The Distribute Utility

Use the Distribute utility to distribute an autoaction database to Operations Sentinel servers. This utility is useful if your site is large and you update databases frequently. It relieves you from repeatedly executing the Distribute Database or Maintain Database commands in ADBM (see 6.1).

Distribute:

Installs or updates a database.
Restores the backup version of a database.
Allows you to create batch files to perform multiple install, update, and/or restore operations in succession.
Automatically backs up a database if it already exists on the destination system.
Accepts multiple distribute or restore commands using either a batch (.bat) file or a Windows script language.

Input

Input to Distribute is the run-time version of an automation database. The run-time version has the file extension .acp for a CP-AMS database, .asp for an SP-AMS database, and .ams for a SMART AMS database.

Output

Distribute displays status messages while running, and a success or error message on completion of the distribute operation.

Starting Distribute

From the Windows Start menu, select Programs, Operations Sentinel x.y.z, Automation Tools, Distribute.

A command prompt window appears, positioned to the folder containing the Distribute program (installation-folder\spo\bin). Abbreviated instructions for calling Distribute are displayed in this window.

At the operating system prompt, enter the following command:

distribute validation-server operation database destination ...

where:

validation-server

is the Operations Sentinel server used to validate permissions. You must be a member of the group SPO Users or SPO Administrators on this server in order to distribute databases.

operation

is either distribute or restore; you can abbreviate these to 3 characters (dis or res).

database

when the operation is distribute, this must include the full path to the database file, or a relative path from the current working folder.

when the operation is restore, this is the name of the database file on the console. Do not specify a path.

Note: Include the file name extension (.ams, .acp, or .asp) on the database file name in both cases.

destination

is the network name or IP address of an Operations Sentinel server. You may specify multiples of these, separated by spaces.

If you need to delete databases or want to use a graphical interface, use the Operations Sentinel Autoaction Database Manager (ADBM) (see 6.1).

Examples

In the following example, Distribute distributes database mains.acp to Operations Sentinel servers os01, os02, and os03. All success and error messages are written to the file dist.txt.

distribute server01 dis C:\test\db\mains.acp os01 os02 od03 >> dist.txt

In the following example, Distribute restores backup database ixp.asp on Operations Sentinel server us01. This is done only if you have the necessary permissions by belonging to group SPO Users or SPO Administrators on Operations Sentinel server server02. All success and error messages are displayed in the command prompt window.

distribute server02 restore ixp.asp us01

In the following example, Distribute restores backup database mains.acp on Operations servers os01 and os02. All success and error messages are displayed in the command prompt window.

distribute server01 res mains.acp os01 os02

Batch File Example

You can use the distribute command in a batch file similar to the following file.

   C:\spo\spox.y.z\spo\bin\distribute.exe serverA dis cms.ams smptst6 >> dist.txt 
   C:\spo\spox.y.z\spo\bin\distribute.exe serverA dis C:\db\cms.ams smptst6
   C:\spo\spox.y.z\spo\bin\distribute.exe serverA dis ..\..\db\sample1.ams troi
   C:\spo\spox.y.z\spo\bin\distribute.exe serverA dis sample1.ams troi 192.93.494.938
   C:\spo\spox.y.z\spo\bin\distribute.exe serverA dis mapper1.ams troi tuvok smptst7
   C:\spo\spox.y.z\spo\bin\distribute.exe serverA dis mains.ams tuvok smptst6 smptst7 troi
   C:\spo\spox.y.z\spo\bin\distribute.exe serverA dis test.ams 192.546.246.44

In this example

C:\spo\ spox.y.z\ is the folder where Operations Sentinel was installed.
serverA is the name of the Operations Sentinel server used to verify your privileges to execute this command.
The first line redirects the output of the commands to a text file (dist.txt). Open this file to review the execution of the commands.
Except for those in the second and third lines, all databases reside in the current working folder of the Command Prompt session.
In the fourth and seventh lines, the destination console is specified using an IP address.

Notes on distributing databases:

The command line interface automatically backs up any existing database. It does not prompt you for permission to overwrite it.
Operations Sentinel Console messages are written to the SP-DISTRIBUTE-AMS log on the Operations Sentinel server used to validate permissions.
The Distribute Password Manager on the Operations Sentinel server allows an administrator or customer service representative to specify the password for a console if it was changed from the Unisys-supplied default value. If the password was changed but not specified using the Distribute Password Manager, the Distribute utility will not install or update a database on that console.