Asset Manager Web Client
Nicolas Rousseau
Sr Product Manager
HP Asset Manager
© Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
Agenda
Asset Manager web: successful deployment of the web client
Introduction to the Asset Manager web architecture and design
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4 tier architecture
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How the Web Services work
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Tips and tricks for performance and scalability
Implementing and using the web client (demo)
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Customization
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Wizards and processes
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Dashboards and reports
Introduction of the new web usability package (demo)
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QBE filters
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Advanced filters
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Multi edition
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View of consolidated history
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Welcome pages
Useful pointers for HP Asset Manager’s customers
Q&A
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© Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
Asset Manager web: successful
deployment of the web client
© Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
Why use the web client?
Advantages of using the web client
Easy do deploy
No “over the WAN” performance issues
Simple and modern user interface (dashboards)
Easy call from other applications (cross launch through meaningful urls)
Typical split between the Windows components and the web
End users on the Web
• Dashboards, wizards, reports, record updates, users administration
Development uses the Windows client
• DB and screens customizations on AM DB designer
• Workflow creation, wizard creation…
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© Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
4 tiers architecture
Win Client
Application server
External Web
Services client
Web Service API
Business logic
SOAP
Persistence layer
Asset Manager Web Services
Application server
SOAP
Common Web Tier
AM Web Tier
Java Server Faces
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Web Client
© Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
Asset Manager Web Tier
AM Server
(background process)
AM database
administrator
DBMS
How the Web Services work
All functional domains : services
http://AMServer:8080/AssetManagerWebService930/index.jsp
Wsdls exposed that give read write access to
the data and business logic
=> Functional domain settings drive
everything (hierarchy, stand alone or not…)
Wsdld derived from the database
content
All screens / fields: objects
All actions / scripts: methods
This is powerful
Any change gets exposed in the Web
Services
The web client reflects to Windows client
But verbose
Wsdls are large
Web
tier &
Web
Services
areCompany,
demanding
on contained herein is subject to change without notice.
© Copyright
2012
Hewlett-Packard
Development
L.P. The information
6
memory
Tips and tricks for performance and scalability
Two instances of Tomcat, 64 bits native (Linux or Windows supported)
Avoid limitation to 2 GB fort the JVM of 32 bits platforms
Tagged version of the Web Services
Memory settings (typically for 2 servers with 8 GB of RAM, can correspond to a 16 GB of RAM
server )
The memory allocated to the Web Tier must be maximized, and can be 6 GB if the server has no need for more
than 2 GB of memory for the other processes
• JAVA_OPTS=-Xms6144m –Xmx6144M -XX:+UseParNewGC -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -XX:+UseTLAB -XX:SurvivorRatio=6
-XX:NewSize=2048m -XX:MaxNewSize=2048m -server -Dsun.lang.ClassLoader.allowArraySyntax=true
However, the Web Services must keep some memory free to allocate to the connection pool, and has no huge
need for memory allocated to the JVM, so, it is recommended
• JAVA_OPTS=-Xms2048m –Xmx2048M -XX:+UseParNewGC -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -XX:+UseTLAB -XX:SurvivorRatio=2
-XX:NewSize=1024m -XX:MaxNewSize=1024m –server
Web Tier / Web Services and db on the same LAN (low network latency)
Avoid long wizards on more than 5 pages
Load balancing over multiple Web Tiers- Web Services in large environments
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© Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
Try to have same profiles accessing the same Web Tier / Web Services (cashing of profiles takes memory)
Implementing and using the web
client (demo)
© Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
Web Client? Windows client? AM client
Any customization on the windows works on the web
Screens / navigation tree customizations / user profiles…
Any wizard will play on the web
Exceptions
• Global variables (defined out of the wizard – Now replaced by a specific User environment mechanism-)
• Interactive behaviors within a page
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The wizard is “offline” in a page, buttons will allow to refresh (ex: advance filter wizard)
• Some widgets (db browsing, timer, import of text file (copy / paste into the wizard is possible), tree views) are not available
Workflows are triggered from the web…
Export to Excel, tree views…
The web client has some plus:
• Search bar
• Business home pages
• Better dashboards
And some limitations
• List + detail, multi edition from screens, pictures
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© Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
Menu from the lists and details
Sorting
Is allowed of indexed fields and links
Filtering
Filters proposed by default
• Indexed fields and links
• Queries (standard, shared or created by the user)
• QBEs
An option exists to limit de filters to QBEs and Queries
• At screen definition level: “disable extended web filters
Statistics
Statistics having the context of the table of the screen
Indexed fields
Can be hidden (user preference)
Action
From lists: visible contextual actions (on checked items)
From
details: actions under a button
10 © Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
Possible customizations
Users can customize
Columns (within a selection)
Lists size
Auto completion delay
Date formats…
Default values for user preferences
default_user_pref.properties in … Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat
6.0\webapps\AssetManager930\WEB-INF\classes\com\hp\ov\ac\web\bean
Screens / wizards / reports… (like Windows client)
Applications pictures
In Apache
SoftwareFoundation\Tomcat6.0\webapps\AssetManager930\cwc\images
Web application labels
labels.properties in webapps\AssetManager930\WEBINF\classes\com\hp\ov\ac\web\bundles
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© Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
Taking advantage of the web features
Single sign on
Goal: avoid managing multiple passwords to multiple web applications
AM Web integrates with SSO solutions
• Light weight SSO, HP solution across HP ITPS solutions
• Site Minder (needs to be set up)
The unique login can be the LDAP one
Search bar
Auto completion leading to screens / wizards / reports
Simplified the navigations, straight to the goal!
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© Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
Taking advantage of the web features (cont)
Welcome pages (Cf. web usability package section)
Wizards, allocated to roles or individual users
Can have dashboards, buttons, internal and external links
Dashboards, reports and business home pages
Dashboards and statistics: quick to build / value to users
• Dashboard, collection of statistics
• Statistics are simple to create and can be converted into scripts
Crystal reports: need to set up a crystal report server (comes
for free with AM)
Business home pages:
• At functional domain nodes
• dashboards / useful links / action sections
• You can paste html in these dashboards and build them!
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© Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
Taking advantage of the web features (cont)
Meaningful urls / cross launch
Play with the “bookmark” button:
• Any screen, dashboard, wizard has a unique url
• urls are logical and can be calculated
Can be used in an Asset Manager html mails
http://AMServer:8080/AssetManager930/Welcome/WelcomeToAM/wizard.jsf
• Parameterized link to a record
Can allow cross launch
• Typically view SM incidents of an asset from AM or AM
asset detail related to the incident from SM
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© Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
Examples of Dashboards
Statistics
•
•
Quick & simple to build
Bring drill down
capabilities
Home pages add
•
•
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© Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
The useful links can be
full html
Actions sections
Taking advantage of the web features (cont)
Calculated fields can be urls
They can reference back ends
•
Declared in the Edit the URL address of the
application servers... wizard
These calculated fields can be
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•
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Called by actions (ex: view incident detail in Service
Manager)
Displayed in screens: example: “view detail in
DDMI in the hardware page”
© Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
The web usability package
© Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
Web Usability package
Approach
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Provide best practice to do more and better with the
web client
This best practice can be easily extended
(documented)
Themes + demo
•
•
•
•
•
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QBE
Advanced filters
Multi edition
Aggregated history
+ best practice on Welcome wizards
© Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
How the package works
The import takes less than a minute
The Web Usability package is a zip file with
documentation and import files. It can be
downloaded on HP Live Network Asset
Manager Business content section
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© Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
Quick search filters
The package installs QBEs on Portfolio, Assets, Contracts, Employee tables
Quick way of filter what you want to work on before you open the screen
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© Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
Advanced filters accessible from QBE
1) Intuitive interface to build an advanced filter
3) Choose operator and value
2) Choose the attribute you want to filter on
4) Build your filter query choosing other
attributes, values & AND / OR conditions
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© Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
multi selection / multi edition wizard
1) Select the records you want to modify with the native QBE
3) After multiple filters / selections, click on "next" to modify
2) You can at any time view the items you will modify with the
"Show selected items" button
4) After modification clicking on "Finish", the wizard will open
the Portfolio items screen showing the modified records
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© Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
“View cross table history" contextual action
1) Select the record you want to see all
history on (computer for instance) and
launch the action
2) Asset Manager will show history
across the tables for this record
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© Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
The Web Usability package documentation also
provides good hints on tuning the user interface.
The "welcome action“
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•
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Can launch a wizard, specific to
the user's profile, or even specific
to the user himself.
This page can provide hyper links
that point to any Asset Manager
screen, dashboard or homepage...
It buttons that will link to screens
or launch other wizards...
© Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
The Web Usability package documentation also
provides good hints on tuning the user interface.
The wizard can also expose dashboards.
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© Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
Useful Pointers
SSO Portal http://support.openview.hp.com/selfsolve/patches
–All SAM Packages and Cloud Billing Packages
–All white papers (documents searches).
Asset Manager Live Network: content portal HP content (packages (including the web
usability), white papers…), members’ shared content
ITAM Public Blogs and newsgroups
–ITAM Blog: announcements, best practices sharing
–IT Asset Manager / Connect-IT Support and News Forum: public technical newsgroup
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© Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
Thank You
Questions?
© Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.