BMC Portal
Release Notes
Version: 2.4.00
May 31, 2007

BMC Software is releasing version 2.4.00 of the BMC Portal product. These release notes provide information about the enhancements, resolved problems, and open issues in this version. This information supplements and supersedes information in the documents listed in "BMC Portal documents".

NOTE:
 

Before you install the BMC Portal, BMC Software recommends that you check the Customer Support web page at http://www.bmc.com/support_home for updated information about this version. Flashes, technical bulletins, and solutions on the support web page provide the latest information, including details about any fixes that were issued for this version after its release.

  • Overview of BMC Portal
  • Internationalization and localization
  • Requirements and supported resources
  • BMC Portal requirements
  • Additional system requirements for modules
  • Installation information
  • What’s new
  • What’s changed
  • Product download from the web
  • Product installation issues
  • Product upgrade paths
  • Product upgrade issues
  • What’s new in BMC Portal Server
  • Integrating the Portal with AlarmPoint 3
  • Open issues and workarounds in BMC Portal Server
  • Corrected problems in BMC Portal Server
  • BMC Performance Manager Portal 2.4.00
  • What’s new in BMC Performance Manager Portal
  • What’s changed in BMC Performance Manager Portal
  • Open issues and workarounds in BMC Performance Manager Portal
  • Corrected problems
  • BMC Performance Manager SDK 2.4.00
  • What’s new in BMC Performance Manager SDK
  • What’s changed in BMC Performance Manager SDK
  • Open issues and resolutions in BMC Performance Manager SDK
  • Corrected problems in BMC Performance Manager SDK
  • BMC Performance Exception Detector 1.3.10
  • What’s new in BMC Performance Exception Detector
  • Open issues and workarounds in BMC Performance Exception Detector
  • BMC Impact Portal 7.0.02
  • Version compatibility between BMC Impact Portal and BMC Impact
    Manager 46
  • What’s changed in BMC Impact Portal
  • Open issues and workarounds in BMC Impact Portal
  • Corrected problems for BMC Impact Portal
  • BMC Impact Service Model Editor (SME) 7.0.02
  • What’s changed in BMC Impact Service Model Editor
  • Open issues and workarounds in BMC Impact Service Model Editor
  • Corrected issues in BMC Impact Service Model Editor
  • BMC Impact Publishing Server 7.0.02
  • What’s changed in BMC Impact Publishing Server
  • Open issues and workarounds in BMC Impact Publishing Server
  • Corrected issues in BMC Impact Publishing Server
  • BMC Impact Integration Web Services 2.2.00
  • What’s new in BMC II Web Services Server
  • What’s changed in BMC II Web Services Server
  • Open issues and workarounds in BMC II Web Services Server
  • Corrected issues in BMC II Web Services Server
  • Requirements and supported resources
  • Support for BMC II Web Services Server
  • Support for BMC Portal
  • Levels of support
  • BMC Portal documents
  • Where to view the latest product information
  • How to order the products
  • Customer support

    • Overview of BMC Portal

    The BMC Portal (the Portal) provides a common, web-based interface for BMC Software modules. Each module provides programs that integrate with the BMC Portal server and other modules in the Portal. This integration provides data from multiple sources to a single, customizable entry point for viewing the status and performance of your infrastructure, exceptions, and business service environment.

    At any time, you can access pages that provide different views of your account and the objects that compose the account.

    This version of BMC Portal includes the following modules, and each module is licensed separately:

    Component

    Version

    BMC Performance Manager Portal

    2.4.00

    BMC Performance Exception Detector

    1.3.10

    BMC Impact Portal

    7.0.02

  • The BMC Performance Manager Portal module uses agentless and agent-based technologies to monitor IP-addressable infrastructure. If you use PATROL Agent 3.5.x or later in your environment, you can integrate its agent-based technology with the Portal, enabling you to view your entire infrastructure from a single point. For more information about this module, see "BMC Performance Manager Portal 2.4.00".
  • The BMC Performance Exception Detector module enables you to integrate your existing BMC Performance Assurance environment with the BMC Portal to identify performance and capacity issues that require attention before they impact key business services. For more information about this module, see "BMC Performance Exception Detector 1.3.10".
  • The BMC Impact Portal module provides views of business services and shows how the status of these services is impacted when infrastructure components have problems. With these views, you can understand how infrastructure problems affect the business services used by your company. For more information about this module, see "BMC Impact Portal 7.0.02".

    • Table 1 shows the relationship between the features and the modules available in the BMC Portal, as well as other BMC Software products required for the module.

    Table 1 Relationship between BMC Portal features and the Portal modules 

    Type of environment

    BMC Portal features

    Module to select during installation

    Other BMC products required

    BMC Performance Manager (agentless)

    agentless monitoring provided by the Portal and RSM program

    BMC Performance Manager Portal

    Performance Managers

    PATROL (agent-based)

    agent-based monitoring provided by the Portal, the RSM program, and PATROL Agents

    BMC Performance Manager Portal

    PATROL Knowledge Modules and PATROL Agents

    BMC Performance Assurance

    automatic summarization and trend identification for key performance exceptions provided by the Portal and the Exception Detector data service

    BMC Performance Exception Detector

    BMC Performance Assurance, BMC Visualizer

    BMC Service Impact Manager

    web-based common user interface for service impact management and reporting; centralized user administration

    BMC Impact Portal

    BMC Impact Manager

    For more information about the features in the BMC Portal modules, see the Help and the documents described in "BMC Portal documents".

    Internationalization and localization

    Table 2 lists the platforms on which the BMC Portal runs and the languages in which you can view the product.

    Table 2 Internationalization and localization support for BMC Portal modules

    Module

    French

    German

    Japanese

    Korean

    Simplified

    Chinese

    Traditional
    Chinese

    Runs a

    View

    Runs

    View

    Runs

    View b

    Runs

    Viewb

    Runs

    Viewb

    Runs

    Viewb

    BMC Performance Manager Portal

    ²

     

    ²

     

    ²

    ²

    ²

     

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

    BMC Performance Exception Detector c

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    BMC Impact Portal

    ²

     

    ²

     

    ²

     

    ²

     

    ²

     

    ²

     

    a Product executes in the operating system for the specified language and can also accept input, process, and display data in that language.

    b To display the user interface in a different language, users and administrators must log on and change the default language settings.

    a This module operates only in English.

    The online Help for all modules is displayed in English. The default language settings for Portal users and administrators is English.

    Requirements and supported resources

    This section provides release-specific information about requirements and supported resources for BMC Portal 2.4.00. For requirements that are specific to a module, see the section for that module in this document.

    BMC Portal requirements

    Table 3 shows the supported platforms for the Portal and Table 4 on page 6 and Table 5 on page 7 on the following pages list specific requirements for each platform.

    Table 3 Platform matrix for BMC Portal

    Operating system

    Web and application servers

    Database server

    Web browsers

    RSM a

    Firefox

    Internet Explorer

    1.5

    2.0

    6.x

    7.x

    Sun® Solaris 8 (64-bit), Sparc

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

     

     

     

    Sun Solaris 9 (64-bit), Sparc

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

     

     

     

    Sun Solaris 10 (64-bit) b , Sparc

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

     

     

     

    Microsoft Windows 2003 (x86)
    Standard Server (32- and 64-bit)

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

    Microsoft Windows 2003 (x86)
    Enterprise Server (32- and 64-bit)

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

    Microsoft Windows 2003 (x86)
    Datacenter Server (32- and 64-bit)

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

    Microsoft Windows 2003 (x86) Web Server
    (32- and 64-bit)

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

    Microsoft Windows 2000 (x86) Server

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

     

    ²

    Microsoft Windows 2000 (x86) Advanced Server

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

     

    ²

    Microsoft Windows 2000 (x86) Datacenter Server

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

     

    ²

    Microsoft Windows 2000 (x86) Professional

     

     

    ²

    ²

    ²

     

     

    Microsoft Windows XP (x86)

     

     

    ²

    ²

    ²

    ²

     

    b The RSM is applicable for BMC Performance Manager Portal module only; Table 6 on page 9 contains specific system requirements for the RSM.

    c Zone support is optional.

    Table 4 on page 6 lists the minimum requirements necessary for entry-level deployment of the BMC Portal. Any additional requirements for the BMC Portal, its modules, and the database are listed later in this document, the BMC Portal Installation Guide, and the BMC Performance Manager Portal Performance and Scalability Guidelines document. You can find the BMC Performance Manager Portal Performance and Scalability Guidelines document on the BMC Performance Manager Portal 2.4.x Support website at http://www.bmc.com/support_home.

    Table 4 BMC Portal application server and web server system requirements (part 1 of 2)1

    Resource

    Minimum requirements

    Comments

    platform

    either of the following processors:

    • Intel compatible (32-bit) Pentium 4 processor or equivalent
    • AMD Opteron/Intel Xeon 64 EM64T processor (64-bit)
    • minimum of 2 CPU 3.2 GHz processor (with hyperthreading enabled)
    • minimum of 4 GB RAM
    • Ultra320 SCSI disk subsystem

    UltraSPARC IIIi equivalent or later

    • 2 CPU 1.28 GHz
    • minimum of 4 GB RAM
    • a high-performance disk subsystem recommended if you install datastore on same computer

    disk space

    • Windows: 200 GB available
    • Solaris: 200 GB available

    Solaris requires 250 MB in /var/tmp for installation program

    operating system

    Microsoft Windows 2000 Server (32-bit)

    • requires a user account with administrator rights and permissions
    • Service Pack 4 or later; BMC Software recommends the latest Service Pack

    Microsoft Windows 2003 Server (32-bit, 64-bit)

    • requires a user account with administrator rights and permissions
    • Service Pack 1 or later; BMC Software recommends the latest Service Pack
    • Sun Solaris 8 (64-bit), Sparc
    • Sun Solaris 9 (64-bit), Sparc
    • Sun Solaris 10 (64-bit), Sparc

    The web server component requires the following items:

    • random patch on Solaris 8 b
    • libsendfile.so.1 on Solaris 8 c
    • libiconv library d
    • libuuid patch e

    third-party products

    running SMTP server (optional)

    The installation program verifies the presence of a running email server.

    J2SE Java Runtime Environment (JRE) on client computers f

    The BMC Portal Help requires version 1.4.2 or later. If necessary, you can download the latest JRE from the Java download site at http://www.java.sun.com.

    Network Time Protocol (NTP) (recommended)

    NTP continuously adjusts the time on a computer to match that of another computer, typically the atomic clock.

    BMC Software products

    BMC Atrium CMDB

    The BMC Atrium CMDB is not required, but the BMC Performance Manager Portal can integrate with version 2.0.01 patch 3 or later.

    web browser

    One of the following browser versions:

    • Firefox 1.5 or 2.0
    • Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) 6.x or 7.x

    The IE browser on Windows 2003 requires the medium security setting. Do not run BMC Portal with the high security setting.

    b Disk space and memory requirements do not include the BMC Datastore. For these requirements, see Table 5.

    c You can download this patch from http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=112438. You must reboot the computer after you install the patch.

    d To obtain this library, install Sun patch 111297-01 or later. You can download this patch from http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=111297.

    e See the BMC Portal Installation Guide for the download locations of the libiconv library.

    f See the BMC Portal Installation Guide for the download locations of the libuuid patch. You must reboot the computer after you install the patch.

    a Full access to the BMC Portal Help requires the JRE on the computer that you use to access the Portal. If you do not have the JRE installed, you can still access the Help, but some of its navigation tools will be inoperable.

    Table 5 BMC Datastore system requirements (part 1 of 2)1

    Resource

    Minimum requirements

    Comments

    platform

    Intel compatible (32-bit) Pentium 4 processor or higher

    • minimum of 2 CPU 3.06 GHz processor (with hyperthreading enabled)
    • 2 GB RAM dedicated to the datastore
    • Ultra320 SCSI disk subsystem

    UltraSPARC IIIi equivalent or higher

    • 2 CPU 1.28 GHz processor
    • 2 GB memory
    • external Ultra320 SCSI 10K RPM disk subsystem

    disk spacea

    trial

    • 5 GB (initial requirement)
    • 40 GB (required after 428 days)

    Solaris also requires the following temporary space:

    • /tmp: 400 MB (for database component)
    • /var/tmp: 250 MB (for installation program)
    • /opt: 50 MB (for database component)

    Note: Monitoring infrastructure with the BMC Performance Manager Portal affects the disk space required for each of the datastore models. For database sizing requirements, see the BMC Portal Installation Guide. If you install any of the other modules (without the BMC Performance Manager Portal), select the smallest database size.

    small

    • 60 GB (initial requirement)
    • 200 GB (required after 428 days)

    medium

    • 90 GB (initial requirement)
    • 350 GB (required after 428 days)

    large

    • 175 GB (initial requirement)
    • 550 GB (required after 428 days)

    operating system

    Microsoft Windows 2000 Server (32-bit)

    • requires a user account with administrator rights and permissions
    • Service Pack 4 or later; BMC Software recommends the latest Service Pack

    Microsoft Windows 2003 Server (32-bit, 64-bit)

    • user account with administrator rights and permissions
    • Service Pack 1 or later; BMC Software recommends the latest Service Pack
    • Solaris 8 (64-bit), Sparc
    • Solaris 9 (64-bit), Sparc
    • Solaris 10 (64-bit), Sparc
    • installing user account with root privileges
    • The datastore requires the following packages on Solaris:
      • SUNWarc
      • SUNWbtool
      • SUNWhea
      • SUNWlibm
      • SUNWlibms
      • SUNWsprot
      • SUNWtoo

    Oracle® database

    version 10.2.0.2 or later with partitioning enabled and the January 2007 Critical Patch Update (CPU) installed

    You can use the BMC Datastore installation program to install Oracle and create the Portal database instance, or you can use an existing Oracle database installation and manually configure it. For installation prerequisites and instructions, see the BMC Portal Installation Guide.

    b Disk space and memory requirements do not include the Portal web server and application server. For additional requirements, see Table 4 on page 6.

    Additional system requirements for modules

    The modules that you choose to install can add system requirements for the BMC Portal.

    Remote Service Monitor system requirements for BMC Performance Manager Portal module

    The BMC Performance Manager Portal module requires that you install at least one instance of the Remote Service Monitor (RSM) program on the Portal server or another computer. When installing the BMC Performance Manager Portal, ensure that the computers on which you want to install the RSM program meet the system requirements listed in Table 6 on page 9. You can install only one instance of the RSM program on any computer.

    Table 6 System requirements for RSM program 

    Resource

    Minimum requirements

    Comments

    platform

    Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent

    • 2 CPU 3.06 3 GHz processor (with hyperthreading enabled)
    • 2 GB RAM dedicated to the RSM
    • IDE disk subsystem
    • 2 GB disk space

    operating system

    Microsoft Windows 2000 Server a

    Service Pack 4 or later; BMC Software recommends the latest Service Pack

    Microsoft Windows 2003 Server

    Service Pack 1 or later; BMC Software recommends the latest Service Pack

    third-party products

    NTP (recommended) b

    NTP continuously adjusts the time on a computer to match that of another computer, typically the atomic clock.

    a To monitor Windows services and event logs, you also need to apply a hot fix from Microsoft. See the following Microsoft Knowledge article for more information: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;911262

    b Install NTP on the Portal server and each of the RSM computers to ensure that the system clocks on the RSM computers are in sync with the system clock on the Portal computer.

    BMC Performance Exception Detector data service requirements

    The BMC Performance Exception Detector module accesses data from BMC Visualizer databases through the use of a data service program. The data service consolidates the connections for multiple databases, runs the daily scans and any test scans, presents the lists of exceptions to the Status, Events, and Reports tabs in the BMC Portal, and provides a service to automatically generate or update statistical analysis policies.

    If you are upgrading from BMC Performance Exception Detector version 1.1, you must also upgrade to version 1.3.10 of the data service. You install the data service on the computers where you have BMC Visualizer and BMC Automator installed.

    See the BMC Performance Exception Detector Implementation Guide for the complete list of requirements and installation instructions for the BMC Performance Exception Detector data service program.

    Installation information

    This section highlights changes to the installation process for this release. For complete planning information and procedures for installing the BMC Portal, see the BMC Portal Installation Guide.

    What’s new

    The BMC Datastore and BMC Portal installation programs have been enhanced with the following new features.

    Updated platform support

    You can now install the BMC Datastore on computer with Solaris 10 operating system.

    Support for Solaris nonglobal zones

    You can now install the BMC Datastore and the BMC Portal in different nonglobal zones on the same Solaris 10 computer. For guidelines for configuring the zones, see the BMC Portal Installation Guide.

    Installation of loopback adapter required for Windows computers using DHCP

    If you will be installing the BMC Datastore on a computer that uses the Windows Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) service, you must install and configure a loopback adapter before you install the BMC Datastore. For details, see the BMC Portal Installation Guide.

    What’s changed

    This section describes changes in the BMC Datastore and BMC Portal installation programs.

    Updated Oracle version support

    The BMC Portal now requires Oracle version 10.2.0.2 for the BMC Datastore. You can use the BMC Datastore installation program to install or upgrade to version 10.2.0.2. For details about BMC Portal versions that you can upgrade, see "Product upgrade paths". For details about prerequisites for installing and upgrading, and for installation and upgrade instructions, see the BMC Portal Installation Guide.

    Process name changes for Portal application server and web server

    The process name for the Portal application server on Solaris has changed from java to BMCPortal.

    The process name for the Portal web server on Solaris and Windows has changed from BMCWebserver to BMCPortalWebserver.

    Name changes for installation and uninstallation programs

    Table 7 lists the changes for this release.

    Table 7 Name changes for installation and uninstallation programs

    Components

    Platform

    Old name

    New name

    BMC Datastore, BMC Portal, RSM

    Windows

    installation

    setupwin32.exe

    setup.exe

    uninstallation

    uninstaller.exe

    uninstall.exe

    BMC Datastore, BMC Portal

    Solaris

    installation

    setupsolarisSparc.bin

    install

    uninstallation

    uninstaller.bin

    uninstall

    BMC Datastore

     

    uninstallation

    scrubber tool

    cleanup tool

    For details for using the cleanup tool, see the BMC Portal Installation Guide.

    Archive logging turned off during datastore upgrade

    In previous versions of the BMC Datastore, if you configured the database for ARCHIVELOG mode, the installation program would not change this setting during an upgrade of the datastore. In this release, the installation program disables archive logging for the datastore upgrade. You must use the BMC Datastore installation tool to enable it again after the upgrade of both the datastore and Portal are completed.

    Product download from the web

    This section contains instructions for downloading and installing the BMC Portal from the BMC Software Electronic Product Download (EPD) web page, http://www.bmc.com/ega/. You might want to print these instructions or save this file to reference later.

    NOTE:
     

    If you download BMC Portal 2.4.00 from the BMC Software EPD web page, the product file that you download might contain some or all of the patches listed on the product’s BMC Software Customer Support web page. If the EPD page shows that a patch is included in the product file, then you do not need to obtain that patch.

    Contact your Sales Representative for the user name and password that you will need to access the product download page.

    To download the product from the web

    1 Create a temporary directory on your computer.

    2 From the EPD web page, http://www.bmc.com/ega/, access the page for BMC Performance Manager Infrastructure and Solutions.

    3 Select BMC Performance Manager Portal.

    4 On the BMC Performance Manager Portal page, select BMC Portal.

    5 On the BMC Portal page, right-click Release Notes, and select Save Target As.

    6 Select one of the following platforms to download:

  • BMC Portal 2.4.00 (Windows)
  • BMC Portal 2.4.00 (Solaris)
  • Supplemental Materials

    • The Supplemental Materials option contains open source third-party programs used in the BMC Portal product. You do not need these files to install or run the product.

    7 Click Continue.

    8 Click BMC Portal Documentation and save to the temporary directory.

    9 Click Download Product File for the BMC Portal 2.4.00 Infrastructure and save to the temporary directory that you created in step 1 on page 12.

    10 Click Download Product File for the BMC Datastore 2.4.00 and save to the temporary directory that you created in step 1 on page 12.

    For Windows platforms, select the file that is applicable for your operating system, either 32-bit or 64-bit.

    11 Return to the BMC Performance Manager Infrastructure and Solutions page, download the BMC Performance Manager Portal Solutions to a different temporary directory from the one that you used for the BMC Portal and the BMC Datastore, and extract the file.

    For details about downloading the BMC Performance Manager Portal Solutions, see the BMC Performance Manager Solutions Release Notes.

    12 Using the release notes and the BMC Portal Installation Guide, carefully review the installation requirements and prerequisites for your platform.

    Some prerequisites are tasks that you must perform before you launch the installation programs.

    13 Use one of the following procedures to install the product in a Windows or Solaris environment:

  • To install the downloaded product on Windows. See page 14
  • To install the downloaded product on Solaris. See page 14.

    • To install the downloaded product on Windows

    1 Navigate to the temporary directory that you created in step 1 on page 12.

    2 To extract the datastore files from the archive in the temporary directory, double-click datastore_32_ALL_2400.exe or datastore_64_ALL_2400.exe.

    The bmc_products directory is created and the files are extracted to the bmc_products\BMCDatastore directory.

    3 To extract the Portal files from the archive in the temporary directory, double-click PORTAL_ALL_2400.exe.

    The files are extracted to the bmc_products\BMCPortalKit directory.

    4 From the bmc_products\BMCDatastore\disk1 directory, run setup.exe to launch the BMC Datastore installation program.

    5 Using Chapter 5 in the BMC Portal Installation Guide, follow the procedure for installing the BMC Datastore.

    6 After completing the BMC Datastore installation, from the bmc_products\BMCPortalKit\disk1 directory, run setup.exe to launch the BMC Portal installation program.

    7 Using Chapter 5 in the BMC Portal Installation Guide, follow the procedures for installing the BMC Portal application server, web server, modules, and Performance Managers, depending on your installation scenario.

    8 After completing the installations, you can delete the temporary directory and its contents.

    To install the downloaded product on Solaris

    1 Navigate to the temporary directory that you created in step 1 on page 12.

    2 To extract the datastore files from the archive in the temporary directory, untar the datastore_ALL_2400.tar file.

    The bmc_products directory is created and the files are extracted to the bmc_products/BMCDatastore directory.

    3 To extract the Portal files from the archive in the temporary directory, untar the PORTAL_ALL_2400.tar file.

    The files are extracted to the bmc_products/BMCPortalKit directory.

    4 From the bmc_products/BMCDatastore/disk1 directory, run install to launch the BMC Datastore installation program.

    5 Using Chapter 5 in the BMC Portal Installation Guide, follow the procedure for installing the BMC Datastore.

    6 After completing the BMC Datastore installation, from the bmc_products/BMCPortalKit/disk1 directory, run install to launch the BMC Portal installation program.

    7 Using Chapter 5 in the BMC Portal Installation Guide, follow the procedures for installing the BMC Portal application server, web server, modules, and Performance Managers, depending on your installation scenario.

    8 After completing the installations, you can delete the temporary directory and its contents.

    Product installation issues

    This section describes problems that you might encounter when installing the BMC Datastore and the BMC Portal.

    On Solaris computers, cdrom/bmc_portal directory in the fully qualified path causes error in launching installation

    To enable changing CDs during an installation on computers running Solaris, you must change from the directory that contains the installation image to a different directory (such as /tmp), and then specify the fully qualified path to the BMC Portal installation program on CD 1. If you specify the cdrom/bmc_portal directory instead of the cdrom0 directory when you change CDs to install the BMC Performance Manager Solutions and then reinsert CD 1 into the CD-ROM drive, the following error message is displayed:

    Source media error
    Disk 1 not found in the source drive

    To avoid this issue, when you launch the installation program, always specify the cdrom0 directory in the fully qualified path as follows:

    cd /tmp

    /cdrom/cdrom0/install

    Product upgrade paths

    The BMC Portal 2.4 installation program supports upgrades of Portal components, including the RSM, from the following product versions only:

  • BMC Portal 2.1.x
  • BMC Portal 2.3.x

    • To upgrade from versions earlier than 2.1, you must perform a phased upgrade as described in the following table:

    Product name

    Comments

    BMC Portal 1.2.00.02

    Upgrade to BMC Portal 2.3 and then upgrade to BMC Portal 2.4.00. BMC Software recommends that you have the latest BMC Portal patch applied to version 1.2 before you begin the upgrade.

    BMC Portal 1.1.x

    Upgrade to BMC Portal 1.2, then upgrade to BMC Portal 2.3.00, and then upgrade to BMC Portal 2.4.00.

    BMC Impact Portal 5.1.01 (BMC Portal Server 2.0.00)

    Upgrade to BMC Portal 2.4 if the Portal does not contain the BMC Performance Manager Portal module.

    PATROL Express 3.0.02.07

    Upgrade to BMC Portal 2.1 and then upgrade to BMC Portal 2.4.00.

    See "Upgrade issues for the BMC Performance Manager Portal".

    The installation program terminates if it detects any version of PATROL Express on the target computer.

    Product upgrade issues

    In addition to the upgrade considerations described in the BMC Portal Installation Guide, consider the upgrade issues described in this section.

    Datastore upgrade fails if more than one ORACLE_HOME is defined in the Oracle inventory

    If a second copy of Oracle is installed on the same computer as the Portal datastore, the datastore upgrade fails. In this case, you cannot use the BMC Datastore installation program to perform the upgrade. If you encounter this issue, contact BMC Software Customer Support.

    Upgrade issues for the BMC Performance Manager Portal

    The installation program detects the installed version of the module and can upgrade from BMC Performance Manager Portal 2.1.00 and BMC Performance Manager Portal 2.3.00. If you have an earlier version of the product, you must upgrade to version 2.1 or 2.3 and then upgrade to the current version.

    During the upgrade, the installation program converts the events and then purges any events older than 100 days. Because of the time required to convert events, if your Portal has events for a period longer than 100 days, BMC Software recommends that you purge events before you start the Portal upgrade.

    See the procedures listed in Table 8 for more information about purging events before upgrading the Portal.

    Table 8 Purging events before upgrading the BMC Performance Manager Portal module

    Version number

    Name and location of procedure

    2.3.x

    Technical bulletin (QM001514112) on the BMC Performance Manager Portal 2.1.00 Support page (http://www.bmc.com/support_home)

    2.1.x

    Technical bulletin (QM001514112) on the BMC Performance Manager Portal 2.1.00 Support page (http://www.bmc.com/support_home)

    1.2.x

    "Upgrading from BMC Performance Manager Portal 1.2.x"

    1.1.x

    "Upgrading from BMC Performance Manager Portal 1.1.x"

    3.0.02

    "Upgrading from BMC Performance Manager Express 3.0.02"

    Upgrading from BMC Performance Manager Portal 1.2.x

    You cannot upgrade directly from BMC Portal 1.2.x to BMC Portal 2.4.00. You must first upgrade to BMC Portal 2.3.00, and then upgrade to version 2.4.00.

    Upgrading to BMC Performance Manager Portal Installation Notes contains guidelines and the steps necessary to upgrade from version 1.2.x to 2.3. You can find this document on the BMC Performance Manager Portal 2.3.00 and 1.2.x Customer Support websites (http://www.bmc.com/support_home) or with the product documentation.

    1 Contact your BMC Software sales representative to obtain the BMC Performance Manager Infrastructure and Solutions 2.3 kit.

    2 To purge all events, run the following SQL script; otherwise proceed to Step 3:

    A Open a Command Prompt window.

    B Use the sqlplus utility to connect to the database as the Portal database user (pe by default).

    C Type the following commands:

    TRUNCATE TABLE event_notification;
    ALTER TABLE event_notification DISABLE CONSTRAINT fk_event_notification_event;
    TRUNCATE TABLE event;
    ALTER TABLE event_notification ENABLE CONSTRAINT fk_event_notification_event;
    /

    3 To purge events older than 100 days, see solution SLN000000229226 on the Support website for a script and procedures that describe how to use it.

    4 Upgrade from BMC Portal 1.2.x to BMC Portal 2.3, referring to the following BMC Portal 2.3 documentation:

  • BMC Portal Installation Guide, version 2.3
  • BMC Performance Manager Portal Performance and Scalability Guidelines Installation Notes, version 2.3.00

    • 5 If you have Portal or RSM clusters, remove the cluster properties from these clusters so that they revert to individual Portals or RSMs; otherwise, skip to Step 7.

    6 When the upgrade to 2.1 is finished, reconfigure the Portal and RSM clusters to complete the upgrade of all components and verify the configuration.

    For information about reestablishing Portal clusters, see the BMC Portal Getting Started guide. For information about reestablishing RSM clusters, see the BMC Performance Manager Portal Monitoring and Management Guide.

    7 Allow the Portal server to complete the upgrade of solution Performance Managers and to start the RSM upgrade.

    This process can take several hours. On the first startup of BMC Portal 2.3.00, you cannot log on to the Portal until the upgrade of the individual solution Performance Managers is complete.

    8 When the upgrade process is complete, start the Portal, log on, and validate the configuration and parameter history.

    If you used a second system for database backup, update the DNS to link the old URL to the new web server. Table 9 lists other adjustments that you might need to make after the upgrade, depending on your configuration:

    Table 9 Possible adjustments after an upgrade from version 1.2 to 2.3 

    Task

    Supporting documentation

    provide additional configuration information for database application classes

    BMC Performance Manager Express for Databases Release Notes

    modify enterprise event management configuration

    BMC Portal Release Notes for version 2.1.00 describes SNMP management information base (MIB) changes.

    BMC Portal Getting Started describes the organization of the MIB.

    9 Upgrade to BMC Portal 2.4.00 as explained in this document and the BMC Portal Installation Guide.

    Upgrading from BMC Performance Manager Portal 1.1.x

    To upgrade from BMC Performance Manager Portal 1.1.x, you must first upgrade to BMC Performance Manager Portal 1.2, and then version 2.3. Contact your BMC Software sales representative to obtain the BMC Performance Manager Portal 1.2 and version 2.3 kits.

    Upgrading from BMC Performance Manager Express 3.0.02

    You cannot upgrade directly from BMC Performance Manager Express 3.0.02 to BMC Portal 2.4.00. You must first upgrade to BMC Portal 2.1.00, and then upgrade to version 2.4.00.

    Upgrading to BMC Performance Manager Portal Installation Notes contains guidelines and the steps necessary to upgrade from version 3.0.02 to 2.1. You can find this document on the BMC Performance Manager Portal 2.1.00 Customer Support website (http://www.bmc.com/support_home) or with the product documentation.

    1 Contact your BMC Software sales representative to obtain the BMC Performance Manager Infrastructure and Solutions 2.1 kit.

    2 To purge events and optimize the Portal datastore, follow the procedure in solution SLN000015012358 on the Support website.

    3 Upgrade from BMC Performance Manager Express 3.0.02 to BMC Portal 2.1, referring to the following BMC Portal 2.1 documentation:

  • BMC Portal Installation Guide, version 2.1
  • BMC Performance Manager Portal Performance and Scalability Guidelines Installation Notes, version 2.1.00

    • 4 If you have Portal or RSM clusters, remove the cluster properties from these clusters so that they revert to individual Portals or RSMs; otherwise, skip to Step 6.

    5 When the upgrade to 2.1 is finished, reconfigure the Portal and RSM clusters to complete the upgrade of all components and verify the configuration.

    For information about reestablishing Portal clusters, see the BMC Portal Getting Started guide. For information about reestablishing RSM clusters, see the BMC Performance Manager Portal Monitoring and Management Guide.

    6 Allow the Portal server to complete the upgrade of solution Performance Managers and RSMs.

    This process can take several hours. On the first startup of BMC Portal 2.1.00, you cannot log on to the Portal until the upgrade of the individual solution Performance Managers is complete.

    7 After the RSM upgrades are complete, log on to the Portal and confirm that upgrade was successful and data is collecting normally.

    8 Complete any other post-upgrade configuration steps identified in the Portal 2.1.00 documentation (for example, configuring certain database-monitoring Performance Managers).

    9 To confirm that data migration is complete, monitor the status of the event migration process:

    A Log on to the database from the Oracle sqlplus utility using the database credentials that were specified during installation.

    B Execute the following commands:

    Command

    Result

    select * from all_jobs

    returns the scheduled event upgrade job

    When all events data has been migrated, this command will return no rows selected.

    select count(*) from event12

    returns a count of events data remaining to be migrated

    This count should decrease continually.

    select count(*) from event

    returns a count of events data that has been migrated

    This count should increase continually as the events from the old table are migrated to the new one.

    10 Log on to the Portal and confirm that upgrade and migration were successful.

    11 Upgrade to BMC Portal 2.4.00 as explained in this document and the BMC Portal Installation Guide.

    Portal upgrade process for BMC Impact Portal 5.0.01 or 5.1.00

    If you are upgrading the BMC Impact Portal from version 5.0.01 or 5.1.00, you must upgrade the BMC Portal in two stages: from 1.x to 2.3, and then from 2.3 to 2.4. See the BMC Impact Portal Installation Notes.

    BMC Performance Exception Detector upgrade considerations

    In addition to the requirement to upgrade to version 1.3.10 of the Exception Detector data service, consider that this version of the BMC Performance Exception Detector module does not support the use of default detectors or custom detectors designed for mainframe environments. If you used mainframe exception detectors in the previous version, you must disable or delete those detectors, or contact BMC Customer Support for a script that automatically disables all mainframe detectors.

    Otherwise, the installation program performs all necessary migration tasks.

    See the BMC Performance Exception Detector Implementation Guide for the complete list of requirements and installation instructions for the Exception Detector data service program.

    What’s new in BMC Portal Server

    The BMC Portal Server provides the features common to all modules in the BMC Portal.

    For information about new features for the modules, see the following topics:

  • "BMC Performance Manager Portal 2.4.00"
  • "BMC Performance Exception Detector 1.3.10"
  • "BMC Impact Portal 7.0.02"

    • The following features are new in this release of the BMC Portal Server:

  • You can now use the postinstallation utility to cluster the Portal application servers. See the BMC Portal Getting Started guide for more information.
  • The pe user that is created during the Portal datastore installation now has the permissions required by BMC Performance Manager Express for Databases and other BMC Software products to monitor the Portal datastore.
  • The Portal provides a new action script that you can use to integrate Portal events with AlarmPoint 3. This new support was added after publication of the procedures for configuring integration with AlarmPoint (in the BMC Portal Getting Started guide). See the updated procedure under "Integrating the Portal with AlarmPoint 3."
  • You can now enable the Portal to write LDAP errors to the portal.log file.

    • Integrating the Portal with AlarmPoint 3

    Use the following information to update the BMC Portal Getting Started guide’s instructions for configuring AlarmPoint.

    Copy the sample scripts from the following locations on the application server to the destination directories shown in Table 10:

  • (Windows) %BMC_PORTAL_KIT_HOME%\appserver\util\BPM_AlarmPoint
  • (UNIX) $BMC_PORTAL_KIT_HOME/appserver/util/BPM_AlarmPoint

    • Table 10 Sample scripts and text files for integration with AlarmPoint3

    File name

    Target directory

    bpm_portal_ap3.aps

    AlarmPointManagerInstallDirectory\Log

    bpm_portal.xml

    AlarmPointJavaClientInstall\etc\integrations

    To integrate the Portal with AlarmPoint3

    1 On the AlarmPoint Java Client host, stop the AlarmPoint Java Client service or APAgent.

    2 Navigate to the APAgent/etc folder and create a backup copy of APAgent.xml.

    3 In an ASCII text editor, edit APAgent.xml, replacing the <http port="2010" /> string with the following lines: 

        <http port="2010">
        <socket-listener host="<APAgent HOST IP ADDRESS>" port="2010"/>
      </http>

    4 On the next line, insert the following parameters required by the BMC Portal script, and then save and close the file: