATH% of the SPI server on the HPO management server.

 

SOLUTION:

Copy the AR API libraries to the directory %OvInstallDir%\bin\remspi on the HPO management server.

The files which need to be copied are:

  • arapi71.dll
  • arrpc71.dll
  • arutl71.dll

 

 

Note that the version numbers in the file names do not indicate that the Remedy SPI is able to connect only to AR 6.3.

 

 

PROBLEM:

If the Remedy SPI service “HP OV SPI for Remedy service” does not start, look at the error log file which is written for each start and stop of the Remedy SPI service. In addition, look at the log file of the Remedy SPI server.

 

SOLUTION:

The Remedy SPI service creates its own log directory. This directory is %OvDataDir%\log\remspi. The log file is then remspi_service.log

The log file file for the Remedy SPI server is %OvDataDir%\log\remspi\remspi.log.

 

 

 

 

PROBLEM:

If the Remedy SPI service “HP OV SPI for Remedy service” is not created during installation of the SPI; or is not deleted during removal of the SPI, look at the error log file which is written for each of these actions.

 

SOLUTION:

The Remedy SPI service installation tool creates an its log directory. This directory is %OvDataDir%\log\remspi. The log file is then remspi_sc.log.

If there should be any need to install or remove the Remedy SPI manually, the Remedy SPI service installation tool has to be called with a full pathname.

To install the Remedy SPI service, use
%OvInstallDir%\bin\remspi\remspi_sc –i %OvDataDir%\log\remspi.

To remove the Remedy SPI service, use
%OvInstallDir%\bin\remspi\remspi_sc –d %OvDataDir%\log\remspi.

 

 

 

 

PROBLEM:

If it’s not possible to modify an HPOM message as a result of a modified AR ticket or in an ON_xxx statement, it may be that the user account with which the Remedy SPI service is started does not have sufficient rights or there is no password configured for the admin user in remspi.cfg.

 

SOLUTION:

The user account with which the Remedy SPI service is started (look at the Windows service control panel) should then be changed to a user account with sufficient rights to access the HPOM messages.

In addition, make sure that a password is configured for the admin user in file remspi.cfg (keyword is REMSPI_ITO_ADMIN_PASSWD). The value of the password is meaningless, it just needs to be specified. Use the tool remspipasswd to encrypt an arbitrary value and use it in remspi.cfg.

 

 

 

 

PROBLEM:

Before upgrading the SPI, i.e. installing the new version without removing the old version first, the Remedy SPI service has to be removed manually or else the upgrade process will fail.

 

SOLUTION:

Before upgrading, remove the Remedy SPI service via %OvInstallDir%\bin\remspi\remspi_sc –d. Note that the removal tool has to be called with a full pathname.

 

 

 

 

PROBLEM:

If the SPI is removed from the HPOM management server, the configuration direcory %OvShareDir%\conf\remspi is completely removed, too.

 

SOLUTION:

The configuration files rules and remspi.cfg should be copied to a safe place when they are needed at a later time prior to removal of the SPI.

Documentation Errata

n/a

Support

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Legal Notices

©Copyright 2009  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.

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The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.