It has been a while since I’ve posted – busy with school and work, sorry!
PeopleSoft Test Framework – nice tool I guess; been thru the training but it’s not the easiest thing to set up.
First of all – some basic ground rules. This is a client based application written in .NET. Shocking I guess. This means this runs only on a Windows machine.
Next, it makes connections thru the HTTP layer to an application server-based on node definitions that need to be set up properly in Integration Broker.
Oh – and by the way – the documentation for setting up PTF in Integration Broker consists of one line – ‘if you have an issue, contact your IB specialist’.
PTF depends on the ANONYMOUS Node to work. And if that node isn’t set up right, heck if IB isn’t set up right then PTF ain’t gonna work.
So, after having to get it going in a couple of environments I’m going to get into what has worked for me – there may be steps you find redundant dear reader – my apologies ahead of time…
First of all – get yourself a copy of this document from Oracle:
E-IB: How to Setup Integration Broker after Copying a Production Database on PeopleTools 8.48+ [ID 1115623.1]
This document has a lot of very useful information on setting up IB when copied from your Prod to another environment. That seems to be the most difficult situation – and is where I had the most challenges. Like me, you are likely NOT going to be using PTF in your production environment – it will need to have connections to your development and QA sites.
So, let us get started. This is going to take some time, so get yourself a cup of coffee. And remember – just as in The Hitchhikers Guide – DON”T PANIC.
These steps work whether or not you have a fresh copy from your production environment – don’t worry if you are doing this in a database that has been around for a while.
Shut down your application server. If you don’t know how to do that, now is the time to get your sys admin involved – and ask questions, pester him or her on how to do it.
Once that is complete, log into App Developer, and open Data Mover. You want to run a script named appmsgpurgeall.dms. The script can be found in the PS_HOME\scripts directory on your file server – this does a purge of messages that were left over from the source location.
Once that is done clear the cache from the app server instance you are working in, then restart it.
Okay, the app server is now up and running. Open up your database instance in your browser of choice. Go to PeopleTools, Integration Broker, Integration Setup. Open up Nodes – you should have a default Local Node that has been defined. If this is a fresh copy from production this is the easiest – but if it isn’t I’ll also cover that.
Open the node – in any situation it will have the following checked off:
Default Local Node, Local Node, Active node. You should also find the check boxes grayed out.
So far so good. If this is a copy from production do a rename of this node to whatever it is you need to name it to for your environment. If this is an older copy, your node has been already renamed but PTF does not work and you have decided it’s due to Integration Broker – guess what. You are also going to be doing a rename. But I’ll get to that one later…
For those with nice clean environments – do a rename, then save. You should at this point exit out of your session – clean your browser cache and log back in. Navigate back to Nodes, there is more work to do.
Those of us with buggered up environments – this is what I’ve done to set it right. You need to know what the prior default node name was. If you don’t know for sure look in this table: PSIBRTNGDEFN. You need to look up values in these elements – RECEIVERNODENAME or SENDERNODENAME. Don’t get tempted to do a SQL update in this table – the IB team at Oracle PeopleSoft advised that was not a best practice.
Armed with the prior name of the node – do a rename to the previous name. Yes, it’s counterintuitive – but this does work. Let’s cover the rest of the steps tho before you actually do it. First you have found out the prior name of the node, and then rename the default node name back to what it was. After that is saved you should just exit out of the session. Shut down the app server, then with Data Mover run the appmsgpurgeall.dms script. This part is critical – you need to purge any messages that were running in the background. Clear out cache again in the App Server, then restart it. Open up your browser – then do yourself a favor and clean out your local cache again.
Log into your database instance – go back to Nodes. And now rename the node to what you want. Yep, repeat the same steps again – log out, shut down app server, run the Data Mover script, clean out app server cache, clean out your browser cache, then log back in.
What is going on in the background are App Engine jobs resetting Routings and Service Operations. Let PeopleSoft do this work for you – it is a lot cleaner than you doing it manually.
Okay, we’ve done a lot at this point. This post is getting long and I think I’m going to cover the rest in another one. Besides, at this point you probably need another cup of coffee so see you in the next one.
Next post(s) we cover the rest of IB basic setup, the awesome Anonymous node, and a few odds and ends of PTF security.