Configuration Management
Contemporary enterprise software, including ClickSoftware’s ServiceOptimization Suite, must be highly adaptable to not only accommodate the variety of IT applications in use today, but to also model the diversity of business problems and associated workflows.
To achieve such adaptability, these applications’ configurations contain thousands of parameters. Effective management of this multitude of parameters is crucial for optimal use of such software. Communicating the problems and solutions with technical support teams, deploying new application server sites, adding new functionality to an existing site… in all these cases, being able to efficiently and reliably manage the configuration does not only decrease the deployment or turnaround time, but also increases the reliability of changes and decreases the probability of productivity loss due to accidental misconfiguration.
Xoom and What It Can Do for You
Xoom (pronounced “zoom”) offers an efficient and unified approach to configuration management for ClickSoftware’s ServiceOptimization Suite.
Xoom’s entire configuration is as a single entity, allowing it to be used for the following purposes:
- Identifying differences between two configurations so support call turnaround time is dramatically decreased. In addition, the configurations of two server sites can be compared to identify why one works well and the other one does not, or to visualise how the configurations differ.
- Reliably apply configuration changes in a controlled manner using a Xoom configuration file. This process removes the need to manually perform a large number of error-prone clicks and manual entries described that are described in a configuration document. This capability virtually eliminates accidental misconfiguration, and, offers a far less destructive disaster recovery process following a misconfiguration. When compared to a full restore from backup files, which would normally lead to a partial loss of recent operational data, Xoom presents an extremely low risk solution.
- Automatic identification of dependencies between different settings enabling, for the first time, a detailed analysis including highlighting broken dependencies and unused settings, alongside visualising the relationships between settings.
- Rapid creation of customisable reports summarising different aspects of the configuration, offering an efficient new way for understanding and troubleshooting.
Migrating settings between environments …
With Xoom’s Settings Migration Tool, you can export an environment’s settings, in whole or in part, from one instance and import them directly into another. This makes it easy to reliably deploy settings from a test environment into the production environment, quickly create new test environments, and to deploy new production sites.
On import, the differences between the saved and current settings are visualised and dependencies are resolved to ensure that the settings are imported keeping the configuration consistent at all times.
Creating and using a configuration log …
The Xoom Logging Agent saves the configuration at predetermined times.
The Xoom Logging Panel is used to visualise the timeline of the recorded changes.. Ordinarily, Xoom allows the previous configuration to be restored, providing a quick and safe recovery mechanism in the unlikely event that data irregularities or errors occurred when configuration changes were applied.
And much more!
Xoom is continually being developed and enhanced to improving usability, stability, safety and performance. New capabilities are regularly added based on internal innovations and customer feedback.
Xoom in Technical Terminology
ClickSoftware’s ServiceOptimization Suite is a complex set of products built on top of a unified architecture. Its configuration has many heterogeneous elements maintained in different ways, including using file management, the structure tool, and other administrative tools. Some settings can be accessed and changed programmatically, while others are restricted to the point-and-click interfaces. Xoom presents this multifaceted configuration as a single entity that can be saved, analysed and, changed in a unified way. In the process of unifying the presentation, Xoom also identifies the interdependencies between different settings.
Configurations are represented in an industry standard XML format that allows the use of widely available tools and code libraries to further analyse the configuration and to extract the information. XPath and XSL are used widely within Xoom to implement configuration queries and reports.
Xoom provides the ability to programmatically change most parts of the configuration, giving your organisation peace of mind, while saving time and resources.
