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| Automation of FDL loading procedures |
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| praveenchhangani |
 Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 1:49 pm Post subject: Automation of FDL loading procedures |
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Disciple
Joined: 20 Sep 2002
Posts: 192
Location: Chicago, IL
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Hello everyone,
I have been thinking about this for the past couple of days and have ran into a number of ideas, but have not been able to pin-point the best architecture and am hoping to receive some ideas to get me started in the right direction or atleast the best possible direction.
Everyone knows the drill, you look through the FDL, if everything looks okay, you then ftp it to the server and then go to the server's command line and run the FMCIBIE. If you have multiple systems you then specify what configuration, system and what not....
The above doesn't sound too bizarre while your customer set is minimal. In the past few months though, I have been thinking about how I may automate this process to make it more smooth for both the customers and the workflow admin(s).
So far, it seems as if, maybe writing a java GUI program that is able to SCAN through the FDL (and if all looks good), then simply clicking a button on the GUI to ftp FDL to the server and from there perhaps have a triggered queue setup/java app setup that will work together and load the fdl. (In short a JAVA GUI program to automate this process)
The above thoughts have lead me to ask the following questions.
Question#1:
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Is there any other tool out there that already does this or sort of simplifies the process?
Question#2:
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Are there any security holes that I need to be thinking about?
Question#3:
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Does this sound like too much work for what we are trying to achieve. (eg. effort vs value)
Any ideas, suggestions on any of the above would be very much appreciated!
Thanks,Praveen
_________________
Praveen K. Chhangani,
IBM Certified Solutions Designer -
MQ Workflow 3.4. |
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| Vladimir |
| Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 10:37 pm Post subject: |
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Acolyte
Joined: 14 Nov 2002
Posts: 73
Location: USA, CA, Bay Area
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Did you consider design alternative to FTP, for instance, Workflow XML input interface. And on the server part you can have a process model that will load FDL into Workflow run-time. It looks for me more native for Workflow.
You can take this support pack from IBM as a working sample of this approach:
http://www-3.ibm.com/software/ts/mqseries/txppacs/wo02.html
As for your GUI part I think WF Build-time should be enough to build this FDL and to verify it.
And if you want to automate MQSeries message shipping you can use another Support pack from IBM (Q program) and any script language plus "at" program:
http://www-3.ibm.com/software/ts/mqseries/txppacs/ma01.html
So, you do not really have to write your code with these tools.  |
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| vennela |
| Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 7:08 am Post subject: |
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Jedi Knight
Joined: 11 Aug 2002
Posts: 4055
Location: Hyderabad, India
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In the first place why do you want to FTP the FDL.
I haven't done this but I was hoping I could do this:
If you have the runtime database utilities then you should be able to import/export straight into the runtime DB. It shouldn't matter whether the DB is local or remote. I guess it's time for me to test this.
Though 'verify' is only to check the process, why are you apprehensive about your FDL getting tampered. The FDL that you get from the Buildtime should be clean enough.
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Venny |
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| vennela |
| Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 7:26 am Post subject: |
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Jedi Knight
Joined: 11 Aug 2002
Posts: 4055
Location: Hyderabad, India
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Well
I was right.
I have successfully imported the FDL into a remote runtime database.
Given that I am sure I wouldn't go the FTP way.
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Venny |
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| amittalekar |
| Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 7:30 am Post subject: |
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Disciple
Joined: 03 Apr 2002
Posts: 166
Location: VA, USA
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If u understand ur requirement correctly.....what u want is automate FTP of the FDL on WF server and import it at runtime.....
For this u can use Apache ant software and a unix shell script...u can use this shell script as a cron job......u can search for this software on net...
Using this software u can get the FDL from the specific location within
the network and put it on WF Server.....a daemon i.e cron job will look if u have put the FDL on the particular location on WF server ..if yes cut & paste it at other location and import from that location......
I have not used this but using this definately u can achieve what u want....
Hope this helps |
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| Vladimir |
| Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 4:18 pm Post subject: |
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Acolyte
Joined: 14 Nov 2002
Posts: 73
Location: USA, CA, Bay Area
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amittalekar:
Sorry, but you approach looks too complicated to mee. This will involve a lot of work, configuration and support...  But it's only my opinion, no more... Don't take it personally...
vennela:
Yes, I was always using remote database and had no problem with it at all.
praveenchhangani:
How many servers do you want to automate? Is it 2, 20 or 100? If it's two - just configure 2 configuration on your workstation (or build box) and import into both of them within simple script. No need for ant and other complex solutions in this case.
If you have a lot of servers and/or you do not have direct connection to thier run-time databases - only then you have to screate some complex scenario of script--based FDL delivering and loading. |
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| Ratan |
| Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 4:28 pm Post subject: |
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Grand Master
Joined: 18 Jul 2002
Posts: 1245
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Praveen,
Is this "automation procedure for FDL" you are talking about, is for personal use by your organization or are you trying to market it as a tool. If it is for your org, Go ahead give it a shot ( though I feel it would not be worthy of the pain ). If you want to market it as a third party tool, I would not buy it.
-Laze |
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| praveenchhangani |
| Posted: Sun Nov 17, 2002 9:21 pm Post subject: Automation of FDL loading procedures |
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Disciple
Joined: 20 Sep 2002
Posts: 192
Location: Chicago, IL
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Excellent questions/comments & answers everybody.
Your input is very much appreciated. And actually, FTPing the FDL is not a requirement(just one way of doing it), and you are correct...in that it does seem a somewhat complicated. I am very much in compliance with that. Improving the loading process is what I was primarily concerned with.
One of the reasons for this is to automate a lot of repetition. We often receive staging requests from our various customers to load their FDL. Infact, we are very easily able to scan through the FDL and load it into runtime for them as well(manually) However, the idea of having all this automated instead of having someone(workflow admin) login 6-8 times a day to simply load FDL seemed like a good utility to have.
In response to Venny's question/comment:
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"why are you apprehensive about your FDL getting tampered. The FDL that you get from the Buildtime should be clean enough."
answer: Venny, you are correct; The FDL generated from the MQSeries buildtime environment is indeed 'clean enough.' However, we are human and humans are known for making mistakes. We have had situations in the past whereby customers accidentally requested loading of thier FDL that contained things like 'FULL AUDIT TO DB, FULL AUDIT TO MQ,' password related issues as well. Not knowing some of the above in advance and simply loading the FDL could cause a major outage. This is the primary reason for not "process verification," but quality verification.
In response to Vladimir's question/comment:
"How many servers do you want to automate? Is it 2, 20 or 100? If it's two - just configure 2 configuration on your workstation (or build box) and import into both of them within simple script. No need for ant and other complex solutions in this case.
If you have a lot of servers and/or you do not have direct connection to thier run-time databases - only then you have to screate some complex scenario of script--based FDL delivering and loading."
answer:
Vladimir, at this point this utility would probably just be for our PILOT environment which consists of 1 NT box and 1 AIX box.
In response to lazeknight's question:
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"Is this "automation procedure for FDL" you are talking about, is for personal use by your organization or are you trying to market it as a tool."
answer: Lazenight, this is only intended for our workflow administrators, and definitely NOT a tool we want to develop to sell to others.
In response to amittalekar's input:
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Amittalekar, your idea of using a shell script seems very appealing, and running it as a cron job even more. Although, using Apache is probably not going to be an option due to support related issues. I will be looking into this...Thanks for your idea.
Again at the end of the day, I personally think, what it really boils down to is (effort invested vs. value brought).
Thanks for your feedback everyone.
Praveen Chhangani
Des Moines, IA. 
_________________
Praveen K. Chhangani,
IBM Certified Solutions Designer -
MQ Workflow 3.4. |
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