Client maintenance/Automic pruning

[Legacy User]

Hello,

As part of our deployment process we will we spinning up servers/automic agents upon request.  These requests can lead to automic client creation via the API.

This may result in a lot of clients being created for various teams and reasons.  Tracking and maintenance of these may become an overhead.

One challenge is to maintain all these clients and delete them when no longer required.  I know I can call the utility UCYBDBCC to delete the client.

Will this remove all traces of this client and all objects or will I have to 'purge' anything as well?

Also, is there anything else I should consider to stop a build up of redundant objects or I need to consider in terms of maintenance?

Does anyone have any useful sql/ideas on how to identify dormant clients? i.e. no activity/logon for a set period of time?

And as columbo said .. one last thing ... is there any useful documentation (apart from the DB schema) in regards to writing sql against the Automic backend database? Is there an ERD available? I know this is probably a very broad topic.

Sorry for all the questions..

Cheers,

Dan

[Alain Moisy]

UCYBDBCC will effectively remove all data related to the client you want to remove and you will have nothing else to do at client level.

Now you will need additionally to cleanup the definitions of the Agents used only by this client in the client 0000, maybe using the API, to get a real "clean" environment.

For detecting unused client you can run a standard report on the statistics to check if there is any user login performed in client since n days. You may have some automated process that creates a "fake" activity in the client (like events for monitoring, cleanup jobs, etc ...) but the login of users seems for me more significant. Maybe exclude some technical, administrator or supervisor accounts from the scan as they can have a look in the client randomly but are not part or the regular client users.

Basic reports can be generated using the UCYREPG utility. As usual I would not recommend to use SQL request in the DB if you are not really familiar with the DB structure and it could also be impacting perfomance if you do a complex request requiring a lot of DB resources to run. And also data can be available or not depending on settings or version of the product to make things easier ....

Hope this can help.

Regards.

[Legacy User]

Cheers Alain.

Thanks a lot for your response.  I will have a look and see if I can put this to use.

Cheers,

Dan

[Anon Anon]

Hi

another bit of info came to my mind - removing the agent in the REORG process could be a topic - depending how it is set up.

CALL API binaries should be cleared up as well - if their client got removed.

cheers, Wolfgang

[Legacy User]

Hello Wolfgang,

I think we have something already written using the API to remove agents that no longer exists.

Any idea where the CALL API binaries will live?  Will not clearing these up cause any issues?

In terms of the backend database, do you know of any useful literature or is it just a case of picking up snippets as we go along? :)

Cheers,

Dan.

[Anon Anon]

Hi Dan

I am talking from CALL API - not JAVA API (a.k.a. Application Interface) :-)
Call API lets you start an Automic Object inside AE from an OS call.

https://docs.automic.com/documentation/webhelp/english/AWA/11.2/AE/11.2/All%20Guides/help.htm#ucacif.htm%3FTocPath%3DApplication%2520Integration%2520Guide%7CCallAPI%7C_____2

In the good old days I worked with so-called throwaway-Automic-Systems thats a system set up, initialized and started via button-press with some parameters like Automic Version, amount of CPs, WPs, some Agents, some default objects, .... so to say Ready to use for a particular purpose and wiped afterwards.
From this I know a bit about cleaning Operation Systems from Automic :-)

Honestly I do not very much about Database maintenance and tuning, but I am willing to learn.
I would stick to Alains hints - the biggest part inside of AE is deleting the Client with Client copy as last step.
the main goal here is identifying which components can be deleted and which are still in use.
and outside of AE:
- if there are any agents to be deleted (already mentioned)
- if there are activities left in the client to be deleted (if yes CC can not be performed successfully)
- CALL api - talking to anything in this Client
...
...

cheers, Wolfgang

[Legacy User]

Hello,

Ok, cheers my mistake ... there are plenty of them :)

Will CC not run/complain if in the client there are still none ended jobs e.g. blocked workflows. ? I know if you run the CC executable and there is a user logged on it will ask you an override question.

In terms of the backend I was only interested in understanding the schema a little more to enable me to write read only sql. Seems like quite a useful skill to have.  I have the sql knowledge just not the knowledge of the underlying table relationships.

Cheers again,

Dan

[Anon Anon]

Hi

No worries - there are plenty of possibilities mismatching some terms or products or packages or companies or ... hmmm ... Variables within Automation engine :-)

Will CC not run/complain....
oh yes it will - but the best case would be if it ran successfully on the first attempt  :)
To save time I would first clearing them instead of iterating through the loop (clearing-Re-Starting CC) several times  B)

just not the knowledge of the underlying table relationships.
Some Basics are in the Table overview. Some more SQLs are in community.
If you have some time - and your company some bucks left I would recommend Philipp Elmer's DB Training class. https://philippelmer.com/

cheers, Wolfgang

[Legacy User]

Hello,

Cheers again Wolfgang .. have a good day.

Cheers,

Dan

[Anon Anon]

Hi
same to you :-)

cheers, Wolfgang