CA

SOA Integration Bridge r11 Readme


1.0 Welcome

2.0 Operating System Support
2.1 Windows

3.0 System Requirements
3.1 All Operating Systems
3.2 Windows

4.0 Installation Considerations
4.1 CA Endevor Integration with CA Unicenter Service Desk
4.2 CA Harvest Integration with CA Unicenter Service Desk
4.3 CA Harvest Integration with Quality Center

5.0 General Considerations
5.1 Before Using SOA Integration Bridge
5.2 All Users
5.3 CA Harvest Integration with Quality Center

6.0 Known Issues
6.1 All Integrations
6.2 CA Endevor Integration with CA Unicenter Service Desk
6.3 CA Harvest Integration with CA Unicenter Service Desk
6.4 CA Harvest Integration with Quality Center

7.0 Published Fixes

8.0 International Support

9.0 Documentation
9.1 Release Numbers on Documentation

10.0 Contact Technical Support


1.0 Welcome

Welcome to SOA Integration Bridge r11. This file contains product installation considerations, operating system support, known issues, and information about contacting CA Technical Support.

Note: For product integration-specific installation considerations, operating system support, and known issues, see your product documentation.


2.0 Operating System Support

This section lists the operating systems supported by SOA Integration Bridge r11. CA supports these operating system for the duration of their life cycle (as determined by the operating system's manufacturer or until CA announces that we are dropping support). Visit the Technical Support website at http://ca.com/support for the latest information about supported operating systems.


2.1 Windows

SOA Integration Bridge on Windows requires the following operating system:


3.0 System Requirements

This section lists the hardware and software requirements for SOA Integration Bridge to install and run correctly.


3.1 All Operating Systems

The following software requirements must be met on all supported operating systems for SOA Integration Bridge to install and run correctly. Before you use the product, ensure that all required products for your selected integration are installed and running. For more information, see General Considerations.

Note: There is an additional Hot Fix (CA CHANGE MANAGER ENTERPRISE WORKBENCH R7.1 P0001 EFIX 161) that you must apply on top of CA CM Enterprise Workbench r7.1 Patch 1. More information about the Hot Fix, and instructions to download the Hot Fix are available on SupportConnect.


3.2 Windows

The following hardware requirements must be met on Microsoft Windows for the product to install and run correctly.

You must also meet the minimum hardware requirements for the products that comprise each integration you will be using. For example, if you will be using the CA Endevor Integration with CA Unicenter Service Desk, ensure your computer also meets the minimum hardware requirements for CA Endevor and CA Unicenter Service Desk.


4.0 Installation Considerations

Before installing SOA Integration Bridge (or any of its components), be sure to review the following sections carefully to determine if there are additional installation or configuration steps you need to follow for this release.

Note: For more information about installing and configuring SOA Integration Bridge, see the SOA Integration Bridge Solution Guide on the installation media.


4.1 CA Endevor Integration with CA Unicenter Service Desk

Consider the following information when installing the CA Endevor Integration with CA Unicenter Service Desk.


4.2 CA Harvest Integration with CA Unicenter Service Desk

Consider the following information when installing the CA Harvest Integration with CA Unicenter Service Desk.


4.3 CA Harvest Integration with Quality Center

Consider the following information when installing the CA Harvest Integration with Quality Center.

The computer on which you install CA Harvest Web Services must have the CA Harvest client installed, to enable communication between CA Harvest Web Services and the CA Harvest server.


5.0 General Considerations


5.1 Before Using SOA Integration Bridge

This section contains general information you should know before using the product:


5.2 All Users

Before using the product, ensure that the following are installed and running in your environment:

Important! Before using the product, access the Quality Center URL from the Quality Center synchronization agent computer (using Microsoft Internet Explorer) to download the DLL files required for communication between the agent and the Quality Center server. For more information, see your Quality Center documentation.


5.3 CA Harvest Integration with Quality Center

Before using SOA Integration Bridge, consider the following information:


6.0 Known Issues

This section describes known issues, workarounds, and solutions for this release of SOA Integration Bridge.


6.1 All Integrations


6.2 CA Endevor Integration with CA Unicenter Service Desk


Single Quotes in Change Order Request

Single quotes in the change order sequence number prefix or suffix causes an error when polling for updates.


Special Characters in Change Order Request

Special characters such as an apostrophe and the percent sign in the prefix or suffix value of a change order causes an error during package creation.


Change Order Category or Project Value Modification

The integration will not work if you change either the Change Order category or project value to a value not supported by the integration.


Deleting a CA Endevor Package

When you delete a package in CA Endevor, a notification will not be sent to the appropriate CA Unicenter Service Desk change order.


Change Order Summary Truncated

Due to a character field limitation in CA Endevor for a package description, if you enter a change order summary that exceeds 50 characters, the summary will be truncated after the package is created and the data synchronized.


CA Endevor Package Name

Due to a character field limitation in CA Endevor for a package name, if the package name that you want (Format String + CA Unicenter Service Desk Change order name) exceeds 16 characters, the package name will be truncated to the first 16 characters. In addition, all characters will appear in upper case and unsupported CA Endevor characters will be translated to #.


CA Endevor Package Notifications

The CA Endevor package data will be synchronized with the Change Order summary, only when the Enterprise Package associated with the CA Endevor package is executed, cancelled, backed in, or backed out.


No Message or Package Created

If you try to create a change order using a Change Order category for which an integration does not exist, you will not receive a message within SOA Integration Bridge that the package could not be created. In addition, if you try to create a change order with a project that is not part of an integration, you will receive a message in the activity log about the integration process being invoked. However, a package will not be created.


Duplicate Package Names

If an Enterprise or CA Endevor package already exists with the name that is generated by an integration, that integration will not create or link these packages back to CA Unicenter Service Desk. However, a message will be recorded in the activity log.


Time Zone

If you have a CA CM Enterprise Workbench server using Ingres as the database, and the time zone for the server is set to daylight savings time, the transaction time that you see when you create and initiate a change order in CA Unicenter Service Desk will not match the transaction time that you see for the CA Endevor and enterprise package in CA CM Enterprise Workbench (the Execution Window).

As a workaround, edit your Endevor.cfg files for the selected hosts to amend the time zone offset by one hour while daylight savings time is not in affect. For more information, see your CA CM Enterprise Workbench administrator.


Special Characters in Change Order Summary and Description

Due to a known limitation in CA Endevor, the CA Endevor package description cannot contain both quotes ( " ) and apostrophes ( ' ). When you try to create or update an integration in which both of these characters appear in the Change Order Summary, you will receive an error during package creation.


Uninstall the CA Unicenter Service Desk Agent

There is no shell script to uninstall the CA Unicenter Service Desk agent on UNIX and Linux machines. As a workaround, use these steps to uninstall the agent.

  1. Navigate to the SD_HOME/integrations/_uninst directory.

    Note: SD_HOME represents the CA Unicenter Service Desk installation directory.

  2. Set JAVA 1.5.X in the path.

  3. Run the command java -jar uninstall.jar and follow the on-screen instructions to successfully uninstall the agent.


6.3 CA Harvest Integration with CA Unicenter Service Desk


Single Quotes in Change Order Request

Single quotes in the change order sequence number prefix or suffix causes an error when polling for updates.


Change Order Category or Project Value Modification

The integration will not work if you change either the Change Order category or project value to a value not supported by the integration.


No Message or Package Created

If you try to create a change order using a Change Order category for which an integration does not exist, you will not receive a message within SOA Integration Bridge that the package could not be created. Additionally, if you try to create a change order with a project that is not part of an integration, you will receive a message in the activity log about the integration process being invoked. However, a package will not be created.


Database Error

If you create a change order with a description having a large number of characters (for example 4000), you may receive a database error in the Configurator. This can happen when the field length in the CA Harvest form cannot accept all of the characters. As a workaround, increase the form field length in the database.


CA Harvest Web Service Broker Limitation

A single CA Harvest web service cannot connect to more than one CA Harvest Change Manager broker. As a result, updates to data in CA Unicenter Service Desk may be lost. As a workaround, install one CA Harvest web service for each broker.


Unable to Start and Stop Integrations

If you are unable to start or stop an integration, or you receive an error message related to CA Harvest, try to start or stop the integration again. If this does not work, wait some time (the default time limit is 12 minutes) and then try to start or stop the integration.


Shutting Down the RT Server

If the client executes the rtserver -stop_all or rtserver -stop_client commands, the CA Harvest web service terminates harshly. We recommend that you first shut down the CA Harvest web service on the JBoss application server where the CA Harvest web service is deployed before executing these commands on the RT Server to which the web service is connected.


Uninstall the CA Unicenter Service Desk Agent

There is no shell script to uninstall the CA Unicenter Service Desk agent on UNIX and Linux machines. As a workaround, use these steps to uninstall the agent.

  1. Navigate to the SD_HOME/integrations/_uninst directory.

    Note: SD_HOME represents the CA Unicenter Service Desk installation directory.

  2. Set JAVA 1.5.X in the path.

  3. Run the command java -jar uninstall.jar and follow the on-screen instructions to successfully uninstall the agent.


6.4 CA Harvest Integration with Quality Center


Operation Error Message

While working with a CA Harvest Integration with Quality Center, you may receive an error message similar to the following:

Operation 4 not allowed

After you receive the message, CA Harvest packages and their associated Quality Center defects may become unsynchronized. For example, updates that you make to a CA Harvest form may no longer be made automatically to its associated Quality Center defect. Similarly, updates that you make to a Quality Center defect may no longer be made automatically to its associated CA Harvest form.

To re-synchronize the forms and defects (JBoss)

  1. Restart SOA Integration Bridge by performing the following tasks:

    1. Exit the open instance of SOA Integration Bridge.

    2. Access the product installation folder (for example, c:\program_files\CA\SOAIntegrationBridge).

    3. Run the SOAIB.exe file.

  2. Restart the Harvest Web Services by performing the following tasks:

    1. Navigate to the JBoss Application Server home directory.

    2. In that directory, access the bin directory.

    3. Run the shutdown.bat file.

    4. Run the run.bat file.

  3. Verify that any changes made to defects and packages since the error message was issued are properly synchronized.

  4. Verify that any new changes you make to a package or defect are synchronized automatically.


Synchronization with SOA Integration Bridge

After entering a defect in Quality Center, if you then change the setting of the Sync With SOAIB field to N, any updates made in CA Harvest will not be made in Quality Center. If you then change the Sync With SOAIB field back to Y, the latest updates from Quality Center will be made in CA Harvest. As a result, you may lose some data in CA Harvest.


CA Harvest Broker Terminates

If the CA Harvest broker process terminates or shuts down, you must restart both SOA Integration Bridge and the CA Harvest web services.


Quality Center Attachment Support

There is a known issue with the Quality Center API with downloading signature files, which impacts the Attachment support. As a result, attachment synchronization cannot be performed. In this release, do not map attachment related fields.


Custom Fields of Type Date

Custom fields of type date are not supported.


Quality Center User

After you create an integration and specify the Quality Center user name, you cannot change the user. If the user is not correct and needs to be changed, you must delete the integration and add it again with the correct user. In addition, when you create integrations that have the same domain and project, you must specify the same user name for all the integrations. If you do not, the integrations will not work correctly.


Time Zone

There is a known issue with the Quality Center server not providing time zone data correctly when mapping date fields. As a result, the synchronization agent will automatically make all Quality Center date fields read-only, even when you have not specified this in Quality Center. This means that even when a date field in Quality Center is writable, and an update comes from an integrated product, the synchronization agent will not update the date in Quality Center. As a result, when a date field is updated in Quality Center, the target tool may be updated with the incorrect date because the Quality Center server does not provide the correct time zone data.


Field Mapping of Different Lengths

When mapping fields between products that have different lengths (column lengths in the database), the data may be truncated to meet the product requirements.


CA Harvest Web Service Broker Limitation

A single CA Harvest web service cannot connect to more than one CA Harvest Change Manager broker. As a result, updates to data in Quality Center may be lost. As a workaround, install one CA Harvest web service for each broker.


Use of "&" Symbol in Memo Fields

There is a known limitation in Quality Center 8.2 SP1 when retrieving the ampersand symbol "&" from a memo field in a defect such as the Description and Comments field. When retrieving the "&" symbol, the ampersand symbol appears, followed by "amp;" instead of "&".


SOA Integration Bridge Hangs for CA Harvest UDP Process

When you create an integration between Quality Center and CA Harvest in which a non-terminating post linked UDP process has been defined for the Create Package process, and you have logged into Quality Center to create a defect, and then try to modify another integration that is already running, SOA Integration Bridge will hang until you stop the UDP process in CA Harvest. As a workaround, you can use CA Harvest to create a UDP process in asynchronous mode using the hexecp command line utility. To run the hexecp command, the computer should have the CA Harvest agent installed.

The hexecp command executes the program specified by the -prg argument, on the computer specified by the -m argument, with options specified by the -args argument. The output is directed to standard output unless a file is named using the -o option.

Note: -usr and -pw are not your CA Harvest username and password. They are the username and password for the computer on which the program will be executed.

hexecp attempts to log in to an agent. If the utility does not find an agent on the computer you have designated after the -m option, you will receive a message stating, “An agent for machinename cannot be found.” Before executing hexecp, ensure that an agent is running on the target computer.

The following is the syntax for the hexecp command:

hexecp {-b name -prg program -m machinename} {-syn | -asyn} {-usr username -pw password} [-args arguments...] [-v] [-prompt] [-i inputfile.txt | -di inputfile.txt] [-er filename] [-o filename | –oa filename] [-arg] [-wts] [-h]

-b name
(Required.) Specifies the CA Harvest broker name.

-prg program
(Required.) Specifies the full path and program you want to execute on the destination computer (-m).

-m machinename
(Required.) Specifies the name of the destination computer on which you want to execute the program.

-syn
(Required: -syn and -asyn are mutually exclusive and one is required.) Specifies synchronous mode.

-asyn
(Required: -syn and -asyn are mutually exclusive and one is required.) Specifies asynchronous mode.

-usr username
(Required, unless -prompt is specified.) Specifies the user name for login to the broker. If -usr is defined without -pw, the user is prompted for the password at runtime.

-pw password
(Required, unless -prompt is specified.) Specifies the password for login to the broker. To hide the password from being exposed in plain text on the command line, use the -prompt option.

The following sample illustrates the syntax for the hexecp command:

hexecp -asyn -prg "c:\windows\system32\notepad.exe" -b harvest-cm-qa1 -m hqatest5-2003 -usr administrator -pw abcd

To have this command execute, the computer should have the CA Harvest agent installed, because the hexecp command interacts with the program execution by logging into the CA Harvest agent. By providing -asyn in the hexecp options, you can execute a upd process asynchronously.

Note: For more information, see the CA Harvest Reference Guide.


Unable to Start and Stop Integrations

If you are unable to start or stop an integration, or you receive an error message related to CA Harvest, try to start or stop the integration again. If this does not work, wait some time (the default time limit is 12 minutes) and then try to start or stop the integration.


Shutting Down the RT Server

If the client executes the rtserver -stop_all or rtserver -stop_client commands, the CA Harvest web service terminates harshly. We recommend that you first shut down the CA Harvest web service on the JBoss application server where the CA Harvest web service is deployed before executing these commands on the RT Server to which the web service is connected.


Performance of the Quality Center Synchronization Agent

There is a known issue with the Quality Center Synchronization Agent in which the performance of the agent decreases as the number of defects increases in the Quality Center project. As a workaround, modify the integration to increase the polling interval from the default value of 30 seconds.


Quality Center API Memory Leak

There is a known issue (memory leak) with the Quality Center API while making a new connection with the server, which impacts the Quality Center Synchronization Agent. The agent consumes some extra memory after processing approximately 2000 defects. As a workaround, stop all integrations using the Quality Center Synchronization Agent, restart the agent, and start the previously stopped integrations using the agent.


7.0 Published Fixes

The complete list of published bug fixes for this product can be found through Published Solutions on SupportConnect.


8.0 International Support

For this release, only the English version of the product has been certified to run on machines supporting the English language.


9.0 Documentation

The latest guide and readme file for this product are available at http://ca.com/support.

The PDF guide for this product is titled SOA Integration Bridge Solution Guide (SOAIntegrationBridge_SolutionGuide_ENU.pdf).

To view PDF files, you must download and install the Adobe Reader from the Adobe website if it is not already installed on your computer.


9.1 Release Numbers on Documentation

The release number on the title page of a document might not correspond to the current product release number; however, all documentation delivered with the product, regardless of release number on the title page, will support your use of the current product release. The release number changes only when a significant portion of a document changes to support a new or updated product release. If no substantive changes are made to a document, the release number does not change. For example, a document for r11 may still be valid for r11.1 or even r12. Documentation bookshelves always reflect the current product release number.

Occasionally, we must update documentation outside of a new or updated release. To indicate a minor change to the documentation that does not invalidate it for any releases that it supports, we update the edition number on the cover page. First editions do not have an edition number.


10.0 Contact Technical Support

For online technical assistance and a complete list of locations, primary service hours, and telephone numbers, contact Technical Support at http://ca.com/support.


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