BMC Remedy rapid release

BMC has kind of started a rapid release schedule for AR System/Atrium/ITSM/SmartIT. That means that some parts will get new releases every 3 months and some parts every 6 month. This is great, to see fixes and quality improvements. But I can not really see anybody running a full ITSM/SmartIT stack to be able to upgrade at this speed.

Anyway, as of 4th of September 2018 18.08 is out. And the parts of 18.05 that was not generally available was made available. 18.05 contains some big changes which need some thought before you move forward.

BMC is trying to move all parts into this new version schema. So all products in AR System/Atrium/ITSM/SmartIT should have the same version number. The version number is YY.MM of the release. But so far AR System/Atrium/ITSM is called with the old version numbers, which in 18.05 is 9.1.05. So still not fully in sync. But the documentation is using the new version numbers. 18.05 already have a bunch of patches.

From 9.1.05 the old RPC based ARAPI used from C is officially out of support and not updated. So the changes in AR System that is in 9.1.05 is only supported in the Java version of ARAPI. One of those changes is menu type to get license info that is needed in the new license management.

Other new things is a console to more easy access configuration and status of a server group. And more or less even a standalone server is treated as a server group. The biggest problem at the moment with the server group config is that some of the config is in raw database tables that you can only access with database tools if you need to fix something. And you will need to fix something for sure.

The file deployment is now the way to patch the system. And in 9.1.05 there are new enhancement to work better for CMDB and ITSM. One of the most important thing about file deployment is that you have to have the file deployment service running on all servers. And you have to make sure the AR System Monitor form contains all the servers with correct info, and only the correct servers. Of curse to make this work you have to have firewalls open so the server doing the deploy can access all the servers.

SmartIT/MyIT/Digital workplace is now more separate, and your URLs will change. But still on same server. MongoDB is gone. And there is probably more things that I am missing. But this is my first take on this.

AR System 7.6.04 now available for download

This Monday AR System 7.6.04 was made available for the customers. And it was really needed. We have very big problems with upgrading our AR System 7.1 servers running 7.0.3 ITSM to AR System 7.6.03 and ITSM 7.6.03. There are so many bugs in 7.6.03. And the bug fix list in 7.6.04 is LONG.

BMC say you need to upgrade all components if you want to run 7.6.04. And that will not really work in this project. So little time left before go live. But now we got OK about support if we only upgrade AR System Server and Mid-Tier to 7.6.04 and leave ITSM at 7.6.03. OK, there are some bugs in ITSM 7.6.03 that need fixing to.

So far we have only tried Mid-Tier 7.6.04. And it works better then 7.6.03, at least when it comes to the cache. 7.6.03 seemed to read the whole server every time somebody logged in on Mid-Tier. But 7.6.04 only loads what is needed to perform the thing the user is trying to do. It is a lot faster.

One of the bugs we have reported on 7.6.03 is when consuming web services. If you get an error in the transaction the set field web service action result in setting the 'Short Description' field to NULL. You will not notice that if you not have error handling built on the work flow. But if you have error handling and want the record to be stored it will fail with 'Short Description' set to NULL. Did not see anything in release notes about this being fixed in 7.6.04. But it is a serious error. All of a sudden we are back in AR System 6.3 functionality.

Another bug is that if you create an new record, does not matter if it is push field, web service, import, or any other way, and you have default values that contain any $$, you will get extra characters at the end of the string. En example, if you have $USER$ as default value on 'Submitter' the resulting value will be like 'userid%s%s%s'. Not working very well if you use the submitter access functionality.

BMC have really made me disappointed with there 7.6.03 release. And I fear that 7.6.04 does not really fix the important bugs that we need fixed in 7.6.03. I hope it will not result in a rollback of this upgrade project. That would be a very big setback for AR System at this customer, and a very big cost. I wonder if BMC is ready to pay customers for total fail using 7.6.03.

Anyway, I hope BMC can solve this fast. I really want all this new stuff, except maybe layers. I would very much want to make some new super application. Not a big blob like the ITSM application.

AR System 7.6.03 documentation released

Now it's here for the public. Version 7.6.03 of BMC Remedy AR System. And as expected the "What's New" document start of with Mid-Tier changes, actually new things about installation came first. They seem to have spent everything on making Mid-Tier faster. So I guess this is the next step towards leaving the native windows client behind.

The next thing is new UI things you can do. It is nothing really big. But it is a lot of small changes to existing object. And they are good changes. The thing is slowly moving into a more 'modern' looking UI. That is good. The comments about 'stone age looking UI' might go away. But that will not stop people from screwing the user experience when they develop there applications.

Developer Studio also have some nice new things. First the analyzer and search features have been improved. And then there is a new feature to get graphical view of events and workflow execution. Hope it is better then the one that where in, I do not remember the name. You can now also print/export "documentation" of your application from Developer Studio. It exports to PDF/RTF/HTML. And finally they have added entry points to the Remedy Eclipse-plugins that is Developer Studio. This makes it possible for 3rd party to extend Developer Studio to help the developers.

• What’s New: BMC Remedy Action Request System 7.6.03 PDF

Now 7.5 patch 6 and 7.1 patch 11 is available for download

Now they have fixed the bug that was the reason for the revocation of 7.5 patch 5 and 7.1 patch 10. So time to download. I will install 7.5 patch 6 as soon as I can get it downloaded.

In 7.5 patch 6 there is some fixes to web services. So I guess any system using web services a lot would like to upgrade. Also there are some fixes to queries in general, and specifically currency fields in queries. They actually hang the server. There is also some fixes for memory leaks. Always good to remove those.

Developer studio, user and Mid-tier had some fixes that may have been a problem for you. But I did not see anything that generally needed an upgrade.

Serious problem with AR System

Both 7.5 patch 5 and 7.1 patch 10 contains a bug fix that is not working as expected. The server will use more memory then it should and sometimes causing freezing server. So these two patches has been withdrawn. The text from BMC say this,

A licensing and audit issue was fixed in AR System 7.5.00 patch 005 (SW00369044) and 7.1.00 patch 010 (SW00369045). The fix for this issue causes a higher than expected memory usage, which could result in the AR System server not responding. Until the issue is resolved, BMC is withdrawing the aforementioned patches and customers are instructed not to load them. BMC will send further communication when this problem is fixed.

And I was just about to upgrade my 7.5 server to patch 5 before starting testing of some now functions in an application. But I guess I stay with patch 3 for a while. Hope they release new patches soon, cause these patches had what looked like some well needed fixes.

A little conspiracy theory, these two patches does not check licenses at all. That is why they withdraw them. They fixed some bugs wrong, making the system 'free'. :)

Patch 5 for AR System 7.5 released

Update: read this too.

A couple of days ago patch 5 of AR System 7.5 was released. I guess on schedule in BMCs "1 patch release every 3 month" plan. The list of fixes is long. Still with some workflow bugs being fixed. And also some web service fix that I hope will reduce the produced size of a web service call. And also support more "functionality" in web service. It is good they are fixing things. But I still feel, how can it be possible they have so many 'critical' errors in there application 1,5 year after release.

Anyway, finaly customers start talking about upgrading to 7.5. And finally there will be some action in developing for 7.5. I myself have been waiting long time. And now I actually feel I really have to start setting up environments for building something new and fun in AR System 7.5. And to really get a good feel of the new development environment.

As a side note. Patch 9 for AR System 7.1 was release 2 months ago. And I have not talked about that. Not so many fixes as the 7.5 release. But not the least one memory leak related to web services and one stack overflow when to many filters trigger was what I noted directly. And both the 7.5 and 7.1 release seem to have more then one fix related to currency fields. Mostly in converting to other to/from other field types.

Problem with BMC Remedy Service Desk

A customer complained about the server where crashing. Nobody could explain why. But I noticed that in the console output it complained about the libIMFilterPlugin.so. After searching around a little I found a Technical Bulletin from BMC saying that there is a problem running BMC Remedy Service Desk integration together with BMC Remedy Service Level Management (SLM), on linux and AIX platforms. What?? On the other supported platforms it is working, but not on linux and AIX. The bulletin is from October 2007.

OK, this seem to be the case with version 7.1.00, 3.0.02 and 3.0.00 of the Integration for BMC Remedy Service Desk (IBRSD). The bulletin is actually about not being able to start IBRSD together with SLM. But I guess that this is part of why the server is crashing. And it might actually be part of some inconsistencies at the customer. I wonder if this is fixed in some patch. The bulletin say change OS or disable one of the components as workaround.

Patch 8 for AR System 7.1 released

I had almost forgotten that I was waiting for this patch. Expected it to be released at the same time as patch 3 for 7.5, but it was released now instead.

So again there is an update for all parts. Server wins with about 60 fixes in this release. And, no surprise, there were memory leak fixes again. But there was nothing there that really applied to the current customer I work with. But the errors regarding workflow does not feel good they were there earlier.

I do not think I will rush to upgrade. OK, it looks like there are some important things in this patch. But ITSM is working OK at the moment. So I think 'why fixed something that is not broken' is a good thought at the moment.

Patch 3 for AR System 7.5 released

Now BMC has release patch 3 for AR System 7.5. I contains many fixes. And some of the fixes make you think if 7.5 has functioned at all before patch 3. And also that there still are some serious bugs that will give some real problems.

• AR System suite installer
• AR System server
• BMC Remedy Approval Server
• BMC Remedy Assignment Engine
• BMC Remedy Data Import
• BMC Remedy Development Studio
• BMC Remedy Email Engine
• BMC Remedy Flashboard
• BMC Remedy Mid Tier
• BMC Remedy User

All these components are updated in the patch. I have not tested any thing yet. Actually, my installation of 7.5p2 has not been used at all. One thing I noticed that I did not know was that web service plugin has moved from the C version of the plugin server and now in the Java plugin server. I guess it is a good move. But then when you see fixes related to web services plugin you know it never going to end up in 7.1. Which is really annoying.

Web services by the way, the infra structure should really by upgraded. AXIS 1.4, it is really old and not containing all the new stuff that will make web services scale. If using AXIS2 or maybe Sun Metro you could use things lite MTOM and XOP to reduce package size and better serialization and encoding/decoding to increase performance. This is really needed. And also I am really annoyed the remove something that worked in 6.3 when they released 7.0. I am referring to sequences in sequences. You can at least in 7.1 work around that since it still stores all the data. But you have to build your own workflow to maintain the references. You even can use the fact that now Request ID is available in phase 3, which is when push happens.

So now I am only waiting for patch 8 of 7.1. And hoping it really contains some good stuff.

BMC UserWorld 2009?

I guess now it is for sure, there will be no BMC UserWorld 2009. At least I can find no information about this. Which would be a major marketing blunder if the information is not there.

So where to go instead. I guess there are lots of local events, even arranged by BMC. And the topics may be more specific to one product or branch.

ARSlist have there own WWRUG 2009. It is in November. And it is in Las Vegas. Maybe should give that a shoot. Doug Mueller is booked as the keynote speaker.

New web and new release for php-arapi

Finally some activity on php-arapi. The web has been rewritten. More information about how to compile, and how to use. But it is still quite thin. Hope more will come soon.

Code update include better support to compile for arapi 6.3/7.0/7.1. But RTL, which is used to access arapi, still miss some features wanted in 7.1. It does not handle the new selection field in 7.1. By not handle I mean it can not translate between value in database and the text seen by the user in the application.

I've supplied some patch to RTL, but the project seem dead. No activity. And there is more code needed in RTL to handle arapi 7.1 and 7.5. I guess the feature for php-arapi is to rewrite without use of RTL.

The new binaries you can download is for arapi 7.1 and php 5.2.x, at least up to 5.2.10. php 5.3.x is not supported at the moment. It might very well compile and work fine. But there are some changes in 5.3.x related to extensions. And I guess I should look into what need/should be changed in php-arapi before I say php-arapi support php 5.3.x.

Patch 7 for AR System 7.1 released

OK, not today, but 3 weeks ago. The list of fixes is quite long. But after a little longer look it was not so many for the kind of systems I normally encounter. Most notably was a fix that is supposed to speed up the start of the server when you have big applications, like ITSM. And though still not fast on startup it is faster then the pre patch 7 systems.

In admin tool there is also a performance fix. And I think I have noticed the better performance. But still, when you have 21000+ active links on a server, admin tool just suck, even if I do not have details on. When I use ARGetListActiveLinks() in my own programs I get 21000+ active link names in like under a tenth of a second. It is hard to see exactly how long it take just from output from a console program without real timing, but still alot faster then admin tool. So what does admin tool really do if you only want to list the names that makes it so slow.

Migrator is actually slower then admin tool to handle the list of objects. Try ctrl-a on 21000+ active link and take a coffee brake for 10+ minutes. Actually, making the diff on 21000+ active links goes faster. And still migrator does not always handle the number of fields in a table correctly. So expect to still get currupted tables. I guess it only happens if you only migrate selected fields, not full form. But I do not feel safe in how migrator do things. And the table problem is not corrected by just migrating the form again. You have to force a 'recreate' of the table. Or hack the database.

User tool have lots of fixes that makes you wonder, does user tool really work? And in 7.1 I have seen to many problems to be surprised when I find new once. It is hard to develop anything when the intended client does not follow the rules of the application system.

Mid-Tier is not so much better then user tool. But for some reason I have lately found the web function better then user tool. Even if things like shortcut keys work in the web version of the client.

So far I have not investigated what really make my patch 6 installation make e-mail engine use 100% CPU. Is it the not so update 1.6.0_02 JRE or something else. But on my patch 7 system e-mail engine is running nice with JRE 1.6.0_13. It is just sitting in the background when it should. Have to see what happens when you put some load on the system.

OK, so there you have some sign of life from me. A totally non-scientific observation of the latest patch for AR System 7.1. Hope I have something more interesting to write soon. Some hard facts.

One little thing about ITSM, is it OK for an action to take 8 seconds on a modern application server. OK, it is not a super fast database, but only searching for the active links when opening Incident Manger Console takes 8 seconds if you do not have it cached. Which mean on a development cache server it always takes forever to use the ITSM applications.

Patch 1 for AR System 7.5 released

I only tested 7.5 little bit in beta. And I currently have no 7.5 server up and running. But I guess now it is time to start using the 7.5 version.

In this first patch there seem to be very many bug fixes. So first release of 7.5 maybe was not so great. I hope now that has changed. I have not look at any specific bugs. I have to come back and write more about 7.5 when I have set up a server and done some testing.

Low on mental energy

I have been very away from this blog for a month or so. OK, in some respect travel have been taking away my time for writing. But it is more like a low on mental energy. Have no energy to have any thoughts about anything. It feels really annoying.

So, to show I am not dead I just going to tell you that my result in Jusandan 2009 did make my ranking in the European Go Database go up. And also, at the moment my ranking at Dragon Go Server is up too. So my go skills seem to grow, somehow.

I just which all the programming and stuff would go as well. But there has been no time. And all the time I have had I spend on some stupid compiler setting. And it is still not working. And the stupid thing is that I have the solution at home but do not want to wait until I get home. I should do something productive instead and solve the compiler issue when I get home. I was just planning to get a new version of php-arapi out on this trip, since I was getting some time to program.

AR System 7.5 is out in the open

I guess you already know that 7.5 of BMC Remedy AR System has been released. I have nothing really to report about 7.5 yet. I had the beta installed to do some testing. But I never really got the time. Boywing have written some info about 7.5 in his blog.

Now I need to spend time to see what is changed in the API. Have to update all software I develop to handle 7.5. I guess the first thing, and probably the thing needing the least update, will be php-arapi. It is basicly only data which most of the time never change in the upgrade. php-arapi also need some cleaning of the project to make it build out of the box on as many systems as possible. And also the web/documentation of php-arapi need to be updated.

I can also mention that my previous blog about the difference of two W2K3 installations makeing AR System behave different actually turned to be some extra software installed by the customer that I was not aware of. So anoying. It has cost me a lot of time.

Whats the difference between this W2K3 and that W2K3?

I have not really had time to do any tests on AR System 7.1 patch 6 yet. But I did an installation on a Windows 2003 server system. And what I noted was that it installed AR System Portmapper. On the systems I have at a customer where there is a problem at boot up AR System Portmapper is not installed. I wonder what on those systems choose not to install AR System Portmapper but it is done on my test system. I have to get some time to install patch 6 at the customer. And look at the installation logs.

What else, I have seen problems both in e-mail engine and consuming web services regarding UTF-8 encoding. The data from the database is unicode and everything should be configured and handled as UTF-8. But when I use HTML or XML templates in e-mail engine or when I send data in a web service the data is encoded two times. I still have not verified this on any other setup then at the customer. I need time to write something to prove it to BMC.

Reimbursement update

Before Christmas I received the money for the travel. No problem. Only annoying thing was I had to pay the fee for the transfer. So I lost some money.

But still no money for the conference. I have seen a copy of the transfer where the account number was wrong. And they say they will transfer again and I should have the money around new year. But, no, no money, yet. :)

But actually maybe there is something good about the delay. Have to ask my auditor if the credit will be put in the book keeping for 2008 or 2009. I would be better with 2009. The money is needed this year, not last year.

Patch 6 for AR System 7.1 released

It include patches for Admin tool, User tool, Server, Mid-Tier, E-mail engine, Migrator, etc. So many fixes it looks like.

Many issues 'solved' on the server. First one on the list is supposed to be the remote DB problems we have at one customer. Have to test the coming week.

Also some fixes for web services. I might have a problem with web services since moving to 7.1 from 6.3. Having more then two levels of sequence does not seem to work. I have not 100% confirmed that yet. Need to recreated it from scratch in 7.1 to see if it still is a problem. All records get created in all the sequences, but there is no relation created but for the first level. If I can confirm it, have to have sure prof latest tomorrow, I will report it to BMC. Little bit to late for the project.

The user tool patch does not seem to have any fix for the problem reported about selection fields. That is really bad. Have to ask the one who report it what feed back he have gotten.

To many things to do

Not that I was planning to write here very often. At the moment there are to many things to do. And nothing has really come to some kind of milestone so it is worth writing about.

About BMC Remedy AR System 7.1 at boot of windows. I think it is all about AR System trying to start before RPC has been set up on the machine. I have tried to set up dependency on the AR System service to the RPC service. But on the windows machines I have available nothing happens. All tools I have to check if the dependency is set show it is set. But at boot it is still the same, AR System start before RPC. I have asked the people managing and setting up windows, but they can not give me an answer why. Maybe AR System install should add that dependency. The workaround at the moment is to set the service to manual start and then start it as a schedule at start up. It works.

Another thing I also tried about the start up of AR System. On a service you can set what to do if start up fails. But it does not do what I set it to do. So either windows does not detect the failure, or the setting is not read by windows.

More BMC. I kind of was surprised about how fast and how well they seemed to handle the reimbursement of my cost for the canceled conference. But now I am still waiting for the money. One part, the conference fee, they blame people quit work. So they have not had time to manage all reimbursements. And the cost for travel seem to have gotten stuck too. Yesterday, after I asked for more info, I got a new mail saying that they have accepted to pay my cost. And the again want my bank info.

I do not know if this is fun or sad. I know a person who reported a bug about BMC Remedy Usertool 7.1. It was already reported and BMC answered it was scheduled for release in 7.5.1. 7.5 does not even exist yet. OK, it is not a production critical bug. But for us users who use keyboard shortcuts it is really annoying. In some special situations pressing Ctrl-Enter does not save the record, it opens a new modify window.

Patch 5 problem update

The problem during boot does not seem to be only patch 5. And what I can see is that this start to happen when you add Microsoft KB958644. I have not been able to verify this 100%. But when I add this patch AR System fail to start during boot of windows.

Update: After looking at the event log to see what patches been installed I can not see any thing around when we started see this with patch 5. But patch 4 seem to have stopped working after Microsoft KB958644 was applied. It is the new very important security patch. Maybe this problem is some access right problem.