Context

Tool mentors explain how a tool can perform tasks, which are part of ITUP processes and activities. The tasks are listed as Related Elements in the Relationships section.

You can see the details of how processes and activities are supported by this tool mentor, by clicking the links next to the icons:

•   Deployment Management
  •   Plan Deployment Program

Details

The component of IBM® Tivoli® Configuration Manager that is used in planning a release is the Activity Planner. The Activity Planner enables you to define a group of activities in an activity plan, submit the plan to be executed, and monitor the execution of the plan. Activities are single operations that are performed on a set of targets at specified times. Operations include Tivoli Management Framework Task Library tasks, Software Distribution, and Inventory operations.

Activities contained in a plan can have dependencies associated with them that define circumstances under which the activity is executed. The execution of the operation defined in the activity is performed by the application to which the operation belongs. The group of activities forms the activity plan.

The Activity Planner is divided into two main components: Activity Plan Editor and Activity Plan Monitor.

Figure 1: The Activity Plan Editor

The Activity Plan Editor is used to define activities and manage activities, and create activity plans from the GUI or CLI. You can also define activities in a file in XML format using a text editor. The XML file in which the activity plan is defined is called the activity plan definition file. See Chapter 2, Using the Command Line on page 41 of the Tivoli Configuration Manager 4.2 User Guide for Deployment Services for more information about the activity plan definition file. All current product manuals are located on the IBM Web site in the Tivoli Information Center at http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v3r1/index.jsp?toc=/com.ibm.tivoli.itcm.doc/toc.xml

Use the Activity Plan Editor to perform the following tasks:

• Manage a group of activities, originating from different applications, as a single activity from a single machine in the network.
• Schedule the activity plan to run on a specific day and time, or to be repeated at specific time intervals, days of the week, or days of the month.
• Schedule the plan to repeat indefinitely.
• Schedule activities to run at specific time intervals during the week
• Set conditions on activities so that the execution of one activity is dependent on the completion result of other activities.
• Save activity plans in a database or to an XML file.

You can save activity plans that you prepared using the Activity Plan Editor as any of the following:

• Drafts
• Templates
• XML files

Draft plans and templates are stored in their respective repositories in the activity plan database, but only templates are made available for submission.

Another mechanism that creates an Activity Plan is the Configuration Change Manager or CCM. The Change Manager component of IBM Tivoli Configuration Manager, together with the Activity Planner, support software distribution management and change management in a large network. Activity Plan Manager is a prerequisite of Change Manager. Change Manager works with Activity Plan Manager to manage specified groups of users, workstations, or devices as single subscriber entities. Subscribers can be users, groups of users, or the workstations or devices they use.

The core concept of Change Manager is the reference model. A reference model contains an association of configuration elements and subscribers. Configuration elements define hardware and software requirements. Subscribers define groups of users, workstations, or pervasive devices. Using Change Manager, you create reference models that use configuration elements to specify a required configuration on a given set of target subscribers. These reference models allow you to define the hardware and software requirements of different groups of users, for example, managers and software developers. This capability allows you to manage subscribers according to the role that each one plays within your organization.

After you have created the reference model, you can generate an activity plan that includes all the tasks that are required to ensure that the subscribers match the requirements that you defined in the reference model. You can then submit this activity plan to the Activity Plan Manager.

If there is a change to requirements, or if a subscriber changes its role, you can simply update the reference model to reflect the changes and generate a new activity plan.

Figure 2: The Activity Plan Monitor

For additional information see the Tivoli Configuration Manager 4.2 User Guide for Deployment Services. All current product manuals are located on the IBM Web site in the Tivoli Information Center at http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v3r1/index.jsp?toc=/com.ibm.tivoli.itcm.doc/toc.xml.

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