CA Service Management

  • 1.  Best Practices to Sync two Environments

    Posted Jul 13, 2017 07:02 AM

    Hi Community,

     

    • Service Desk Advance availability configuration
    • SQL Server Database 

    I am looking for the best knowledge resources and procedures to sync the staging Service Desk environment with Production environment.

     

    This procedure should sync the staging customization's and Data to the same level with Production customization and data.

     

    What is the best practice.

     

     

    Thank you,

    Venkat



  • 2.  Re: Best Practices to Sync two Environments

    Posted Jul 13, 2017 08:18 AM

    Hi Venkat,

    Unfortunately we do not currently have a real-time or automated solution for this type of thing.  The process is a manual one.  Typically what most customers do is refresh staging/dev/qa/pre-prod from production on a set schedule of some sort.  Some do it quarterly, some monthly, others do it twice a year.  To the best of my knowledge there is no easy way to automate it as the steps require some user interaction to complete.  Additionally, since we added the GUI functionality for configuring servers, that information is now stored in the database, and thus is environment-specific.  For example, in your prod, lets say you have a background (Server-A), standby (Server-B), AppServer1 (Server-C) and AppServer2 (Server-D).  That information along with the configurations for each server (such as numnber of domsrvr/webengine/spelsrvr sets etc.) is all stored in the database now.  So if you took that database and backed it up, then restored it to your staging environment, you would have the production servers still in the database.  Additionally, the way that custom tables/columns are defined at the object-schema level in schema files that have some server-specific information in them, you would have to follow some additional steps to force the target system to generate those schema files as well.   Lastly, since we introduced the unified installer in 14.1, and all the integrations between applications are automated, the information for those additional applications (as in what servers they are running on, what is installed and what is not installed etc.) is also now stored in the database in the alcdb tables which are used by the installer to know where the different applications are installed.  So if you have applications besides Service Desk that are integrated, you would also need to backup those tables from the staging environment prior to restoring the db from prod, and then put them back in after. 

     

    So you can see how this is a bit more complex than simply replicating a database and files.

     

    If you would like, I can certainly provide you with the manual steps that would be required in order for you to do this manually, and you may be able to script or automate some of it in some way, but unfortunately we would not be able to support or assist on that.

     

    Let us know,

    Thanks,

    Jon I.



  • 3.  Re: Best Practices to Sync two Environments

    Posted Jul 13, 2017 09:05 AM

    Hi Jon,

     

    Thanks for the information, Please share the sequence of manual steps, I will find best possible procedure to automate the steps if possible to run on regular intervenes.

     

    Regards,

    Venkat



  • 4.  Re: Best Practices to Sync two Environments

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Jul 13, 2017 09:06 AM

    Venkat,

     

    There's some detailed information on setting up database replication here:

     

    Implement Replication - CA Service Management - 14.1 - CA Technologies Documentation 

     

    Review the page and all subpages.



  • 5.  Re: Best Practices to Sync two Environments
    Best Answer

    Posted Jul 13, 2017 10:05 AM

    Thanks Alex!  @Venkat - the instructions that Alex provided the link for are specifically for offline reporting - not necessarily a dev/staging environment.  The steps allow you to replicate certain tables and not others, which is ok for reporting, but wont allow you to configure a fully running replica of production.  If the offline reporting meets your needs, then go with that for sure.  If what you are looking for is to create a full blown replica of production, you would need to follow the manual steps as follows:

     

    1. Follow the steps here to backup the db from prod and restore to staging environment: Move the CA MDB Database on Microsoft SQL Server - CA Service Management - 17.0 - CA Technologies Documentation 

    2. once you have restored the MDB from prod to staging, and you have restored the alcdb tables, and inactivated the records in the usp_servers table, you can copy over the following from prod and put them in place on staging:

    - site\mods directory

    - site\attachments directory (or other directory that you are storing attachments in)

    3. run pdm_configure

    4. go into WSP and then go into schema designer - make a dummy update to a table by adding an "X" to the description field on the right side for any object.  For example, click on any table, then on the right side, put an "X" in the description field.    Then click File > Save.  Now remove that "X", and click File >  Save and Publish.   

    5. stop CA SDM services

    6. run pdm_publish

    7. run pdm_configure again

    8. log into SDM and add the additional servers and configurations for the staging environment

    9. run configure on each server in that environment including the background

    10. test out the system

     

    That is the basic high level overview of the process.  

     

    Hope this helps,

    Thanks,

    Jon I.



  • 6.  Re: Best Practices to Sync two Environments

    Posted Jul 14, 2017 02:28 PM

    Thank you Jon, This help me to kick start the planning for the mentioned activity. 

    Venkat