Remote Pacakge Build

I would like to know if any one is doing remote Sys Admin Work on the Deployment Server, like small ESU's application and Full Package builds and such and what remote Software Access is being used.

We are a Remote site connected directly through WAN to our primary One World Installation. (Fractional T3 Line).
User’s are going to connect to One World either through Citrix or HTML
Developers are given PC Anywhere access for developing One World Applications.

We use PC Anywhere for Heavy Clients to access through the WAN. It is a little slow but it is ok to do development work in One World. Draw back is that each developer should have a dedicated Work station assigned to him for him to PC anywhere to it.

We are using Danware's Netop Remote Software for Full package build on the Deployment server. We have found no issues at all to use this software to access the Deployment Server and apply small ESU's like 1099 and such and for full package builds. (We tried using PC Anywhere to do full package builds but it always fails on the step for Package build definition where we have to choose the language. hence we opted for Danware's Netop which has been working flawlessly for the last 1.5 to 2 years.)

And I know that there is another Remote Software Called ControlIT which I remember JDE prefers to use. Now it is called Unicenter Remote Control by Computer Associates. We have not tried it and would like to hear some experiences on this.

I also know about Netmeeting and VNC. Here is my take on those. These are just my experiences and they could be different for others.
Netmeeting: It is ok to use it occasionally for Update packages on the Fat Clients but not all the time as I have seen at times that Netmeeting acts very weird by not showing the mouse and hence becomes very difficult to know what we are clicking on the screen.
VNC: Free Software but is very very slow and hogs a lot of system resources over time have to keep restarting this service so that it does not degrade over time.

I know that this has been covered by this forum about a year ago.

I wanted to know of any new developments in this area and how other companies/people are doing remote admin work if any?

1) What Remote software is being used for ESU's and Full Package Builds? On the Deployment Server.
2) What software is being used to Develop One World Applications remotely?
3) What is the preference for Building Full Packages on? Deployment Server or Fat Client? Reasons?
4) What does JDE really support? in terms of remote Software? ControlIT/Unicenter Remote control, PC Anywhere, Netop?
5) ControlIT or Unicenter Remote Control Experiences.

Any information in the above regard will be highly appreciated.

Sri :

I've been doing remote OneWorld work on the Deployment via Windows Terminal
Server Services. It works great.
I've done B732->Xe migrations, Updates, ESUs and Service Pack installs via
TS Services.
For development, I've used a dedicated Citrix/Terminal Server Services box
with C++ and multiple pathcodes such as
c:\b7\pd7333a for developer User A, c:\b7\pd7333b for Developer B, ... You
have to manually alter jde.ini on user profiles folder,
but it works and you also avoid spec corruption.
Finally, I build full packages on the Deployment (I've got to justify why
did I bought that box!) and update packages on the client
(due to a limitation on selecting UBE versions for update packages).
As far as I know, JDE strongly discourages all remote control softwares.

Regards, Sebastian Sajaroff
[email protected] and [email protected]
Montréal, Canada

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sri" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2003 9:35 AM
Subject: Remote Pacakge Build


Deployment Server, like small ESU's application and Full Package builds and
such and what remote Software Access is being used.We are a Remote site
connected directly through WAN to our primary One World Installation.
(Fractional T3 Line).User's are going to connect to One World either through
Citrix or HTML Developers are given PC Anywhere access for developing One
World Applications.We use PC Anywhere for Heavy Clients to access through
the WAN. It is a little slow but it is ok to do development work in One
World. Draw back is that each developer should have a dedicated Work station
assigned to him for him to PC anywhere to it. We are using Danware's Netop
Remote Software for Full package build on the Deployment server. We have
found no issues at all to use this software to access the Deployment Server
and apply small ESU's like 1099 and such and for full package builds. (We
tried using PC Anywh!
build definition where we have to choose the language. hence we opted for
Danware's Netop which has been working flawlessly for the last 1.5 to 2
years.)And I know that there is another Remote Software Called ControlIT
which I remember JDE prefers to use. Now it is called Unicenter Remote
Control by Computer Associates. We have not tried it and would like to hear
some experiences on this.I also know about Netmeeting and VNC. Here is my
take on those. These are just my experiences and they could be different for
others.Netmeeting: It is ok to use it occasionally for Update packages on
the Fat Clients but not all the time as I have seen at times that Netmeeting
acts very weird by not showing the mouse and hence becomes very difficult to
know what we are clicking on the screen.VNC: Free Software but is very very
slow and hogs a lot of system resources over time have to keep restarting
this service !
developments in this area and how other companies/people are doing remote
admin work if any?1) What Remote software is being used for ESU's and Full
Package Builds? On the Deployment Server. 2) What software is being used to
Develop One World Applications remotely?3) What is the preference for
Building Full Packages on? Deployment Server or Fat Client? Reasons?4) What
does JDE really support? in terms of remote Software? ControlIT/Unicenter
Remote control, PC Anywhere, Netop?5) ControlIT or Unicenter Remote Control
Experiences.Any information in the above regard will be highly appreciated.



ERP8 to Xe, NT/W2K/SQL
JAS, Interoperability
MCDBA,MCP+I,MCSE,Citrix Admin
[email protected]
Canada

Hello Srkant,

we are using Netsupport for remote work. We use it for development and administartion tasks (package builds..) The software is not for free but it works great.
Regards

Herbert

Herbert,

Could you give me their Website or contact Info?

Sri

I used the Net Supprt product when I worked at JDE to connect to the Regional Training Centers to perform administrative tasks and it worked great.

Bill

We use NetOp for the same functions and have no complaints with it. http://www.danware.com/main.asp?fl=1

Net Support is a really nice package but it does not have a version that runs on Citrix so if you are trying to come in that way it can cause problems.
Dave

Hi Sri,

ESU's, Pkg Builds:

I use WTS to do these and I have not had any issues so far. Sometimes I VPN from home with no issues at all.

Developement:

We do development completely on Citrix and we have atleast 10 developers logging in from around the world. We have folders set up separately for each developer for development activities. We do not use any 3rd party software for these activities. We have no full clients for developers.

If you want more info, please contact me by email.

Srikant...

You should invest in a Citrix or just plain ol' Windows Terminal server
for development purposes. You can have about 20 developers using one
terminal server, and they don't have to use "PC Nowhere". There is a
document by Alan Jacot on the KG that outlines how to set this up. It
may be just me...but I find that having 20 PC's sitting there dedicated
to remote development to be a waste of money, administration time, and
hardware resources.

As far as remote admin of a deployment server for admin work...DS View
has worked well at many of my clients...and though you have issues with
it...VNC is still the reigning champ for free utilities. It may hog, and
require the deployment server to be rebooted a few extra times per month,
but it doesn't cause problems like PC Anywhere does.

Jim

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1) What Remote software is being used for ESU's and Full Package Builds? On the Deployment Server.

I use NetMeeting with pretty good success. The problems you describe are likely the cause of a bad display driver on the server. You can't beat the price either.

2) What software is being used to Develop One World Applications remotely?

After going with PCAnywhere which was OK but annoying,slow and expensive. We went with Win XP Professional loaded on rack mounted servers. XP includes Remote Desktop (aka Terminal Services) that allows the developer to use the Remote Desktop Connection client (free download for Win 95/98/ME/NT/2000 comes with XP). Remote Desktop uses RDP protocol which runs decent even at 56K dialup speeds. Bonus features included mapping client drives on the remote PC' and your client printers too.

3) What is the preference for Building Full Packages on? Deployment Server or Fat Client? Reasons?
Answer. It depends. If you have a better Fat client then deployment server then use the Fat. If you have a multi CPU Deployment server w/Central objects loaded on the same. It will be faster because it won't have to go across the wire to get to CO's on another box. I think most would say the deployment server is usually the better location for the build for these reasons.

4) What does JDE really support? in terms of remote Software? ControlIT/Unicenter Remote control, PC Anywhere, Netop?

Not sure. They used to use Control IT but stopped using it for supporting my company. Now they use WebEx via a browser to initate these sessions

5) ControlIT or Unicenter Remote Control Experiences.
In my experience most CA software is notoriously buggy and I had plenty of problems with Control IT on NT 4.0 servers and workstations and have stopped using it altogether.

Hello,

I have experimented wtih PC any where and VNC ( free software). Package build have issue when you build a update package aand have to choose the the version, it shows all the version for all objects...

I use the website gotomypc.com its monthly subscription and works like a charm you donot require any thign from the cleitn machine You can be any where on any machine as long as you have internet connection and gotto their web site and start workign thru that....

I hope it helps

I'm with Sebastian. Using a Citrix box for development works great.
Dave

Hi,

I saw your response and I wanted to know how you are using Windows Termimal Services. I would like to do Full package builds from home and JDE says that I can't. I would rather not have to drive to work on the weekend just to spend 10 minutes building and submitting a package. I have a plan that I am testing this weekend, but if WTS is working great for you, I would like to try that as well. Our WTS is not on our DS, is yours?

My plan is to use PCAnywhere to get to my machine on my desk and then use Altiris to remote control the deployment server.

I know that there are alot of CNC techies out there that are not giving up their weekends for a package build.

Thanks in advance for your input
Stephanie

Hi,

I run all our full package builds from home. I use VPN connection via
PcAnywhere to my fat client and then use a VNC program to connect to the
deployment server. I also will deploy packages to the enterprise and logic
servers and some fat clients while connected from home.


Dave Rammer
Sheboygan County IS Dept
XE u/2 w/SP21 and J1 oneoff / Ent: HP9000 11i / Oracle 8.1.7.3 / App: W2K
New metaframe: W2K w/Citrix XP FR2 Old metaframe (still some
users): NT4 w/Citrix 1.8

Hi Sri,

Usually, VNC, Daneware, and PCAnywhere are your basic remote "solutions" for doing CNC admin (although the citrix solution sounds good as well). However, VNC does not allow you do apply ESUs as you'll typically get errors in your workbench. Also, you'll have to take into consideration that builds will generally run longer on the AS/400 than with any other platform.

I do not agree with Mike about building packages on 400 takes longer than other plaforms. If you setup your sub-systems and the memory pools properly you can get this done under 2.5 hrs for a full package on a peak time. But all depents on the 400 configurations as well.

I would agree with Z, but 2.5 hours is a bit of a stretch. We have one of
the fastest AS/400s (870 16-way) on the market and we see our full builds at
around 6 hours.


Joshua

I use PCAnywhere or Windows Terminal Services on the deployment server. Actually I just finished installing ERP 8, SP22 and ERP Update 1 via Windows Terminal Services. I encountered no issues.


Colin

Re: RE: Remote Pacakge Build

Perhpaps Z was talking about just the AS400 build time and not the total package build time. We just changed our job queue to multi-thread and the AS400 build time went from almost 6 hours to about 2.5 hours (just the AS400 build). The total build time has been cut almost in half.

Re: RE: Remote Pacakge Build

tgore,

how many CPU's do you have in your 820 and how many MAX ACTIVE JOBS do you have on your package build queue?

Colin