Troubleshooting ADRMS issues ...!!!!

This is an attempt to answer some of the basic questions someone would have administering the ADRMS set up 

1. How do I add cluster in ADRMS ?

        You can lunch the RMS server console the first screen it will open with would have add cluster option on the right hand side top corner which will take you to the process of adding RMS cluster server which is shown as below.

 

   2.  How do I change service account?

        Launch the RMS server console , select the RMS server where you need to change the service account Select the option from the top corner of the right hand hand side to change the service account (But you have to have a Enterprise admin account of that domain) , Options shown below in steps 

3. How do I change the path of the templates location?

   To change Templates store location , right click on rights policy template and click enable export and provide the path (the path provided folder should be shared with everyone so that policies could be written and accessed) which is shown as below

4. How do I change the Service Connection Point?

      To change Service connection point 

•       Right click on your RMS server 
•       Go to Properties 
•       Click SCP where you can change SCP location 
•       NOTE: To change SCP the enterprise admin account has to be used which was used to install the ADRMS server.

Hope this helps someone using ADRMS server and exploring its features.

   

 

 

Eucalyptus Private Cloud: an introduction

Eucalyptus provides software platform for on-premise (private) clouds which can be used as a Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), It’s an open source cloud product supporting private and hybrid cloud environments using existing available infrastructure providing capability to provide scalable, secure web services layer which utilizes compute, network and storage.

It supports Amazon Web Services API’s and uses infrastructure virtualization software to cater to elastic service pools. Main benefits being efficient scalability and increased resource utilization and greater control over on-premise IT.Eucalyptus being compatible with Amazon APIs helping users to manage amazon or Eucalyptus images through eucalyptus commands, It also makes it easier to move instances between amazon public clod and eucalyptus private cloud enabling you to create hybrid cloud. Capability of achieving operating system virtualization helping us to provide isolation among applications and various stacks.

Basic Architecture:

Above figure illustrates the basic architecture of any Eucalyptus private cloud set up consisting of components like Cluster Controller, Storage controller, Node Controller, Cloud Controller and Walrus etc.

Cloud Controller (CLC): It plays as an entry point for all; be it be administrators or users It keeps the information about resources and makes requests to cluster controller. Being a management platform interface it can be accessed through command lines tools or through dashboard.

Cluster Controller (CC): It helps in collecting information about the Node Controllers (NC) and scheduling the execution of virtual machines on specific NCs.It has to be in a same subnet as CC if it’s a single CC environment, Generally its executes on machines having network connectivity to NC and CLC.

Node Controller (NC): It can be executed on a machine hosting VM instances; it controls all VM activities like execution, termination of VM instances. The Node Controller (NC) executes on any machine that hosts VM instances. It also fetches and maintains a local cache of instance images, and it queries and controls the system software (host OS and the hypervisor) in response to queries and control requests from the CC. The NC is also responsible for the management of the virtual network endpoint.

Walrus: Walrus works as a repository to store data can be organised as buckets and objects, you can use Walrus to create, delete, and list buckets, or to put, get, and delete objects, or to set access control policies. It can access vvirtual machine images and user data. Walrus can be accessed by end user.

Storage Controller (SC): It has the ability to provide interface to various storage systems (NFS, iSCSI, SAN devices, etc.). Users can create snapshots from EBS volumes. Snapshots are stored in Walrus and made available across availability zones

Features:

•  Eucalyptus is one of the popular private cloud platforms built through open source; it supports self service automation, User and group management for providing security features.
•   Eucalyptus can be configured in a High Availability (HA) mode which maximizes the reliability supporting hot failover and repair mechanisms
•  Supports most of the operating system formats hence managing the images of multiple versions becomes flexible
•  It can be integrated with SANs so that storage elasticity is achieved
•  It can also be integrated for chargeback and quota management applications
•  Resource administration through Eucalyptus dashboard
•  VMware Hypervisor support and Amazon web services API compatibility

        The idea is to have an exposure to private cloud technology platform and embracing it to optimize usage of the available resources; having built and tested this type of set up at labs gives you that clear understanding on Eucalyptus.

Moving Mobile phone data over cloud

An overview

As this generation poised to be smarter with the usage of smart phones and keeping themselves connected to the world all the time with  access to internet from anywhere anytime at their fingertips; its essential for them to have backup of their crucial data in case of mobile being stolen or lost. These smart devices help them keep their social profile up to date and informed about current events. Almost every single college graduate or school pass out would have Hotmail or Gmail accounts and hence giving them access to freely available space on internet through cloud services like SkyDrive or Google docs with capacity of around 5 GB.Hence this idea of moving such important data like mobile contacts, photos, messages, songs etc. over the cloud platforms like SkyDrive would create a redundant copy of it for your back up.

Formulating the concept from this idea

I have gone through the web before putting down this on the paper; there are few applications available in the market which talks about the same idea you may also find one organisation specifically into this segment but they concentrate more on mobile data security and I guess they would all be paid application.

My idea is to have a software or application developed with a smaller size and compact in nature to make it available over the internet for any user basically enabling them to have their data backup being done semi-automatically if not automatically. And which can also be made available with mobile manufacturers optionally if they want to have it.

 Here I am trying to formulate the concept with a block diagram depicting the necessary work to be done at each step.

As shown above the user downloads the app from internet and installs it over his mobile device it should be compatible with at least the top mobile operating systems which also should be very compact and small package to download or install, once installed it will capture the basic information of the user and then it will check if the user is logged into any of cloud app and then prompt user to select the files he wants to backup or give an option what type of files he want to move to that space over SkyDrive or goggle doc.

Once this is done it would interact with the application over internet and establish a connection with it. Then it will create some default folders like contacts, photos, songs etc. and save the data accordingly.

It would also look for the new updates or changes in the files and track them with new files movement over the app space over regular duration or it should overwrite the contents.

Security to the files saved over these apps can be provided with passwords to the folders or using any other software but this should at least enable a normal user to have back up of his important files of size lesser than 5 GB hence he can have data which can be used anytime from anywhere.

Scope

Application of this type will have appeal to every mobile user who uses cloud specific apps and would help them to save their important data as a backup. By making it freely available over internet it would be a possession one would want to have.

Challenges

•     Creating an API i.e. an interface to Synch with mobile OS and cloud appSecurity of the files
•           Automating the process of keeping files updated at regular intervals
•          Some of the cloud apps need desktop agent to save more than 2GB data

Advantages

•    Anybody would want to have backup of their contacts or some files kept over safe place from where it can be retrieved anytime from anywhere with just access to internet
•       No need of having those files saved in a physical media which has chances of losing or being stolen
•       If being made available free of cost people would definitely show an interest
•       It can be used as a Temporary back up for important files
•       If provided with additional features like file security; would add value to it
•   Can be helpful to mobile application stack developers where this can bundled with other apps as a value addition
•    It can add value to users if this can be integrated with more features like keeping track of un used apps or the apps never used .(helping users to delete unused apps when notified or have a track of applications installed on mobile device)

    Conclusion

          It would help us to reach to the larger audience in the mobile computing or mobility field showing our interests in this domain and being ready to help society applying technology in simplest of the things. It will help them solve their problems; creating value to ourselves.

Problem management process Transition Questionnaire ...!!!

I have been preparing the questions for problem management process transition work for last few days. During the course of time i have come up with following questions which came to my mind, would be helpful for the people working on ITSM implementation projects. 1.What is the type of medium you use to raise a problem?

2. What are the key factors you collect for a problem in ticket ?

3.What is the process of notifying the users when there is a problem?

4. do you have knowledge database for problems?

5.do you take team meetings to discuss problems?

6.Do you reject the tickets the tickets as problem ticket upon analyzing them?

7.What are the main factors to define the ticket as a problem?

8. What is the naming convention you use for problems?

9. do you have root cause analysis process in place and a dedicated team for it?

10. what is the general hierarchy for problem ticket ownership?

11.Do you initiate change once root cause is identified for a problem?

12.how do you notify people upon problem ticket progress or status?

13. do you have root cause analysis templates available?

14. what is the process of updating root cause analysis templates?

15.Do you have SLA for problem management and for  all their process statuses?

16. do you have escalation process defined for problems?

17.what is the process of closing the problem ticket?

18.Do you update the knowledge base once new solution is identified?

Managed Services Approach:

Managed services is the business model where customers IT Infrastructure is managed by outsourced vendors, it’s a strategic methodology for improving the operations mostly through production support and maintenance activities. Vendors who provide these managed services are referred as service providers. Defined and agreed service at predictable IT support costs can be achieved with this business model. Below is the general architecture covering all the key points in managed services model which represents my understanding about the managed services process flow (not necessarily be industry standard).

Above figure depicts my view on the managed services model which covers all the key factors contributing to the success of the managed services business model. It starts with Client on-boarding from sales team through transition then understanding the client infrastructure to be managed and supported ,System readiness discovery and making the services run as expected and meeting the service levels with service desks,operations support and various service management process models. (Service management processes would be covered in coming blogs in depth .)

Benefits of managed services model

• IT Cost Predictability: it helps businesses to have clear idea upon their IT costs as it can have fixed price model based outsourcing .
• New technology: Service provider would be expert in their domain having access to newest of technologies and expert resources to use it .
• Improved customer service:Helps deploy self service capabilities help customers get helped themselves.
• Agreed SLAs: service provider have to work to manage their agreed SLAs hence accountability increases.

Questions to understand Incident Management Process

Many ITSM analysts trying to understand their customers IT Infrastructure for ITIL process methodology and analyzing their needs in order to bind them together with standard processes usually ask multiple questions to their clients or customers to grab that little extra information on processes, Here are some questions that I may ask for understanding their Incident management process .

·         What is the type of medium you use to log a ticket? Like email,chat,or phone

·         Do you have greeting defined for upon receiving call?

·         Do you have user/caller verification in process?

·         Do you have verification process for new or temp users/caller?

·         How do you find the details of the user on call logging tool? Is it auto populates upon entering certain values or manual update?

·         What are the categories available or should be used to categories the ticket?

·         What are the criteria’s you have in place to determine whether its service request or problem ticket or normal incident?

·         Do you update the existing tickets? If yes what is the policy to update or creation of new ticket even for the same issues?

·         What is the ticket numbering policy?

·         Do you have ticket dispatching policy or process for third party vendors?

·         Do you have ticket escalation policy? What are the criteria?

·         How do you convey the end user upon ticket closure?

·         What is the procedure to be used for unresolved tickets for more than week?

·         What is the procedure to be used if user calls for a status update on the ticket?

·         When the ticket needs to be referred to SME?

·         What is the call back process you have? What is the escalation procedure for L1 tickets?

·         What is the ticket handling procedure for major incidents?

·         What is the policy or procedure to get an update on third party vendor tickets and update?

·         What is the procedure for outbound calls?

·         What is the process to update the knowledge management database upon identifying new solutions?