The Case Of The Late Night FSM Explorer
January 29, 2014 Jeff Waldbillig
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It was a quiet night on a network that knew how to keep its secrets. I was working the graveyard shift at the help desk, and this night I was still waiting for my first call. Marge Stetson, my supervisor, walked by and after seeing the glazed look in my eyes, told me she’d cover the phones for a few hours if I wanted to do some technical education. Marge knew that a product called the IBM Flex Systems Manager (FSM) was being deployed in our network, and she expected us to field some questions in the next few weeks related to the FSM Explorer interface. An invitation like that doesn’t come every day, so I grabbed my laptop and headed for the local all-night coffee shop. The place was empty when I walked in. The barista, Joyce, was the only person in the joint. She stood behind the counter, slowly polishing a stack of speckled brown cups. She glanced up when I walked in and motioned me to the stool at the counter in front of her. “What’s up, Chuck?” You could tell she thought her line was uproariously funny, but yeah, I’d heard that one before. “Funny, Joyce. Just give me a cup.” As she poured the joe, she looked me over for a moment, and you could see the wheels turning. “What are you doing here now, Chuck? You don’t usually get here for a few more hours, yet. And you brought your computer with you?” “This is my laptop. You’ve got wireless here, don’t you? I’m going to do some research for a bit if you don’t mind. Some education.” I could tell she was curious as she leaned over the counter to see my display. “So, ah. . . what’cha educatin’ yourself on?” “You wouldn’t understand, Joyce. It’s something called FSM” “FSM? Oh, you mean the Flex Systems Manager, right. From IBM?” “Wha? How do you know anything about FSM?” “I get around, Chuck. I read the journals. I’m up on the lingo. You can’t be too well-rounded in my line of business.” “Okay, okay. But just what do you know about FSM?” “It’s the IBM Flex Systems Manager, Chuck. The latest version of the FSM Explorer interface was just released.” Joyce’s voice took on a dreamy tone, and she got a faraway look in her eyes. “With FSM Explorer, even more function has been ported from the original Flex Systems Manager interface to the FSM Explorer interface. It’s faster and more robust. You can manage your resources from one location. And I’m not talking just about the physical resources. No, you can manage the virtual resources, too. And the usability! Don’t get me started! The user interface is resource-based, so you can quickly see the status of everything you care about.” She paused a moment, and then started back at her cups. “Sorry, Chuck. Sometimes I do go on.” “No, wait a minute! You seem know a lot about FSM Explorer. Do you have a minute? Help me out, here, Joyce.” “Well, I’m not real busy at the moment. Why don’t ya point your browser to your managing system, and sign in to it. It’s typically run off port 8422, so you could use something like: https://systemName:8422/ui.” I typed in the address of our FSM, and signed in. Immediately, I saw the IBM FSM Explorer interface.
Click graphic to enlarge. Joyce leaned over and said “Yeah, you see that? Notice the red ‘x’ showing up there? Right away you can see that you’ve got some critical issues with at least one of the resources in your environment. Now before you investigate what might be going on, let’s take a quick look at how the interface is laid out. Right there, up at the top, is the page header. It has a series of quick links showing a summary of your resources, and jobs, a link for you to see what profile you’re signed in with, and a link to all the help information.” She paused a moment, then said, “Hey, wanna see somethin’ cool? Hover your mouse thingy over that Status summary. That one that’s showing a red ‘x’ in the header. See what happens.” I moved my cursor so that it hovered over the resource status link in the header. Immediately the link expanded to show a summary of the resources in the network. Those at the top were the systems that were showing critical problems.
Click graphic to enlarge. “Right there, Chuck! Do you see the information you get at a glance? Just by hovering there, you can see a status summary of everything in your environment! You have 14 systems that are showing problems, and zero systems that are out of compliance. And that’s not even the cool part yet! Move your mouse over to one of those systems. Yeah, choose a system that has a critical status. Another summary pop-up shows up for that one system, showing the top problems that have been identified!”
Click graphic to enlarge. “If you click on the resource from the resource Status link in the header, you’ll be taken to the Active Status view for that system, so you can investigate each issue. That’s pretty neat, right? Scone?” “Scone? What’s that?” For a moment, I looked on the screen for something labeled scone, but there was nothing there. “It’s a lightly sweetened biscuit-like cake frequently served with tea or coffee. Geeze, Chuck. You gotta get out more!” I rubbed my head a moment, and then went back to FSM Explorer. “So, listen Joyce, what else can you do in this interface? Like, what does Home, and Systems, and Monitors show you?” “That’s the menu bar, Chuck. If you hover your mouse over each one of those, a menu opens, and you’ll see a useful list of views or tasks. So, hover over the Monitor menu. Check out the different options you can do from right there! Now what’s interesting is that some of these link right into the FSM Explorer interface. Others link to tasks that are currently only available from the Flex Systems Manager interfaces.”
Click graphic to enlarge. “Well, how will I know which interface will be opened? It might be nice to know that ahead of time.” “It’s really pretty easy, Chuck! Just hover over the task, and if it’s going to launch into the Flex System Manager, you’ll see an extra little icon thingy with some text saying that you’re going to open Flex System Manager interface. If there’s no icon, then you’ll stay right here in the FSM Explorer!”
Click graphic to enlarge. “That makes sense.” “Now below the header section is the content area. That’s the location where all the work gets done. It’s got three sections. The icon bar is on the edge. It’s where you can link to the different views, like the chassis view, Virtual Servers and Hosts, All Systems, and the like. Once you click on an icon in the icon bar, the middle of the content area may show a selector to allow you to refine what resources you want to see. The selector will only appear if the icon you clicked on allows you to narrow your resources more. Finally, the largest area is the work area. Based on what you clicked on in the icon bar and the selector, information about what was selected is displayed. It could be either properties of your selection, or a list of elements related to your selection. Either way, you get the information you need!â€� I was just about to ask Joyce about the interaction between the options in the menu bar and what’s displayed in the content area when my cell phone rang. It was Marge. The quiet night at the help desk was spinning out of control, and she was in over her head. I knew what that was like. I’d caused it once or twice in the past. I signed off the laptop, paid Joyce for the coffee, and thanked her for the tutorial on FSM Explorer. As I walked out of the all-night coffee shop, I left an extra generous tip. It’s understood that when you have an informant, it’s better to keep ’em happy. You learn that sort of thing in my line of business. Because I’m Chuck Temple, Private Eye. Jeff Waldbillig is a staff software engineer at IBM’s Rochester, Minnesota, labs. He has held positions as a technical writer, host programmer, and has written client software for iSeries Navigator, IBM Systems Director, and IBM FSM Explorer. Send your questions or comments for Jeff to Ted Holt via the IT Jungle Contact page.
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