 A Community for Symantec Customers and End Users Collaborate, learn, and share ideas about Altiris' |
SEARCH Advanced |
Application PackagingAsset & CMDBDell | AltirisDeployment & MigrationEndpoint VirtualizationGhost Solution SuiteHelpdesk SolutionHP | AltirisIntel | AltirisSecurity & ComplianceWorkflow SolutionActive forum topicsUpcoming eventsRSS :: General
|
Behold, NS Analyzer!
Filed under:
Notification Server
Analysis, Reporting
 Submitted by cnpalmer75 on 24 January, 2008 - 09:40
Based on an earlier article regarding reporting of NS Solutions, I posted a comment regarding a stand alone tool which provided the same cross NS solution comparisons. Attached for your viewing pleasure is said tool. Behold, NS Analyzer!
(35 votes) |
NavigationRelated ReadingRecent comments
Top Contributors: 1 weekTop Contributors
|
What does the NS Analyzer
What does the NS Analyzer do?
This article should be
This article should be related to this link "Notification Server Version Report Pack"
NS Version Analyzer vs the NS version report pack
I wrote the executable (mentioned in this article) primarily for use by support staff, so that they could figure out which solutions were present in a customer's database. It turned out to also be handy for customers to use when keeping all their NS servers upgraded to the same levels. The executable is not as convenient to use, as it must be run on each NS host (thus the creation of the report pack)
There is a KB article that describes it in more detail, and where any potential updates to the tool will be posted.
KB 32508
Any planned updates?
Hey Scott,
Any planned updates to this?
How about any planned update to support NS 7?!
Benjamin Z. Palmer
Architect | Workspace Design | The Hartford | Simsbury, CT 06082
Re: Planned updates to the NSVA
No planned updates that I can think of (for NS6). 100% of the enhancement requests that I received were to make it more automated (thus the report pack version was created, which after the initial setup is 100% automated for production environments)
NS7 is going to much more aware of other NS servers that I'm hoping this tool will be completely redundant for non-support usage. Having said that, there's a chance that the registry lookup portion of this tool will still work on NS7, but I haven't tried it. I doubt the database query portion will work without modification.
NS Analyzer
Hello,
I ran this Utility between several servers, about 10 now as it is really helpful, and I have some questions:
- What is exactly the difference between DB and Installer?
- Where does the utility picked the information from?
I have a server where Helpdesk Solution 6.0.308 was installed and un-installed through Add/ Remove program but it still appear on the list DB Version Data, why?
In the same idea I have the Version of Alert Manager 6.0.297 which seems to be the previous version as I have NS 6.0.6074 SP3 KB34317 which, I think, has Alert Manager 6.0.308.
Let me know,
Thanks for this great tool which prevent gaps between all servers.
Dom
Re: Where does the data come from in NS Analyzer?
The quick answer is that the database entries represent what the NS thinks is currently installed (with a caveat), while the installer registry represents which installation files are present on the server host.
If your solution (Helpdesk / AlertManager) is currently functional then I'm inclined to believe the installer registry is the accurate one.
For anyone, if you haven't been moving your database around or used it for a complete rebuild on the NS, then the installer registry is your source of truth. The DB data is provided for situations when you aren't sure what's still missing on the host.
My memory is a bit rusty on the exact logic, but the database entry is written during the execution of a particular NS solution package.
There won't always be a one to one correlation between the database entries and the installer entries. Sometimes, those files you grab from the solution center (solutionsam.com) will extract themselves into multiple msi packages.
The "installer" entries are retrieved from the portion of the registry that holds all your .msi installation data. Each installer key will have a GUID that corresponds back to the Altiris section of the (Local Machine\Software\Altiris) registry. The tricky part is that the guids in the installer registry are "compacted", which requires reversing the order of each segment of the guid. I suspect MS did this to avoid search and destroy tactics.
I don't recall if the database entry is expected to be removed (probably not). NS solutions typically leave behind enough database elements to facilitate a reinstall of themselves. You can see this by looking through the Item table, there is a column "ProductUninstalled" that is consulted before using the target item (it's set to "1" on uninstall).