Managing Server Settings - VisualCron

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keithdavis
Free support Topic Starter

2011-12-21T17:54:30Z

We love VC, but one thing that is becoming increasingly difficult is managing all of the different settings on all of the servers.

The main thing that is a problem right now is Notifications. Any suggestions on how to keep these in sync?

The Notifications themselves, I'm not talking about what tasks they are assigned to.

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Support
Official support

2011-12-22T15:07:21Z

What do mean by keep in sync? That the same Notifications exist everywhere?

I would write a small application using the API. That imports from one server. Then connects to each server and pushes all Notifications to them.

Henrik
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keithdavis
Free support Topic Starter

2011-12-29T14:49:59Z

I'm not getting updates from the forum on replies to my post...so, I just now saw this.

Yikes, are you serious?? I mean, I'm sure that I can write something like that, but I definitely do not have time for it.

Yes, I mean I use the same notification formats and on all servers. One problem with your suggestion is I've done that manually a few times, and yes, it will import the formats but even if the names are the same, it unchecks every box that the notification was linked to (Tasks and Jobs.) So, that won't work.

Support
Official support

2011-12-29T17:13:22Z

Perhaps I am misunderstanding. But I assume you have servers spread out in your company. And now you want the same Notifications on all servers? So, then I assume one server must be "Master" and other "Slaves". And if you choose that approach you need to transfer Master Notifications to Slaves in some way.

There are three ways to do that right now:

1. create and automated script that connects to your slaves and copy Notifications to your server. If you have .NET developer in house we are talking about maximum 1 hour of development
2. copy the file Notifications.xml manually to the slaves. You need to stop the service inbetween
3. Export and import manually using the Export/import functionality in VisualCron

Copying a Notification to another server won't "deselect" anything as Notifications are global/separate objects and not really incorporated into the Job definition.

Did I misunderstood you?

Henrik
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keithdavis
Free support Topic Starter

2011-12-30T16:07:41Z

I am a .NET developer and I don't see that taking only an hour, being that I have never used the API, maybe more like 5-8 hours (I'm primarily a PHP developer and not as fluent in C#.)

I've tried this already:

"Export and import manually using the Export/import functionality in VisualCron"

And it deselected all the applied Notifications for the Tasks and Jobs, I promise you this does work.

I'll try number 2...that I can script out (even stopping the service), in less than an hour using AutoIt.

keithdavis
Free support Topic Starter

2011-12-30T16:08:19Z

Oh, and still not getting notifications from this forum. Need to find out who to report that issue to.

keithdavis
Free support Topic Starter

2011-12-30T16:09:27Z

Originally Posted by: keithdavis

Oh, and still not getting notifications from this forum. Need to find out who to report that issue to.

Ok, my settings had those turned off...I did not do that...weird.

Support
Official support

2012-01-02T09:01:46Z

Originally Posted by: keithdavis

And it deselected all the applied Notifications for the Tasks and Jobs, I promise you this does work.

Then you are probably deleting the old Notifications first (instead of update). If update gives you duplicates then you have different Id:s on the Notifications. In order to get what you want you need to import/export with the same id.

Probably, you have defined Notifications that look the same, several times, but even though they look the same they have different Id if they are created two times.

So, what you need to do is to have one server as source. Then import notifications. After import you set the Job Tasks to use these Id:s. Now, try to import again and you will see that settings remains.

Henrik
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Support
Official support

2012-01-02T09:08:43Z

To show you how easy it is to do this (import local settings to a remote machine) I post an example in c#:

       // create Server object
                    Server s = null;
                    // create connection
                    Connection conn = new Connection();
                    // set ip/hostname
                    conn.Address = "remote host name";
                    // specify connection Credentials
                    conn.UserName = "admin";
                    conn.PassWord = "";
                    // if you want to use other than custom port number you change this here
                    conn.Port = 16444;
                    // change the connection type to remote
                    conn.ConnectionType = Connection.ConnectionT.Remote;
                    try
                    {
                        // connect - which returns a Server object
                        s = c.Connect(conn, true);
                    }
                    catch (VisualCronAPI.Client.ClientLoginFailedException ex)
                    {
                        MessageBox.Show(ex.Message);
                    }
                    bool result =  s.ImportSettings(@"C:\Program Files\VisualCron\backup\VC-Settings.zip",false);

This example is in the API folder of the installation. Currently this import all settings and "update" them without clearing.

It is possible to export only Notifications first and export those only.

It is also possible to connect locally, loop through Notifications and then connect to bunch of remote servers and update Notifications there. This require some more lines but is possible to do. Let me know if you need help with that.

Henrik
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keithdavis
Free support Topic Starter

2012-01-02T15:47:40Z

#10

Your point about ID's was what I was afraid of and makes it all the more complicated. The fact is that we have over a hundred jobs (and 5 times that in tasks) on 7 or 8 servers. I need every single one of those jobs to have a Job Error notification and every single task to have a Task Error notification, and though your solution gets me closer, it's still a long ways from easily deploying and maintaining a solution that I, can be assured that this is happening. Otherwise, we have jobs or tasks that fail and we never know this is happening. I also need consistency in how those errors are generated so that we import them into our ticket system. It's very painstaking to open every job and every task to configure and then from time to time to verify that these are working.

I'll give it a shot, but it's time I don't really have right now (bogged down in a billing issue for a while.)

keithdavis
Free support Topic Starter

2012-01-02T15:54:25Z

#11

Question: Does VisualCron have to be installed on machine that is going to run my .NET application? And if so, just the Client or does it have to have the Server portion as well?

keithdavis
Free support Topic Starter

2012-01-02T16:32:56Z

#12

There is an bug in your code, you reference c, but c is never defined.

Support
Official support

2012-01-02T16:42:06Z

#13

Ok. c is of type Client

Henrik
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Support
Official support

2012-01-02T20:22:21Z

#14

Originally Posted by: keithdavis

Question: Does VisualCron have to be installed on machine that is going to run my .NET application? And if so, just the Client or does it have to have the Server portion as well?

No, you can connect remotely.

Henrik
Support
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Support
Official support

2012-07-17T18:20:29Z

#15

Hi,

we are currently investigating best way of implementation of a master/slave relationship.

We have some thoughts in mind which we would like to have feedback on. We would also like to have detailed feedback of any other requirements you may have.

Here are our main ideas:

- a VisualCron Server can be configured to be either Master or Slave or Independent
- when a Server is Slave you can specify a Master IP together with a username and password
- the Slave will auto update Jobs, Tasks and other Server objects when the Master is updated
- optionally, the Master can execute Jobs locally
- optionally, the Slaves can be configured to Execute a Job when it is Executed on the Server (manually or by Trigger) - by default Triggers will be located on each Slave machine
- optionally, Settings from Master can be updated on Slaves when updated on Master
- optionally, Jobs can be created on Slaves that is outside of the Master-> sync

We welcome all your feedback regarding this.

Henrik
Support
http://www.visualcron.com
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keithdavis
Free support Topic Starter

2012-07-23T18:28:58Z

#16

Originally Posted by: Support

Hi,

we are currently investigating best way of implementation of a master/slave relationship.

We have some thoughts in mind which we would like to have feedback on. We would also like to have detailed feedback of any other requirements you may have.

Here are our main ideas:

- a VisualCron Server can be configured to be either Master or Slave or Independent
- when a Server is Slave you can specify a Master IP together with a username and password
- the Slave will auto update Jobs, Tasks and other Server objects when the Master is updated
- optionally, the Master can execute Jobs locally
- optionally, the Slaves can be configured to Execute a Job when it is Executed on the Server (manually or by Trigger) - by default Triggers will be located on each Slave machine
- optionally, Settings from Master can be updated on Slaves when updated on Master
- optionally, Jobs can be created on Slaves that is outside of the Master-> sync

We welcome all your feedback regarding this.

Did you want that feedback here?

Anyway, sorry for the delay:

The biggest issue we have is needing to synchronize items like Notifications, Groups, Credentials, Connections
Will all slaves have to sync the same jobs? What would be ideal is if we can manage all jobs from one server, but we don't want all servers to have all jobs.

Support
Official support

2012-07-23T20:46:25Z

#17

Originally Posted by: keithdavis

Will all slaves have to sync the same jobs? What would be ideal is if we can manage all jobs from one server, but we don't want all servers to have all jobs.

I think, to keep it relative simple to manage. That you on master select which Jobs etc you want to be able for syncing. Then, when connected to a slave you can exclude Jobs for example for syncing. You can also create specific Jobs on that slave.

Henrik
Support
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keithdavis
Free support Topic Starter

2012-07-23T21:40:42Z

#18

Sounds good.