Refresh and CleanUp of the Environment for CA

Refresh and CleanUp of the Environment

How to refresh and/or cleanUp the Environment Management Hub PSEMHUB data

SPECIFIC TO: Enterprise, 8.4x, Change Assistant

PROBLEM: Customer wants to refresh and/or clean up the data they have in PSEMHUB right now. They wish to delete all data the PSEMHUB has and start fresh.

Solution : To Clean up the PSEMHUB data you also need to ensure that you delete data from all the Agents and the Peers, you cannot just delete data from the PSEMHUB server.

You need to perform this cleanup on all Agents, Change Assistant (CA), Viewer and HUB, that will reinitialize everything for you.

Make sure you stop the Agents, CA, Viewer, HUB before you delete these files or deirectories. After that you can restart them.

For Agents, Viewer and Change Assistant:

Delete the files in the following directories, under PS_HOME\PSEMAgent for Agents, under PS_HOME\PSEMViewer for the Viewer and under the Change Assistant directory for Change Assistant.

envmetadata/PersistentStorage/
envmetadata/scratchpad
envmetadata/data/ids/
envmetadata/transactions/ (if it exists)
envmetadata/data/search-results.xml (just for Agents and CA)

For HUB

Delete the files in the following directories under PS_HOME\webserv\peoplesoft\applications\peoplesoft\PSEMHUB
if your domain name is not Peoplesoft change the above directory accordingly.

PSEMHUB\envmetadata\Scratchpad\
PSEMHUB\envmetadata\PersistentStorage\
PSEMHUB\envmetadata\transactions\ (if it exists)
PSEMHUB\envmetadata\data\*.* (files and directories.don't delete the data directory itself)

WORKAROUND: n/a

KEYWORDS: Updates & Fixes, Change Assistant

Summary : E-CA How to set up Change Assistant for updates

Details: SOLUTION: 200990531: How to set up Change Assistant for updates

SPECFIC TO: Enterprise, PeopleTools, 8.44 and higher

QUESTION: How do you set up Change Assistant.

ANSWER:

How to Setup Change Assistant for Updates

How to Setup the EMF
What is EMF?
Change Assistant is actually only one piece of the Environment Management Framework (EMF).
EMF consists of one Environment Management Hub (EMHUB), Environment Management Agent(s) EMAgent, Change Assistant (CA) and Customer Connection Update Gateway.

What is the Environment Management Hub?
The EMHUB is a central repository of information. It stores the information gathered from the various pieces of your PeopleSoft environment including installed products and information about all updates and fixes that have already been applied to the system. This is where Change Assistant gets its information.

What is an Environment Management Agent?
An EMAgent is a process that crawls (scans the hard drive) for known PeopleSoft patterns for manageable components. The EMAgent publishes management information to the EMHUB. The EMAgent also sends a heartbeat (pulse) and checks for messages and nistructions from the EMHUB.
EMAgent(s) need to be run on all most all servers.
In PeopleSoft we talk of five servers: Application Server, Batch Server (Process Scheduler), Database Server, File Server and Web Server. You may have these on separate computers; have them all on one computer or another combination. You may also have multiple Application, Batch, File and Web servers.
Each computer that is used as a server, except for the database server, needs to have an EMAgent running on it. If one computer is used as multiple server roles (ie Application/Batch server) it only needs one agent running on it regardless of how many PeopleSoft Environments are installed on it.

What is Change Assistant?
Change Assistant is a tool that enables you to assemble and organize the steps necessary to apply patches and fixes for your PeopleTools maintenance updates. Change Assistant also helps automate the application of change packages to ensure your systems have the latest maintenance software.

What is the Customer Connection Update Gateway?
The Customer Connection Update Gateway is a web interface to a wizard that allows you to select updates and fixes.

How Does It Work?
In order to perform reliable and accurate updates, Change Assistant works with the other components of the Environment Management Framework to gather necessary environment information and then uploads it to PeopleSoft Customer Connection. With the environment data available, PeopleSoft Customer Connection can determine what updates apply to your specific environment.
When you access PeopleSoft Customer Connection, you can obtain a list of all unapplied updates for a given application environment including all prerequisites. You can then download a set of change packages associated with the update IDs and install the patches and fixes with minimal effort.
When upgrading software, Change Assistant can guide you through the entire application and PeopleTools upgrade process. In many cases, where manual intervention is not needed, Change Assistant will automate the upgrade process.

How do I Setup the EMF?
Change Assistant is actually the last component that you need to setup.
The first step is to identify your environments. EMF uses a 32 digit hexadecimal number to identify environments. While this is adequate for computers, we would prefer a more descriptive way of identifying our various environments.
Log into your PeopleSoft environment through your web browser. Use the following navigation:
PeopleTools -> Utilities -> Administration -> PeopleTools Options
There are 3 fields on this page that help identify your environment: Environment Long Name, Environment Short Name and System Type. Fill these fields out with meaningful information that will help you identify this environment from your other environments, then click on Save

The next step is to set up the EMHUB. You have probably already set this up whether you know it or not. The EMHUB is installed when you installed PIA on your web server.
If you installed PIA in a single server configuration, the EMHUB is started whenever you start PIA. It also is run on the same http port as your PIA. If for example your PIA url is: http://customer.peoplesoft.com:8080/DMO/signon.html your huburl is http://customer.peoplesoft.com:8080/PSEMHUB/hub
If you installed PIA in a multiple server configuration, the EMHUB has been installed but does not start automatically when you start PIA and does not share the same http port. You would start the EMHUB the same way you start PIA. PIA is started with the command _startManagedWebLogic PIA_ while the EMHUB is start with _startManagedWebLogic PSEMHUB_. By default, the http port for EMHUB is 8001.
Make sure the hub is up and running before you start your EMAgents.

The next step is to set up the EMAgent(s). You have already configured them when you installed the PeopleTools CDs. When you installed the CDs you would have been presented with a dialogue box:
The Environment Hub machine name should have been your web server_s machine name and the Environment Hub port number should have been the http port number discussed previously.
If you left this dialogue box at the defaults or put in incorrect values, you can correct them now. These values are stored as the huburl in the configuration.properties file located in \PSEMAgent\envmetadata\config.
All EMAgents should have the exact same huburl.
While checking this file, you will also want to update either the windowsdrivestocrawl or unixdrivestocrawl line. The windowsdrivestocrawl should be the local (non-mapped network drive) drive letter that contains your PSHOME(s). The unixdrivestocrawl should point to the parent directory of your PSHOME(s).

The final step in the setup process is to set up Change Assistant.

To begin make sure that your system environment variable, PATH, has \bin\client\winx86;\jre\bin as the first two entries.

Change Assistant (PeopleTools release 8.46) can connect to PeopleSoft Customer Connection through authernticated proxy server. To do this, open Change Assistant. Select Tools, Options, Web Services and enter the relevant proxy server information:

Change Assistant Options, Web Services screen
If your proxy server does not require authentication, select Anonymous Proxy. If you use a proxy server that requires Windows domain authentication (for example, Microsoft ISA Server), select Microsoft Proxy Server and enter the Windows Domain name.
When you are uploading environments or downloading updates with Change Assistant, if proxy server authentication is required, the system prompts you for the Proxy User Name and Proxy Password.

What ports must be open in my firewall?
Change Assistant connects to PeopleSoft Customer Connection to upload information regarding your environment and to download updates and change packages. Your firewall must allow Change Assistant to communicate to www.peoplesoft.com and update.peoplesoft.com through the HTTP (80) and HTTPS (443) ports. Change Assistant does not require the FTP port to be opened on your firewall.
What Customer Connection username and password should I use?
Use the one you normally use to log in to Customer Connection.

How do I configure the DrivesToCrawl and hubURL parameters in Change Assistant?
To configure the parameters:
1. Open Change Assistant. Select Tools, Options.
2. Select Change Assistant tab, click Apply Application Update as the Change Assistant Mode.
3. Select the Environment Management tab.
4. Enter the Server Host. This is the name of your web server where the EMHUB is installed.
5. Enter the Server Port. This is the EMHUB port number discussed earlier.
6. Enter the DrivesToCrawl parameter in the Drives To Crawl textbox. This path must include the path to your SQL client applications. Be careful to use the forward slash (_/_) character instead of the back slash (_\_). For multiple directories, use a __ character as separator.