Table Of Contents

Overview of Common Services

What's New In This Release

Understanding Time Zone Settings

Learning More About Common Services

Overview of Common Services

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CiscoWorks Common Services (Common Services) represents a common set of management services that are shared by CiscoWorks applications. CiscoWorks is a family of products based on Internet standards for managing networks and devices. All CiscoWorks products use and depend on Common Services.

Common Services provides a foundation for CiscoWorks applications to share a common model for data storage, login, user role definitions, access privileges, security protocols, as well as navigation.

Common Services creates a standard user experience for all management functions. It also provides a common framework for all basic system-level operations such as installation, data management including backup-restore and import-export, event and message handling, and job and process management.

Common Services provides a set of new features required to give the CiscoWorks applications a common look and feel. The CiscoWorks home page replaces the existing desktop.

Common Services enables sharing of critical information among the various products, and provides a new framework for delivering timely support of new devices. In addition, it supports new platforms, and provides enhanced security mechanisms.

This chapter contains the following sections:

•What's New In This Release

•Understanding Time Zone Settings

•Learning More About Common Services

What's New In This Release

The following are the new features and enhancements in Common Services 3.2:

•Third Party Tools and Software Changes

•Aggregated Device Center

•New User Interface to Configure and Schedule Log File Rotation

•Multiple Device Discovery Jobs With Multiple Device Discovery Settings

•Adding Discovered Devices to a Group

•Device Type Selector for SysObjectID Filter

•Enhancements to Common Services Device Discovery

•Common Services Device Discovery Logging

•Enhancements to Audit Log Reports

•Enhancements to Server Administration

•Device Allocation Summary Portlet

Third Party Tools and Software Changes

The following are the third party tools and software changes in Common Services 3.2:

•JRE Upgrade

Common Services 3.2 ships JRE 6.0 Update 3 (JRE_6u3) along with JRE 1.5.0_13. The JRE version 1.4.2_12 has been discontinued in this release.

•Upgrade to Sybase ASA version

Earlier Common Services shipped iAnywhere version 9.0.2.

In this release, Common Services ships Sybase ASA 10.0.1 on both Windows and Solaris.

See Installing and Getting Started With CiscoWorks LAN Management Solution 3.1 for more details on third party tools and software changes.

Aggregated Device Center

Earlier, in a multi-server environment, Device Center listed the device details only when it was managed by any one of the applications in local server. Device Center did not display the device summary, tools and management task links for the devices that were managed by remote servers in the same DCR domain.

In this release, Device Center is enhanced to:

•Display a device in Device Selector although it is not managed by applications installed in local server.

•Display aggregated summary of a device that is managed in all applications installed in all servers in a DCR domain.

You must set up all the servers in SSO domain to get maximum benefit from this functionality.

See Using Device Center for more information.

New User Interface to Configure and Schedule Log File Rotation

Earlier, the log files rotation feature was available only through CLI.

In this release, Common Services provides a new user interface to configure and schedule log files rotation.

You can configure the log rotation for a specified size and compression format. You can also schedule immediate or periodic log rotation jobs.

See Administering Common Services for more information.

Multiple Device Discovery Jobs With Multiple Device Discovery Settings

Earlier, you were able to configure Device Discovery jobs with only one set of Device Discovery Settings. You could not create schedules with different Device Discovery settings.

In this release, you can create multiple Device Discovery schedules with different Device Discovery settings.

See Scheduling Device Discovery for more information.

Adding Discovered Devices to a Group

In the earlier releases, the devices were directly added to DCR at the end of Device Discovery. Because of this, there was difficulty in getting the list of recently discovered devices and updating the device credentials.

In this release, you can add the discovered devices to a selected group at the end of discovery. You can later select the devices in the group that you have configured and update device credentials.

See Discovering Devices for more information.

Device Type Selector for SysObjectID Filter

Earlier, when configuring a sysObjectID filter, you needed to enter the value of sysObjectID.

In this release, a device type selector is provided which allows you to select a sysObjectID of a device easily.

See Discovering Devices for more information.

Enhancements to Common Services Device Discovery

The following enhancements in Common Services Device Discovery are available in this release:

•The Jump Router Boundaries option is available for CDP module. This option extends the discovery set by routers in the network.

•Earlier, discovery information is maintained only for the module that first discovered the device although many modules were used for Device Discovery.

Now, Device Discovery maintains information about all modules.

See Discovering Devices for more information. 

Common Services Device Discovery Logging

In this release, Common Services provides the option to enable debugging for only selected Device Discovery modules and components. This eliminates the need to store the debug messages for all Device Discovery components in a log file.

Enhancements to Audit Log Reports

Earlier, in ACS mode, you were not able to view the Audit reports from CiscoWorks Server that were generated in non-ACS mode.

In this release, you can now view all Audit reports that are created in both non-ACS mode and in ACS mode from CiscoWorks Server.

See Viewing Audit Log Report for more information.

Enhancements to Server Administration

The following are the changes to Server Administration tasks:

•Earlier, core dump files that were created after an abnormal process termination, were stored with the same names. This resulted in overwriting of core files.

In this release, the core dump file names are controlled. The executable filename of the program and runtime process ID is now appended to the core file name. See Managing Processes for more information.

•You can now enable e-mail attachments in the mails from CiscoWorks Server when scheduled jobs are complete. See Modifying System Preferences for more information.

Device Allocation Summary Portlet

Earlier, you were not able to get the manageability status of devices that were managed by any CiscoWorks application in any server in the DCR domain.

In this release, a Device Allocation Summary Portlet is introduced which lists the manageability status of all devices.

See User Guide for CiscoWorks LMS Portal 1.1 for details.

Additional Information Online

You also see the new features and enhancements in the previous releases of Common Services available in Cisco.com.

For details on new features and enhancements in Common Services 3.1, see:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/net_mgmt/ciscoworks_common_services_software/3.1/user/guide/cs31ug.html

For details on new features and enhancements in Common Services 3.1.1, see:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/net_mgmt/ciscoworks_common_services_software/3.1.1/user/guide/cs311book.html

Understanding Time Zone Settings

Common Services and associated CiscoWorks application suites support many time zones. However, applications that have scheduling and reporting functions, and applications that produce or use time stamps vary based on:

•Server and client—Time stamps can differ between server and client if they are located in different time zones.

•Platforms—Windows and UNIX servers support different time zones and are not synchronized.

For detailed information, see the Release Notes included with your CiscoWorks applications.

Learning More About Common Services

You can find detailed information on the features and functions of CiscoWorks Common Services in the following chapters:

•Interacting With CiscoWorks Home Page

•Using Common Services Home

•Configuring the Server

•Managing Device and Credentials

•Administering Groups

•Using LMS Setup Center

•Using Device Center

•Working With Software Center

In addition, the Online help included with Common Services provides explanations and procedures for the related tasks.

You can launch the Online help from the CiscoWorks home page. Go to the CiscoWorks home page and click Help on the top right side of the window to launch the Online help.

For tips about accessing Online help, see Using Online Help.

You can check the version details and licensing information about Common Services by clicking the About button located at the top right of the CiscoWorks home page.