IBM WebSphere App Server Config Reporting Utilities
The IBM WebSphere Application Server Configuration Reporting Utilities address a common business need to document IBM WebSphere environments for individuals without access to the WebSphere Administration console. These utilities fill a hole in that there are no native WebSphere features or commercial products which exist to address these requirements. These utilities have also been used in situations where policies exist such as:
- only WebSphere administrators are permitted to use or view the actual WebSphere console
- only “read-only” userids are permitted on the servers unless you are a WebSphere administrator
- no software, scripts, etc. can be installed or run on the production servers
The utilities work using key Configuration Documents stored in standard WebSphere Configuration Repositories. Since these repositories are common across the WebSphere Base, WebSphere Network Deployment (ND), and WebSphere Studio Application Developer (WSAD) product set, these utilities work with all of these products. Reporting can be performed against active configuration repositories, WebSphere ND deployment manager repositories, and WebSphere configuration profiles.
The utilities are implemented as a set of Ant scripts. The main component of the utilities is the HTML report generation tool. The reporting utilities consist of XSLT stylesheets applied via Ant scripts which transform the XML configuration files into HTML reports.
The HTML reports make navigation of the reports easy, with all reports laid out in sort order and hyperlinked. These reports are very useful for diagnosing deployment problems related to the WebSphere configuration. The reports can be used to:
- document WebSphere Version 5.x through 8.x environments
- capture daily, weekly, or monthly snapshots of the environment‟s configuration
- act as input to file comparison utilities which can be used to detect differences in configuration between nodes, or between environments
The tools also include an optional set of file transfer scripts which can quickly obtain a subset of key WebSphere XML configuration files from remote nodes and deposit the files in a common local location for analysis. These utilities are typically used when policy dictates that the reporting scripts are not permitted to run directly on the WebSphere server. The file transfer utilities provide a choice between FTP and SCP transfer mechanisms which allow a trade-off of speed versus security when fetching the files.
A fragment of an Application Server Configuration report is as follows:
