Hello,

I'm requesting your help on an initiative I'm working on. Our environment consists of several WAS ND installations and very often leaders need to report on different configurations items such as the cells, nodes, clusters, servers, applications, resources (JDBC providers, data sources, Resource Environment Entries, JMS, custom properties, etc).

Does anybody know of scripts or free software that is meant to retrieve WebSphere configuration data and store them in a format that can be reported on or queried? Are there any wsadmin Jython scripts that can create, for example, a JSON file with all the configuration that can then be loaded in a database?

You can think outside the box, but the essential is that I can get the data out of WebSphere, store it somewhere, and run reports against. I don't want to re-invent the wheel - I could most probably create a jython script that retrieves what I need, but it seems very time consuming if one of you out there knows about a framework that already exists to execute the same thing.

Thank you,

Joey

Hi Joey,

  Take a look to the next tool:
 
  Visual Configuration Explorer (VCE)
  https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/groups/service/html/communityview?lang=en&communityUuid=02688ada-7285-4b7c-8322-91ba7ed4bc8e

  Get to know the Visual Configuration Explorer
  http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/techjournal/0710_supauth/0710_supauth.html
 
  Using Visual Configuration Explorer to compare two WAS cell configurations
  https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/blogs/kevgrig/entry/using_visual_configuration_explorer_to_compare_to_was_cell_configurations7?lang=en
 
  Depending on your needs may be enough with "Properties-based configuration", you can export configurations to a properties file (what you need), then you can change properties and apply changes.

    Using properties files to manage system configuration
    http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSAW57_8.5.5/com.ibm.websphere.nd.doc/ae/txml_property_configuration.html
 
    System administration for WebSphere Application Server V7: Part 4: Properties-based configuration
    http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/techjournal/0904_chang/0904_chang.html
 
  From WAS 7 you have a rich scripts directory at WAS_HOME\AppServer\scriptLibraries to manage your environment and get information you are searching for.
    
  As you say is not necessary to re-invent the wheel ;-)
 
  Hope this helps. Tell us if you need more support
 
Regards

Hi Joey - There is a 2 minute "Automating WebSphere Application Server configuration management & application release" video on this page that might be of interest. 

https://www.orcaconfig.com/resources/videos/ 

It is under the "Featured Videos" section near the top. Hope it helps you with at least some of your criteria. 

Scott Turner