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Category: install

Manipulating Chain of Java Extensions for the upgrade/installation process

17 June 2019 / / 2 Comments

 

I recently had to upgrade a pretty complex system. The original environment includes Maximo and ICD, and two large customization packages, one extended by the other (let’s call them package XXX extended by package YYY). The target system is the latest Maximo + ICD 7.6.1, plus 4 add-ons which include Oil & Gas and Utilities.

Customization was written by 3 different third parties over a long period of time and the source code was lost. This posed some challenges related to preserving customization and I had to spend a bit of time to figure it out. Below are some of the gotchas I learnt after the project:
 
Problem 1: Ensure customization is preserved after the upgrade

After reviewing the SMP folder, I found about 300 extended Java class files, but the product.xml files only cover about 20-30% of them; worse, some data are not even up-to-date. After the initial attempt to correct these files, I decided to simply ignore them, and build new product.xml files from scratch. Below are some of the key steps I had to do:
 
  • List out all extended java class files found in the SMP folder (using the command: dir /s /b  >list.txt) and put them in an Excel sheet
  • Use SQL to search from the DB any usage of custom Java code, put this list into another Excel sheet
  • Match the two sheets above to identify any missing files
  • Use a decompiler to view the code of each file to determine what is the original class it extends, and the type of the class (which I put into: Action, Bean, Cron, Event, Field, Object, Util)
  • For each of the class types, use Excel to generate an XML element as the follow examples:
  • After generating those elements, I put them together into newly created XML files.

Problem 2: Manipulating chain of extension without having Java source code:

The updated process took 6 hours, and after it finished and I can start Maximo. However, I freaked out when I looked into the MboSet class used by various objects. For example, in the WorkOrder object, the class used is psdi.pluss.app.workorder.PlusSWOSet. Initially, I thought the custom classes were wiped out after the upgrade. But after some investigation, I realized that due
to the upgrade and installation of new add-ons, Maximo has updated the classes (through the mean of binary code injection) to modify the chain of extension like this:

Before:  YYYWOSet > XXXWOSet > TloamWOSet > PlusPWOSet > WOSet


After:  PlusSWOSet > PlusGWOSet > YYYWOSet > XXXWOSet > TloamWOSet > PlusPWOSet > WOSet


After spending some time reading various IBM tech notes, I learnt that, in the past, we need to create a file with the exact name as: “a_customer.xml” to maintain metadata about customization. In the newer version (not exactly sure from what version, probably 7.5), we actually SHOULDN’T name it “a_customer.xml”. Because the file name makes it top of the list (in alphabetical order), and thus, becomes the first product to extend the core Maximo classes. For example, if you only have Core Maximo, Oil & Gas Add-on, and your custom package, if you name it a_customer.xml, the O&G package name is plusg, thus the extension chain would become: PlusGWOSet > CUSTOMWOSet > WOSet


If I like my custom class to be the last one that extends everything else, I actually should name it z_customer.xml, or anything that comes last in term of alphabetical
order. So I named the product XML files for the two custom packages z1_XXX
and z2_YYY.

For some unknown reasons, using just file name doesn’t give me the desirable outcome (probably due to  some undocumented logic), I had to use the <depends>
tag inside the two product XML files. From my experiment, by having the <depends> tag, the updatedb process will now ignore the file name rule, which means it doesn’t matter if you name it a_customer or z_customer anymore. The classes in your package will be extended after all packages listed in the <depends>
tag

To illustrate this point, below is the <depends> tag of my original z2_YYY.xml file:

It means the YYY package will extend the XXX package, then extend a bunch of packages (which included in the ICD product).

I updated the <depends> tag of the z2_YYY.xml file as follows:

Notice now I inserted three other packages before z1_XXX. After I updated the files, I ran updatedb process again (Even if there’s no update, updatedb will still update the java class files. With newer Maximo versions, you can run updatedblitepreprocessor.bat to do the same). With this, the updated process displays the product installation order as below:

Checking the class files, I got the extension in the desired order:

YYYWOSet > XXXWOSet > TloamWOSet > PlusSWOSet > PlusGWOSet > PlusPWOSet > WOSet

One more note, during the process, I found some of the files that get extended in an endless loop, for example:


YYYWOSet > PlusSWOSet > PlusGWOSet > TloamWOSet
> PlusPWOSet > XXX > TloamWOSet

This caused Maximo to fail when opening the app and crashed Eclipse when I tried to decompile the file. It turned out the reason is I used the wrong XML tag for the class type i.e. I should have used <Mbo….>  and <MboSet…> for object class rather
than <Class…> tag.

Another note is, due to some bugs or unknown logic, I had to play around a little with the product listed in the <depends> tag to get to the desired order as it doesn’t seem to work exactly as documented.

Hope this helps.

Maximo Crash Course on Youtube – Starting point for a complete beginner

24 August 2018 / / 2 Comments
After posting a bunch of Maximo training videos in Vietnamese on Youtube, I got some requests for similar contents in English. On the web, there are plenty of Maximo resources in English; so I didn’t think it is necessary to create new duplicated content. But someone recently pointed out to me that as a beginner, he doesn’t know where to start. So here it is, a bunch of *super short* videos to get you started with Maximo. After going through these, I’m sure you will have a better idea on which direction you want to learn more about the software.

 – Basic concepts in Maximo asset management: These tutorials are done on the IBM public Maximo preview site, so you don’t need to set up anything to do some exercises

 – Basic Maximo configuration tutorials: 



– Setting up development environment and writing customized java code for Maximo:

For configuration and customization, you’ll need MAXADMIN access to a Maximo environment to do the exercises. This shouldn’t be a problem if you are working for a company that already has Maximo. But if you are a student or freelance developer, at this point I don’t know of an easy and relatively cheap way to get this. The cheapest option is to buy an IBM Value Package for $999 which will give you access to *all* IBM software and support services. But I guess that’s too expensive for an individual just to learn about a system.
I guess you can ask somebody you know who have a development environment VM to give you a copy. Although this may not be completely legitimate. I believe IBM should allow free download to a trial version or demo VM like Microsoft or Oracle. It only helps them to expand the popularity of the product. Anyway, that’s enough for complaining. 
I hope these stuffs help you get started.

Solving problems with Update DB process when install or upgrade Maximo

12 July 2018 / / 0 Comments
When upgrading Maximo or installing new add-ons or fix packs, new source files will be copied to SMP folder which include Java classes and DBC (database configuration) script files. After that, the installer will run the UpdateDB process to update the database, run the BuidMaximoEar process to build the EAR file, and then deploy the EAR file to Websphere.
 
The DBC script files contain incremental changes to the Maximo database which add changes to GUI, update data, and modify DB configuration objects. Most of the problems you get when installing fix packs or upgrading Maximo come from the UpdateDB process which execute these DBC files in a set order.

Thus, if you have a problem with this process, you can follow the below general steps to troubleshoot and fix the problem:

 
  • When you have an error with UpdateDB process, note down the name of the log file that contains the error message. It has this format: [Process Name][YYYYMMDDhhmiss].log. 
  • If you have a problem with the UpdateDB process when running the installation program and don’t know the log file name, locate the [SMP]/maximo/tools/maximo folder and run the updatedb.bat (.sh) tool
    again. It will produce the same error
  • Open the log file which is located under
    [SMP]/maximo/tools/maximo/log folder to get the detailed error message.
  • Fix the problem then run the UpdateDB tool again from the command line. It will continue from the last success point.
 
Following is an example on how I got a problem when trying to create a demo database from an SMP copy I received from my client just a few hours ago. When installing demo instance by executing maxinst.bat, Maximo will create a standard initial  database by running a bunch of SQL statement from [SMP]/maximo/tools/maximo/en/maxdemo.ora for Oracle (or maxdemo.db2, or maxdemo.sqs for DB2 and SQL Server respectively). Then it will call the UpdateDB process to apply incremental changes to this database to install add-ons/fix packs which are already installed in this SMP folder).
 
During this process, I got the follow error:
 
 
To get more details about the error, I locate the Updatedb20180712173523.log in folder: [SMP]/maximo/tools/maximo/log. It gives me more details about the problem:
 
 
The problem occurred while it tried to execute the file V7110_03 script for the Oil & Gas add-on. In this case, if I scrolled up several lines, I can quickly see the problem, which is caused by an ORA-01000 – maximum open cursors exceeded. Basically, I forgot to set open_cursors parameter to 1000 as recommended by IBM, leaving it with default value = 300 when creating a new database. Thus, all I have to do in this case is increase it to 1000, then run the UpdateDB tool again. With real production database, sometimes I have to increase it to 5000 or 10000 in order to apply some fix packs.
 
In many cases, the problem is not easily identified by just looking at this log file. So we have to scroll up to a bit further, to identify which statement is causing the issue. Then, we will have to open the DBC script file which can be found under [SMP]/maximo/tools/maximo/en/[add-on folder]/[dbc script file]. For example, in this case, it is …/en/oilandgas/V7110_03.ora
 
 
 
There are a number of script file types:
 
  • Files with .ora, .sqs, .db2 extensions: are just normal SQL files applicable for Oracle, SQL Server, and DB2 respectively. You can run the SQL statement from this file against the database to check for problems directly.
  • Files with .msg extension: are used to
    add/modify existing messages. You normally don’t have a problem with these.
  • Files with .mxs, and .dbc extensions: are used to
    modify application GUI design, and apply data updates or database
    configuration changes.
 
Most of the problems come from .dbc files. To understand DBC script and identify what each statement does, you can refer to this DBC XML Format Technical Reference 
 
Some common problems we have when running UpdateDB include:
 
  • Error when creating a unique index: in this
    case, we have to query and update the data to remove or fix records with
    duplicated keys
  • Error when creating existing objects: most of the
    time, we can drop the existing object as a new object will be created by the
    script anyway
  • Missing script files, or script file doesn’t follow naming convention, which have ordered number. If there’s a missing script file, you can create an empty file by copy/paste from an existing dbc file, and rename it to have a missing ordered number. For files which don’t follow naming convention, I got get this java.lang.ClassCastExeption a few times when updatedb with Linear add-on, turns out there is a file named V7500_linear.dbc which updatedb expects to have a number after V7500, so all I have to do is change it to V7500_02.dbc and it doesn’t complain any more
  • DB operation fails due to maximum open_cursors or processes exceeded (in Oracle): increase the open_cursors, processes parameter and try to run UpdateDB again.
  • Java NullPointerException: this one is quite difficult to figure out. We have to look at the DBC file to understand what it’s trying to do. This is often caused by bad data, such as orphan records referencing a non-existence parent.
  • Error with certain DB operations like when it is unable to create a new Workorder table after Drop the table (when there’s a change to the table
    structure): I’m not exactly sure what mechanism causes this, but I found the
    problem goes way if I run the UpdateDB process again (and again). I only
    attempt to fix it if the problem persists after the 3    rd run.
 
I hope this helps you when the going gets tough.
 
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