Wednesday 25 February 2015

IBM Integration Designer - And there's more ...

Following on from my earlier post: -


I recorded another response file: -

"c:\Program Files\IBM\Installation Manager\eclipse\IBMIM.exe" -record c:\installIID855_Full_Win.rsp

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<agent-input>
  <variables>
    <variable name='sharedLocation' value='C:\IBM\SDPShared'/>
  </variables>
  <server>
    <repository location='\\vmware-host\Shared Folders\Installer\disk1'/>
    <repository location='\\vmware-host\Shared Folders\Fixes\8.5.5-WS-BPMID-IFJR51088.zip'/>
    <repository location='\\vmware-host\Shared Folders\Fixes\8.5.5-WS-BPMID-IFJR51222.zip'/>
    <repository location='\\vmware-host\Shared Folders\Fixes\8.5.5-WS-BPMID-IFJR51327.zip'/>
    <repository location='\\vmware-host\Shared Folders\Fixes\8.5.5-WS-BPMID-IFJR51375.zip'/>
    <repository location='\\vmware-host\Shared Folders\Fixes\8.5.5-WS-BPMID-IFJR52267.zip'/>
    <repository location='\\vmware-host\Shared Folders\Fixes\IID8550Fix_JDK7SR8.zip'/>
    <repository location='\\vmware-host\Shared Folders\Installer\WTE_Disk\repository'/>
  </server>
  <profile id='IBM Integration Designer' installLocation='C:\IBM\IntegrationDesigner\v8.5'>
    <data key='eclipseLocation' value='C:\IBM\IntegrationDesigner\v8.5'/>
    <data key='user.import.profile' value='false'/>
    <data key='cic.selector.os' value='win32'/>
    <data key='cic.selector.arch' value='x86_64'/>
    <data key='cic.selector.ws' value='win32'/>
    <data key='cic.selector.nl' value='en'/>

  </profile>
  <install modify='false'>
    <!-- IBM® Integration Designer 8.5.5.0 -->
    <offering profile='IBM Integration Designer' id='com.ibm.integration.designer.v85' version='8.5.5000.v20140604_1958' features='com.ibm.wid,com.ibm.rad.jre,com.ibm.wid.product,com.ibm.rad.jee5,com.ibm.rad.was80_devtools,com.ibm.rad.was85_devtools,com.ibm.rad.j2c,com.ibm.rad.birt,com.ibm.rad.transform_authoring,com.ibm.rad.pde,com.ibm.wid.bpm.stubs,com.ibm.wid.adapters.file,com.ibm.wid.mme,com.ibm.wid.bpmps.user,com.ibm.wid.bpmpc.user,com.ibm.wid.wesb.user,com.ibm.wid.wbm.user,com.ibm.wid.datapower.user' installFixes='none'/>
    <!-- IBM® Java™ SDK 7.0 SR8 iFix (IV66375) -->
    <offering profile='IBM Integration Designer' id='com.ibm.iid.jdk7.update'/>
    <!-- JR51088 -->
    <offering profile='IBM Integration Designer' id='com.ibm.integration.designer.v85_8.5.5.0.fix-JR51088'/>
    <!-- JR51222 -->
    <offering profile='IBM Integration Designer' id='com.ibm.integration.designer.v85_8.5.5.0.fix-JR51222'/>
    <!-- JR51327 -->
    <offering profile='IBM Integration Designer' id='com.ibm.integration.designer.v85_8.5.5.0.fix-JR51327'/>
    <!-- JR51375 -->
    <offering profile='IBM Integration Designer' id='com.ibm.integration.designer.v85_8.5.5.0.fix-JR51375'/>
    <!-- JR52267 -->
    <offering profile='IBM Integration Designer' id='com.ibm.integration.designer.v85_8.5.5.0.fix-JR52267'/>
  </install>
  <profile id='IBM WebSphere Application Server V8.5' installLocation='C:\Program Files (x86)\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer'>
    <data key='eclipseLocation' value='C:\Program Files (x86)\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer'/>
    <data key='user.import.profile' value='false'/>
    <data key='cic.selector.os' value='win32'/>
    <data key='cic.selector.arch' value='x86'/>
    <data key='cic.selector.ws' value='win32'/>
    <data key='cic.selector.nl' value='en'/>
    <data key='user.db2.admin.username' value='db2admin'/>
    <data key='user.db2.admin.password' value='rbN1IaMAWYYtQxLf6KdNyA=='/>
    <data key='user.db2.port' value='50000'/>
    <data key='user.db2.use.existing' value='false'/>
  </profile>

  <install modify='false'>
    <!-- IBM WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment 8.5.5.2 -->
    <offering profile='IBM WebSphere Application Server V8.5' id='com.ibm.websphere.ND.v85' version='8.5.5002.20140408_1947' features='core.feature,ejbdeploy,thinclient,embeddablecontainer,com.ibm.sdk.6_64bit' installFixes='none'/>
    <!-- IBM® Business Monitor 8.5.5.0 -->
    <offering profile='IBM WebSphere Application Server V8.5' id='com.ibm.websphere.MON.v85' version='8.5.5000.20140530_1037' features='Monitor.Production' installFixes='none'/>
    <!-- IBM® Business Process Manager Advanced - Process Server 8.5.5.0 -->
    <offering profile='IBM WebSphere Application Server V8.5' id='com.ibm.bpm.PS.v85' version='8.5.5000.20140604_1130' features='AdvancedProcessServer.Production' installFixes='none'/>
    <!-- IBM® DB2 Express 64 bit 10.1.0.1 -->
    <offering profile='IBM WebSphere Application Server V8.5' id='com.ibm.ws.DB2EXP.winia64' version='10.1.1.20140530_0056' features='db2exp.winia64.feature' installFixes='none'/>
    <!-- IBM® Cognos Business Intelligence 64 bit 10.2.1.2 -->
    <offering profile='IBM WebSphere Application Server V8.5' id='com.ibm.ws.cognos.v1021.winia64' version='10.2.1.20140530_2309' features='com.ibm.cognos.feature' installFixes='none'/>
  </install>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.eclipseCache' value='${sharedLocation}'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.connectTimeout' value='30'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.readTimeout' value='45'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.downloadAutoRetryCount' value='0'/>
  <preference name='offering.service.repositories.areUsed' value='true'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.ssl.nonsecureMode' value='false'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.http.disablePreemptiveAuthentication' value='false'/>
  <preference name='http.ntlm.auth.kind' value='NTLM'/>
  <preference name='http.ntlm.auth.enableIntegrated.win32' value='true'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.preserveDownloadedArtifacts' value='true'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.keepFetchedFiles' value='false'/>
  <preference name='PassportAdvantageIsEnabled' value='false'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.searchForUpdates' value='false'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.agent.ui.displayInternalVersion' value='false'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.sharedUI.showErrorLog' value='true'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.sharedUI.showWarningLog' value='true'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.sharedUI.showNoteLog' value='true'/>
</agent-input>


leaving me with this: -

C:\Windows\system32>"c:\Program Files\IBM\Installation Manager\eclipse\tools\imcl.exe" listInstalledPackages

com.ibm.cic.agent_1.7.2000.20140227_0303
com.ibm.integration.designer.v85_8.5.5000.v20140604_1958
com.ibm.iid.jdk7.update_1.0.0.20141126_1534
com.ibm.integration.designer.v85_8.5.5.0.fix-JR51088_1.0.0.20140826_1254
com.ibm.integration.designer.v85_8.5.5.0.fix-JR51222_1.0.0.20140912_1354
com.ibm.integration.designer.v85_8.5.5.0.fix-JR51327_1.0.0.20141002_0814
com.ibm.integration.designer.v85_8.5.5.0.fix-JR51375_1.0.0.20141002_1456
com.ibm.integration.designer.v85_8.5.5.0.fix-JR52267_1.0.0.20150126_1307
com.ibm.bpm.PS.v85_8.5.5000.20140604_1130
com.ibm.websphere.MON.v85_8.5.5000.20140530_1037
com.ibm.websphere.ND.v85_8.5.5002.20140408_1947
com.ibm.ws.DB2EXP.winia64_10.1.1.20140530_0056
com.ibm.ws.cognos.v1021.winia64_10.2.1.20140530_2309

Next step is to create Unit Test Environment (UTE) configurations for BPM and Business Monitor (BAM) ....

IBM Integration Designer 8.5.5.0 - Installing on Windows, via response files

I'm documenting the installation of IBM Integration Designer 8.5.5.0 on a Windows environment, for a friend at work, and am replicating the setup on my own Windows 8.1 VM here at home.

Of course, I wanted to script the installation to avoid the need for GUIs, even though Windows is so absolutely a GUI :-)

First things first, here's how I recorded the response file to install IBM Installation Manager itself: -

( having unpacked the IID 8.5.5 binaries to z:\Installer - see below )

Z:\Installer\disk1\IM_win64\install.exe -record c:\installIIM172_WIN.rsp

which resulted in this: -

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<agent-input>
  <server>
    <repository location='\\vmware-host\Shared Folders\Installer\disk1\IM_win64'/>
  </server>
  <profile id='IBM Installation Manager' installLocation='C:\Program Files\IBM\Installation Manager\eclipse' kind='self'>
    <data key='eclipseLocation' value='C:\Program Files\IBM\Installation Manager\eclipse'/>
    <data key='user.import.profile' value='false'/>
    <data key='cic.selector.os' value='win32'/>
    <data key='cic.selector.arch' value='x86_64'/>
    <data key='cic.selector.ws' value='win32'/>

    <data key='cic.selector.nl' value='de,no,fi,ru,hr,fr,hu,sk,sl,sv,ko,el,en,pt_BR,it,iw,zh,es,cs,ar,zh_HK,zh_TW,th,ja,pl,da,tr,nl'/>
  </profile>
  <install modify='false'>
    <!-- IBM® Installation Manager 1.7.2 -->
    <offering profile='IBM Installation Manager' id='com.ibm.cic.agent' version='1.7.2000.20140227_0303' features='agent_core,agent_jre' installFixes='none'/>
  </install>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.connectTimeout' value='30'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.readTimeout' value='45'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.downloadAutoRetryCount' value='0'/>
  <preference name='offering.service.repositories.areUsed' value='true'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.ssl.nonsecureMode' value='false'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.http.disablePreemptiveAuthentication' value='false'/>
  <preference name='http.ntlm.auth.kind' value='NTLM'/>
  <preference name='http.ntlm.auth.enableIntegrated.win32' value='true'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.preserveDownloadedArtifacts' value='true'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.keepFetchedFiles' value='false'/>
  <preference name='PassportAdvantageIsEnabled' value='false'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.searchForUpdates' value='false'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.agent.ui.displayInternalVersion' value='false'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.sharedUI.showErrorLog' value='true'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.sharedUI.showWarningLog' value='true'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.sharedUI.showNoteLog' value='true'/>
</agent-input>


and this: -

"c:\Program Files\IBM\Installation Manager\eclipse\tools\imcl.exe" -version

Installation Manager (installed)
Version: 1.7.2
Internal Version: 1.7.2000.20140227_0303
Architecture: 64-bit

Having installed IIM, I then did something very similar to install IID itself: -

"c:\Program Files\IBM\Installation Manager\eclipse\IBMIM.exe" -record c:\iid855.rsp

resulting in this response file: -

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<agent-input>
  <variables>
    <variable name='sharedLocation' value='C:\IBM\SDPShared'/>
  </variables>
  <server>
    <repository location='\\vmware-host\Shared Folders\Installer\disk1'/>
    <repository location='\\vmware-host\Shared Folders\Fixes\8.5.5-WS-BPMID-IFJR51088.zip'/>
    <repository location='\\vmware-host\Shared Folders\Fixes\8.5.5-WS-BPMID-IFJR51222.zip'/>
    <repository location='\\vmware-host\Shared Folders\Fixes\8.5.5-WS-BPMID-IFJR51327.zip'/>
    <repository location='\\vmware-host\Shared Folders\Fixes\8.5.5-WS-BPMID-IFJR51375.zip'/>
    <repository location='\\vmware-host\Shared Folders\Fixes\8.5.5-WS-BPMID-IFJR52267.zip'/>
    <repository location='\\vmware-host\Shared Folders\Fixes\IID8550Fix_JDK7SR8.zip'/>
  </server>
  <profile id='IBM Integration Designer' installLocation='C:\IBM\IntegrationDesigner\v8.5'>
    <data key='eclipseLocation' value='C:\IBM\IntegrationDesigner\v8.5'/>
    <data key='user.import.profile' value='false'/>
    <data key='cic.selector.os' value='win32'/>
    <data key='cic.selector.arch' value='x86_64'/>
    <data key='cic.selector.ws' value='win32'/>
    <data key='cic.selector.nl' value='en'/>

  </profile>
  <install modify='false'>
    <!-- IBM® Integration Designer 8.5.5.0 -->
    <offering profile='IBM Integration Designer' id='com.ibm.integration.designer.v85' version='8.5.5000.v20140604_1958' features='com.ibm.wid,com.ibm.rad.jre,com.ibm.wid.product,com.ibm.rad.jee5,com.ibm.rad.was80_devtools,com.ibm.rad.was85_devtools,com.ibm.rad.j2c,com.ibm.rad.birt,com.ibm.rad.transform_authoring,com.ibm.rad.pde,com.ibm.wid.bpm.stubs,com.ibm.wid.adapters.file,com.ibm.wid.mme,com.ibm.wid.bpmps.user,com.ibm.wid.bpmpc.user,com.ibm.wid.wesb.user,com.ibm.wid.wbm.user,com.ibm.wid.datapower.user' installFixes='none'/>
    <!-- IBM® Java™ SDK 7.0 SR8 iFix (IV66375) -->
    <offering profile='IBM Integration Designer' id='com.ibm.iid.jdk7.update'/>
    <!-- JR51088 -->
    <offering profile='IBM Integration Designer' id='com.ibm.integration.designer.v85_8.5.5.0.fix-JR51088'/>
    <!-- JR51222 -->
    <offering profile='IBM Integration Designer' id='com.ibm.integration.designer.v85_8.5.5.0.fix-JR51222'/>
    <!-- JR51327 -->
    <offering profile='IBM Integration Designer' id='com.ibm.integration.designer.v85_8.5.5.0.fix-JR51327'/>
    <!-- JR51375 -->
    <offering profile='IBM Integration Designer' id='com.ibm.integration.designer.v85_8.5.5.0.fix-JR51375'/>
    <!-- JR52267 -->
    <offering profile='IBM Integration Designer' id='com.ibm.integration.designer.v85_8.5.5.0.fix-JR52267'/>
  </install>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.eclipseCache' value='${sharedLocation}'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.connectTimeout' value='30'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.readTimeout' value='45'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.downloadAutoRetryCount' value='0'/>
  <preference name='offering.service.repositories.areUsed' value='true'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.ssl.nonsecureMode' value='false'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.http.disablePreemptiveAuthentication' value='false'/>
  <preference name='http.ntlm.auth.kind' value='NTLM'/>
  <preference name='http.ntlm.auth.enableIntegrated.win32' value='true'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.preserveDownloadedArtifacts' value='true'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.keepFetchedFiles' value='false'/>
  <preference name='PassportAdvantageIsEnabled' value='false'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.searchForUpdates' value='false'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.agent.ui.displayInternalVersion' value='false'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.sharedUI.showErrorLog' value='true'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.sharedUI.showWarningLog' value='true'/>
  <preference name='com.ibm.cic.common.sharedUI.showNoteLog' value='true'/>
</agent-input>


IID 8.5.5 ships as a series of .ZIP files: -

IID_V855_1_of_3.zip
IID_V855_2_of_3.zip
IID_V855_3_of_3.zip
IID_V855_UTE_1_of_4_Windows.zip
IID_V855_UTE_4_of_4_Windows.zip
IID_V855_UTE_3_of_4_Windows.zip
IID_V855_UTE_2_of_4_Windows.zip

all of which I unpacked to the \Installer directory: -

unzip.exe IID_V855_1_of_3.zip -d Z:\Installer
unzip.exe IID_V855_2_of_3.zip -d Z:\Installer
unzip.exe IID_V855_3_of_3.zip -d Z:\Installer
unzip.exe IID_V855_UTE_1_of_4_Windows.zip -d Z:\Installer
unzip.exe IID_V855_UTE_4_of_4_Windows.zip -d Z:\Installer
unzip.exe IID_V855_UTE_3_of_4_Windows.zip -d Z:\Installer
unzip.exe IID_V855_UTE_2_of_4_Windows.zip -d Z:\Installer

I also installed six iFixes: -

8.5.5-WS-BPMID-IFJR51088.zip
8.5.5-WS-BPMID-IFJR51375.zip
8.5.5-WS-BPMID-IFJR51222.zip
8.5.5-WS-BPMID-IFJR52267.zip
8.5.5-WS-BPMID-IFJR51327.zip
IID8550Fix_JDK7SR8.zip

( noting that the last file actually comes from this iFix - 8.5.5-WS-BPMID-IFJR51720 )

all of which I downloaded from IBM Fix Central: -


I now need to revisit this as I only installed IID, but NOT the Unit Test Environment (UTE) for BPM and Business Monitor .....

That's the next post .....

Tuesday 24 February 2015

Internet of things starter kit unveiled by ARM and IBM

<snip>
A "starter kit" designed to spur on the invention of internet-connected gadgets has been announced as part of a tie-up between two leading tech firms.

Chip designer ARM and cloud services giant IBM say it can take just five minutes to unbox the equipment and start sending readings to online apps.

They suggest this will make it easier to test smart home, smart city and other "internet of things" prototypes.
</snip>

<snip>
"Frankly the use cases are bounded only by human imagination," said IBM's vice president of development Rob Lamb.
</snip>

Monday 23 February 2015

IBM Redbook - Business Process Management Design Guide using IBM Business Process Manager

This appeared in my Twitter stream earlier today: -

IBM_BPM
Check out this new draft @IBMRedbooks pub for #IBM #BPM!: Business Process Management Design Guide using IBM BPM http://t.co/rFArF1ueMg
23/02/2015 16:00


Abstract

IBM Business Process Manager is a comprehensive business process management suite that provides visibility and management of your business processes. IBM Business Process Manager (BPM) supports the whole business process management lifecycle approach, namely discover and document, plan, implement, deploy, manage, and optimize. Process owners and business owners can use this solution to engage directly in the improvement of their business processes.

IBM BPM excels in integrating role-based process design and provides a social business process management experience. It enables asset sharing and versioning through its Process Center that act as a unified repository, making it  possible to manage changes to the business processes with confidence. IBM Business Process Manager supports a wide range of standards for process modeling and exchange, and built-in analytics and search capabilities help to further improve and optimize the business processes.

This IBM Redbooks publication provides valuable information for project teams and business people that are involved in projects using IBM BPM. It describes the important design decisions that you as a team will face. These decisions will invariably have an impact on the success of your project. These decisions range from the more business centric decision such as, which should be your first process to the more technical decisions like solution analysis and architectural considerations.

IBM UrbanCode Deploy 6.1.1 - An Update

Thanks to various Tweets including this one: -

rationalsupport
http://t.co/HJ6kqREBC3 IBM UrbanCode Deploy 6.1.1.2 #rational
23/02/2015 12:25

I note that UrbanCode Deploy 6.1.1 now has a fix pack: -



Features

• Using the REST API, you can now create a Release in a single POST request — specifying team and lifecycle by name.

Performance Improvements

• Security page, application-team association tab is now much faster.
• Improved performance of environment reservation dialog on the release detail page.
• scheduled deployments all tab now loads much more quickly.
• Changes page loads faster

The link to the fix is here: -


available from IBM Fix Central.

Wednesday 18 February 2015

Book Review - Next Generation SOA ( A Concise Introduction to Service Technology & Service-Orientation )

Recently, I've read Next Generation SOA ( A Concise Introduction to Service Technology & Service-Orientation ) co-authored by a team led by Thomas Erl.

In line with the title, this is a relatively concise book, totalling 185 pages including the appendices and index. In fact, the main body of the book is 113 pages in total, as the appendices provide a large amount of content.

In the round, this book did precisely what it promised, it provided me with a concise introduction to SOA, including the basic tenets of service orientation. In fact, there a lot of numbers, including the eight service orientation principles, the four characteristics of SOA, the four common types of SOA and the seven levels of organisational maturity.

Initially, I found the book to be rather hard-going, with the overview of SOA comprising chapter two. However, things warmed up with an introduction to the SOA manifesto, which the team then broke down with a "human readable" summation.

From that point on, we were on good firm ground, cantering towards the home straight with SOA technologies, including my favourites - integration, business process management, business rules and complex event processing - before concluding with industry patterns and a case study, Rent Your Legacy Car (RYLC).

The case study was useful, although it covered a lot of ground in a very short space of time, and fairly galloped towards the conclusion - SOA is a vital part of business optimisation, and is as much a business initiative as something dreamed up by the IT Department.

Despite being described as a concise introduction to SOA, this book, via the main chapters and, more importantly, the excellent set of appendices, should serve as a useful reference to the subject.

In addition, the book is 100% vendor neutral, making little or no mention of any one SOA solution vendor, which is reassuring, especially to those organisations making their first "baby steps" into the world of service orientation.

The smaller format ( approximately eight-by-ten inches ) wasn't perfect, mainly because the illustrations became quite hard to decipher, perhaps due to the combination of colours and fonts. If I were the publisher, I'd consider a larger A4 format, but this may be less of an issue in the world of ebooks.

In conclusion, whilst the book initially started slowly, I found this to be immensely useful, even though I have some experience in SOA, albeit from the perspective of a single vendor.

I would recommend this book, and would score it 8 out of 10.

For the record, this book review was commissioned by the British Computer Society (BCS), and will be published in a future issue of IT Now.

IBM Integration Designer 8.5.5 - "Unable to get property isExists of undefined or null reference"

I saw this exception: -

Unable to get property isExists of undefined or null reference

when trying to install IBM Integration Designer (IID) 8.5.5 onto a Windows 7 VM. I also saw precisely the same issue when trying to install onto a Windows 8.1 VM.

The source installation files were on a VMware shared folder, mapped to the guest Windows OS, either via a UNC path or via an old-fashioned drive letter e.g. X: 

If it helps, I was using VMware Workstation on Windows 7 to host …. Windows 7 and VMware Fusion on Mac OS X to host Windows 8.1, but that's not important right now.

Long story short, this developerWorks forum thread: -


reported the same issue and, even more importantly, provided me with a solution: -

We were also receiving the error "unable to get property 'available Size' of undefined or null reference" while installing BPM. Earlier the installables were in D drive and we were trying to install it in the C drive.

We tried moving the installables to C drive, re-extracted it, installed and it was successful.

Once I copied the installation files into the VM i.e. onto the C: drive of the guest, thus avoiding shared folders, UNCs, drive X: etc., all was well.

For the record, the exception came via the Launchpad installer, which appears to wrap up Internet Explorer under the covers, most likely hence the JavaScript-style error message.

Sweet :-)

New - IBM Business Process Manager and IBM Business Monitor 8.5.6

As per yesterday's announcement: -


<snip>
IBM® Business Process Manager

IBM Business Process Manager (IBM BPM) V8.5.6 is an update to the comprehensive and consumable IBM BPM platform that provides visibility and management of your business processes.

New features built into IBM BPM V8.5.6 Advanced include:

• Improved IBM Enterprise Content Management (ECM) integrations that enable up-sell scenarios for both ECM and IBM BPM product teams.
• Improved BPM/ECM interoperability that allows you to use an external ECM to store case-related content.
• New APIs that provide the ability to link cases to obtain a 360 degree view of a case.
• An IBM PureApplication® System pattern configuration that is optimized to help accelerate the setup and management of complex, highly available, business process environments.
The pattern configuration was previously delivered under the separate IBM BPM Pattern program. Starting with this release, the pattern configuration is available for download to customers entitled for this edition.

New features built into IBM BPM V8.5.6 Standard and Advanced include:

A new federation infrastructure that provides a single API to access task data from multiple BPM run-times, multiple IBM BPM versions, and includes both Business Process Management Notation (BPMN) and Business Process Executable Language (BPEL) tasks. This allows you to move to the latest BPM platform while migrating your existing processes over an extended period, and allows you to manage platform stability by isolating processes.

New features available in all editions of Version 8.5.6 include:

• Improved quality of service for IBM enterprise clients who use IBM BPM and Business Monitor that are designed to:
• Improve operations and the user experience to help promote greater adoption of IBM BPM and Business Monitor for both new and existing clients.
• Reduce the number of problems encountered by addressing concerns most likely to impact clients.
• Improve the support experience by reducing the time to resolution when a product issue is encountered.
• Avoid system downtime by allowing operations to monitor the system health and isolate problems more easily.
• Allow clients to upgrade to the next major IBM BPM release more easily.
• New mobile capabilities that include:
• Support for the IBM MobileFirst™ (Worklight®) Integrated Development Environment (IDE) plug-in that can make it easier to build mobile applications that access IBM BPM.
• Technical demonstrations of Responsive Federated Portal, Responsive Coach Toolkit, and a utility to generate a MobileFirst mobile application directly from a coach are available as samples on IBM BPM Developer Center for customers to exploit the federation and mobile capabilities provided by IBM BPM 8.5.6.

Business Monitor

Business Monitor V8.5.6 is an update to the comprehensive, operational intelligence solution that offers visibility into real-time, end-to-end business operations, transactions, and processes to help optimize processes and increase efficiency and includes:

• Powerful, new visualizations of data that are based on IBM Cognos® Business Intelligence V10.2.2
• An updated pattern configuration of Business Monitor optimized to run on PureApplication Systems
• Support for the IBM BPM V8.5.6 operating environment, which includes an additional operating system, Ubuntu 14.04
</snip>

Planned Availability Date

<snip>
IBM BPM V8.5.6 and Business Monitor V8.5.6

• March 13, 2015. Electronic distribution - US English and national languages
• April 10, 2015. Media packs - US English and national languages
</snip>

Planning a migration to the latest version of IBM BPM and IBM Business Monitor

Found via Twitter: -

Learn a successful strategy to plan your migration to IBM® Business Process Manager (BPM) V8.5.5 and IBM Business Monitor V8.5.5 and later versions. Migrating your products requires input from both the business and the technical teams responsible for an application. Learn the business planning and preparation requirements and the technical considerations for a migration of IBM BPM and IBM Business Monitor. This tutorial is intended primarily to assist the IT team and business managers, including project managers and solution architects, with planning the migration of an application to the V8.5.5 version of IBM BPM and IBM Business Monitor.

Tuesday 17 February 2015

For the record - DB2 10.X Response Files

Subtly different, but vive la difference

DB2 10.1

PROD           = ENTERPRISE_SERVER_EDITION
FILE           = /opt/ibm/db2/V10.1
LIC_AGREEMENT  = ACCEPT
INSTALL_TYPE = TYPICAL

DB2 10.5

PROD = DB2_SERVER_EDITION
FILE = /opt/ibm/db2/V10.5
LIC_AGREEMENT = ACCEPT
INSTALL_TYPE = TYPICAL


IBM BPM 8.5.5 - What is the Case Manager capability ?

This is pertinent to the project upon which I am currently engaged, and I've shared it with the IBM / client team for their perusal, and wanted to share it here as well: -

Business Process Management is reinventing itself by moving from structured to unstructured processes and from basic workflow to customer centric interactions.

This session will explore the new features in IBM Business Process Manager that will enable the next wave of business process solutions based on IBM BPM.

You will learn how to design and run ad-hoc and unstructured work related to case and process style work patterns.

WebSphere Developer Tools and Liberty: Get started

Saw this on Twitter, via @WASDevNet and thought of you :-)


How to get started with WebSphere Developer Tools (WDT) for Eclipse to quickly create a Hello World app and deploy it to a Liberty server.

This article (updated for Eclipse Luna) looks at using WebSphere Developer Tools for Eclipse (typically known as WDT because it's short and not a mile wide). Like in other articles in this series (see the sidebar for links), we'll use a simple Hello World application so that we can show how to develop it using various development tools.

Monday 16 February 2015

WebSphere Application Server - Deleting Profiles

Interestingly, I saw this exception: -

The following validation errors were present with the command line arguments:
profileName: Action can not be executed while server is running

when I tried to delete a bunch of WebSphere profiles using the following command: -

/opt/ibm/WebSphere/AppServer/bin/manageprofiles.sh -deleteAll

I went slightly mad trying to find / stop any Java processes running, using ps -elf and ps auxw, but to no avail.

Thankfully this dW post: -


came to my rescue.

In essence, IBM HTTP Server (IHS) was still running .....

Once I stopped it, I was able to happily delete the profiles :-)

When you think about it, that makes perfect sense, as IHS is, in my case, running on an unmanaged node within the WAS cell, so manageprofiles is spot on :-)

Sunday 15 February 2015

developerWorks Answers - DB2 and IBM BPM and Windows

This question from developerWorks Answers caught my eye: -


After you install IBM DB2 Express, you cannot use the domain user ID to run the db2cmd command to create a new database and tables. The DB2 log files contain the following error: SQL1092N "USERID does not have the authority to perform the requested command or operation."

The answer may well surprise you :-)

Friday 13 February 2015

IBM YouTube on BPM

Some useful #IBMBPM introductory tutorials on YouTube: -





thanks to @IBMBPMUpdate on Twitter

IBM Business Process Manager: BPMConfig command tips for configuring profiles and the deployment environment

From the AIM Support Blog: -


Starting with IBM Business Process Manager V8.5.0, the BPMConfig command is widely used to create, update, upgrade, migrate [8.5.5] or delete an IBM Business Process Manager deployment environment. This article provides some tips and points that require extra attention when you use this command. There are two parts to this article: the first part focuses on the different parameters to pass to the BPMConfig command and the second part covers some tips for configuration properties file used by this command.


Thursday 12 February 2015

Continuous delivery with Rational Team Concert and UrbanCode Deploy

From another of my IBM guru colleagues: -


Learn how to create a continuous delivery process using IBM Rational Team Concert and IBM UrbanCode Deploy. You will learn how to extend an existing build processor to create a new build process from scratch that will seamlessly integrate the products to provide a flow of content in a highly traceable manner.


This article shows how to extend a build process to push newly built objects from the Rational Team Concert build process to the UrbanCode Deploy repository so that it is ready for deployment. 


This article presents the final part of an alternative approach using extensions to the Ant build.xml file which is often at the center of the build process used by Rational Team Concert.

Announcing the First Public Version of the WAS Performance Cookbook

Announcing the First Public Version of the WAS Performance Cookbook

We're pleased to announce the first public version of the WAS Performance Cookbook: https://publib.boulder.ibm.com/httpserv/cookbook/

The WebSphere Application Server Performance Cookbook covers performance tuning for WebSphere Application Server (WAS), although there is also a very strong focus on Java, Operating Systems, and theory which can be applied to other products and environments. The cookbook is designed to be read in a few different ways:

• On the go: Readers short on time should skip to the Recipes chapter at the end of the book. In the spirit of a cookbook, there are recipes that provide step-by-step instructions of how to gather and analyze data for particular classes of problems.
• General areas: For readers interested in tuning some general area such as WAS or Java, each major chapter provides its recipe at the top of the chapter that summarizes the key tuning knobs that should be investigated.
• Deep dive: Readers interested in end-to-end tuning are encouraged to skim the entire book for areas relevant to their product usage.


Oooooer - "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer."

I had a rather nasty, heart-rending moment with an external USB drive this morning.

When I plugged it into my Mac, I saw this: -

The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer.

I decided to leave things as-is until I got home this evening, and then looked into it more fully.

Alas Disk Utility failed to provide me with the Get Out Of Jail card, via First Aid Verify Disk and Repair Disk, instead showing me disk2s1 rather than the more friendly name of DaveHay.

Rather than panicking, I did a bit of Googling, as one does, and also made some use of the diskutil command: -

diskutil list

/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk2
   1:                       0xEE                         500.1 GB   disk2s1


I've highlighed the partition with which I had problems, which, by the way, contains all my data :-(

I then tried to verify the offending partition: -

diskutil verifyDisk disk2

Unable to verify this whole disk: A GUID Partition Table (GPT) partitioning scheme is required (-69773)

Again, a trip to Mr Google later, and I found this: -


which led me to gpt ( GUID partition table maintenance utility ), as per the following: -

sudo gpt recover /dev/disk2

gpt recover: /dev/disk2: recovered primary GPT table from secondary
gpt recover: /dev/disk2: recovered primary GPT header from secondary

That looked to be a good sign and, when I checked Disk Utility and Finder, I can HURRAH HURRAH HURRAH see my disk, as now evidenced by diskutil : -

diskutil list

/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk2
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS DaveHay                 499.8 GB   disk2s2

Note that the EFI partition has now turned up on disk2s1, and that the bulk of the disk is now assigned to the second partition, disk2s2.

In addition, the verifyDisk option now works: -

diskutil verifydisk /dev/disk2

Started partition map verification on disk2
Checking prerequisites
Checking the partition list
Checking for an EFI system partition
Checking the EFI system partition's size
Checking the EFI system partition's file system
Checking all HFS data partition loader spaces
Checking booter partitions
Checking Core Storage Physical Volume partitions
The partition map appears to be OK
Finished partition map verification on disk2


Right, off to backup my disk to my other disk, and then perhaps also back up my Mac's internal disk :-)

Wednesday 11 February 2015

IBM Integration Bus - Integration with DB2

On my current project, we have a requirement for flows executing inside IBM Integration Bus, on an Integration Node ( fka a Broker ), to access a DB2 database.

The integration is actually via the Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) API/interface, which has been around since early versions of Windows ( I think I first used ODBC with MS Windows for Workgroups 3.1.1 and Windows 95, in order to connect to the IBM iSeries database ).

This requires some consideration, as the ODBC capability for DB2 is provided by the DB2 Client. Therefore, we have installed the DB2 Client onto the AIX LPARs hosting IIB, via the following response file: -

PROD                      = CLIENT
FILE                      = /opt/ibm/db2/V10.1
LIC_AGREEMENT             = ACCEPT
INSTALL_TYPE              = TYPICAL


and then created a DB2 instance on each LPAR, one per installation of IIB ( we have two here, one of which provides our Enterprise Service Bus - ESB - capability ).

In terms of the interaction, it's something like this: -

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->

What Flow DB2 Instance DB2 Instance
Where IIB Integration Node DB2 Client DB2 Server
Who wmbadmin db2user1 db2inst1

In order for this to work, it was necessary to catalogue the DB2 server ( db2 catalog tcpip node .... ) and the database ( db2 catalog database ... ) on the DB2 client, as db2user1.

The ODBC.INI file, used by IIB, references the alias name from the catalog, to which the IIB flow connects, essentially making the connection via the DB2 client, to the remote database.

We then tried to add a second catalog entry, for a different user ID, to a different database e.g. database foobar accessed by user db2user2.

So we had a single set of DB2 client binaries, but we had two DB2 users ( instances ), each with its own remote database aliased via the catalog.

This didn't work too well, we found that IIB, via ODBC, would try/fail to connect to the second database using the first set of credentials.

Long story short, we ended up with a different solution; a single DB2 user/instance on the IIB, with both databases in its catalogue, BUT with IIB sending different credentials to the remote DB2 server, depending upon whether the flow was trying to access database 1 or database 2.

This Knowledge Center article covers the integration in more depth: -


Purely for background reading, this Knowledge Center article: -


includes a useful reference for the terminology used in IIB, as compared to the previous WebSphere Message Broker solution: -




Visual Studio Code - Wow 🙀

Why did I not know that I can merely hit [cmd] [p]  to bring up a search box allowing me to search my project e.g. a repo cloned from GitHub...