Failover support for Network Performance Insight (NPI)Dashboards data in a multi-node environment

Consider the following scenario:

  • You have multiple NPI nodes in your cluster and the NPI Dashboards application that is installed along with basecamp-ui Service is up and running all the nodes.
  • You have integration with Dashboard Application Service Hub (DASH) on one of the cluster nodes for communications.

In this scenario, if you want to failover or switch to another NPI host for maintenance cycle of the active host and you want to establish the integration with DASH on the new NPI host, you might lose some dashboard related data from the active host.

Use this manual failover mechanism to restore all the dashboards data to the failover host in your cluster.

H2 database and dashboard data administration

The H2 database stores the Network Performance Insight Dashboards data. Someof the information that is stored in H2 database; the list of dashboards, users, roles,page-role mapping information, dashboard state, and database queries that areused for dashboard pages and so on.

You must backup the H2 database and dashboards data from the Network Performance Insight host that is integrated with Dashboard Application Services Hub, and then restore the data back to another host. All the required data is available in the /opt/IBM/basecamp/basecamp-uifolders.

Before you begin

Identify the Network Performance Insight host in your cluster that is integrated with Jazz™ for Service Management and perform the following steps:

1.Log in to the Dashboard Application Services Hub server as npiadminuser.

2.In the navigation pane, select Console Settings () Console Integrations.

3.Click the NPI link and note down the Console Integration URL. For example:

<myserver1.ibm.com>:9443/Blaze/rest

Note: You need the <myserver1.ibm.com>hostname to understand from where to back up the data.

NPI Dashboards application data backup procedure

Use these steps to back up the H2 database and other related data on the active host.

Procedure

1.Stop the basecamp-uiService from Ambari if it is running as follows:

a.Log in to Ambari server dashboard.

Use the following default URL:

<myserver1.ibm.com>:8080

The default user name is admin, and the default password is admin.

b.Click Hosts and select your active host that is integrated with Dashboard Application Services Hub.

c.Select UI / NPI from Components and click Stop from the list.

2.Perform a checksum on the H2 database as follows:

cd /opt/IBM/basecamp/basecamp-ui/work/oed

cksum oed.mv.db

Keep note of the checksum result.

3.Log in to the host that is integrated with Dashboard Application Services Hub as rootuser.

4.Create a target directory to hold all the NPI Dashboards backup data.

For example, /opt/IBM/dashboard-backupthat is referred to as <TARGET_DIR>.

5.Change the directory to /opt/IBM/basecamp/basecamp-ui/bin/and run the backup script as follows:

./oed_backup.sh -target_dir=<TERGET_DIR>

If backup is successful, you can see the following file in the <TARGET_DIR>:

  1. OED_DB.tgz
  2. OED_DASHBOARDS.tgz

6.Start the basecamp-uiservice as follows:

a.Log in to Ambari server dashboard.

Use the following default URL:

<myserver2.ibm.com>:8080

The default user name is admin, and the default password is admin.

b.Click Hosts and select your host that is integrated with DASH.

c.Select UI / NPI from Components and click Start from the list.

NPI Dashboards application data restore procedure

Use these steps to restore the H2 database and other related data on the failover host.

1.Stop the basecamp-uiService from Ambari as follows:

  1. Log in to Ambari server dashboard.

Use the following default URL:

The default user name is admin, and the default password is admin.

  1. Click Hosts and select your host that is to be integrated with Dashboard Application Services Hub now.
  2. Select UI / NPI from Components and click Stop from the list.

2.Log in to the host where you want to restore the backup data as rootuser.

3.Create a source directory and copy all the backup data from the active host.

For example, /opt/IBM/dashboard-backupthat is referred to as <SOURCE_DIR>.

4.Change the directory to /opt/IBM/basecamp/basecamp-ui/bin/and run the restore script as follows:

./oed_restore.sh -source_dir=<SOURCE_DIR>

If restore is successful, you can see the following changes in the <SOURCE_DIR>:

  • OED_DB.tgzfile is extracted to /basecamp/work/basecamp-ui/oed/.
  • The OED_DASHBOARDS.tgzfile is extracted to /opt/IBM/basecamp/basecamp-ui/resources/dashboards.

5.Verify the cksum of the H2 database on the failover target host is the same as the active host as specified in step 2 in the previous section.

6.Start the basecamp-uiservice as follows:

  1. Log in to Ambari server dashboard.

Use the following default URL:

<myserver2.ibm.com>:8080

The default user name is admin, and the default password is admin.

  1. Click Hosts and select your host that is integrated with DASH.
  2. Select UI / NPI from Components and click Start from the list.

7.Update the Console Integration URL to point to the target failover host.

Note: Make sure that the UI service is up and running before you perform these steps:

  1. Log in to the Dashboard Application Services Hub server as npiadminuser.
  2. In the navigation pane, select Console Settings () Console Integrations.
  3. Click the NPI link and update the Console Integration URL to point to the failover host. For example:

<myserver2.ibm.com2>:9443/Blaze/rest

8.Verify that all the dashboards users that are present in the active host are present in the failover host now.

Updating the Device Dashboard configuration

When you change the NPI host that is integrated with DASH, you must also update the following Device Dashboard configurations:

  1. Edit the tnm.propertiesto change the required setting as follows:
  1. Log into the Network Manager GUI server and navigate to the following file:

$NMGUI_HOME/profile/etc/tnm/tnm.properties

Where $NMGUI_HOME location where the Network Manager GUI components are installed. By default, this location is /opt/IBM/netcool/gui/precision_gui.

  1. Open the tnm.properties file for editing.
  2. Change the following property to point to the failover NPI host:

tnm.npi.host.name=<myserver2.ibm.com>:9443

  1. Save the tnm.properties file.

For more information, see Configuring the Device Dashboard.

  1. Edit the npi.properties file. This file is located by default at: $NMGUI_HOME/profile/etc/tnm/npi.properties

Where, $NMGUI_HOME is by default /opt/IBM/netcool/gui/precision_gui

In the npi.properties file change the following properties to point to the new Network Performance Insight server:

  • npi.server.name

Fully Qualified Domain name of the server. For example: <myserver.ibm.com>

  • npi.host.name

<myserver.ibm.com>:9443

  1. Go to the Device Dashboard and change the portlet preferences there to point to the new Network Performance Insight server. End users must do this because the portlet preferences override the properties defined in the npi.properties file.
  2. Stop and then restart the WebSphere Application Server.

For more information, see Changing the Network Performance Insight server for all users.