PDA Management with IBM Tivoli Configuration Manager

Chapter 4. Managing pervasive devices 153

Adobe Acrobat software has been added to the Tivoli Inventory database

correctly. The WINCE_FILE_QUERY is located under the

PERVASIVE_QUERY library.

Figure 4-59 Results of the WINCE_FILE_QUERY

4.5 Weekly distribution of the price and stock list

This section describes the methodology of the weekly upgrade of the price and

stock list PDF file. In order to update all the pervasive devices with a new price

and stock list every week, it is necessary to create and distribute a software

package containing the proper price and stock list every week. After that it is also

necessary to verify the success of the process. Since we have already shown

how to create, distribute, and verify the distribution of a software package for

each of the devices, we will talk only about the high-level design here.

On the Friday before the first business day of the week, we receive one PDF file

containing the price and stock information. The naming convention for this PDF

file is pricelist[yyyymmdd].pdf. As requested, we do not overwrite the old price list

files, because the sales department sometimes has to refer to information from

the previous weeks. We also would like to keep the history of the distributions

and the weekly distributed packages on track by not deleting the old packages

for a six-month period of time.

Note: Since we used the integrated installation of IBM Tivoli Configuration

Manager 4.2, the inventory query libraries are created automatically during the

installation. To locate them on the Tivoli Desktop, go to the default created

Policy Region (in our case it is itcmpda-region).

154 PDA Management with IBM Tivoli Configuration Manager

Therefore, the following tasks need to be performed by the Tivoli operations

team:

򐂰 Create the software packages containing the pricelist[yyyymmdd].pdf file. You

need to create one software package for each device platform, since the file

device object settings are different. Alternatively, this step can be sped up by

using a software package definition file as a template.

򐂰 Copy the ready-made .spb file to the source host or, where applicable, import

it directly from the preparation site.

򐂰 Create the new Profile Managers for the new software packages, one Profile

Manager per device platform. Following the naming convention in this case

study, the name of the Profile Managers will be:

pm.pervasive_devices.swd.[plaform_type].pricelist^yyyymmdd

򐂰 Create the software package objects and import the software packages.

Following the naming convention in this case study, the name of the software

package objects will be:

sp.pervasive_devices.swd.[plaform_type].pricelist^yyyymmdd

򐂰 Subscribe the relevant resource group to the already created Profile

Managers.

򐂰 Test the distribution.

򐂰 Check and assign the newly registered devices to the existing resource

groups.

򐂰 Initiate the distributions.

򐂰 Follow up the result by checking the Software Distribution log files, issuing the

wwebgw -l @<TWG_hostname> command.

򐂰 Alternatively most of these steps can be automated by using scripts instead of

performing these operations manually.