The At-A-Glance family of reports has been unified and new features have been added. Among them there is the introduction of information for each agent on a core (protected server, replicated server and even recovery points only), a Log Truncation column which allows linking with the first truncation event for the agent in the details section of the report and adding Rollups as a separate category which is linked from the rollup column of each agent. Moreover, the e-mail reporting can be easily setup in a dialog based feature built in the script.
All functionality of the previous reports has been encapsulated in one single PowerShell Script while keeping operation simple and consistent with the previous At-A-Glance reporting versions. -
This KB explores a few usage scenarios and links other KBs detailing specific features of the At-A-Glance reporting script. As always, ho to information can be obtained by running get-help -full.
1. The queued Deferred Deletes Jobs (and some added info) are shown in the Repository Table
2. Information related to the Deferred Deletes already executed is shown in a separate table under the Running Jobs table.
An example of the report and the script to generate it are attached to this KB.
Another feature of interest may be the ability to using a customized title.
Please note that this report is NOT backward compatible with AppAssure 5.4.x
UPDATE [January 13 2017] As of now, there are two different branches of this report. A HTML version: Jobsreport.3A.orphan.ps1 which is the 6.1 compatible version of the report and A CSV version: SimpleCSVReport.1.ps1 that allows getting a CSV list of the events recorded by one or more cores but no data aggregation is performed. Using the -fail parameter, the list is reduced to errors only. Using the -header parameter, a simple header is added. This report version was produced at customer's request, as a basis for more in depth processing as the DELL.evtx log is more of a journal and does not include all the desired data.Both script versions are attached to the KB.
PowerShell Scripting Disclaimer:
This script is provided "as is" for the purpose of illustrating how product tasks may be performed in conjunction with PowerShell. Support shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, or other damage alleged in connection with the furnishing or use of this script or of the principles it demonstrates. See PowerShell Scripting Support for more information.
Based on most common customer needs, the following usage scenarios have been prepared. Please note that Powershell 3.0 or later is needed and that the script applies to cores of the 5.4.x generation
Please note that the report can be generated for more than 24 hours by running the -days parameter.
1. Generating the At-A-Glance Report for one core only
This is a common scenario for small environments.
The Reporting Script needs to be run on the core. To generate an adhoc report, no parameters are necessary. If desired to be run on a schedule, for best practices, please use https://support.quest.com/appassure/kb/147472
To setup e-mail reporting please run the script with the -setupemail parameter as described in KB#148193 (https://support.quest.com/appassure/kb/148193)
To have the report sent via e-mail the -mail parameter needs to be used. No value is necessary for the -mail parameter.
When running on a schedule, it is recommended to use the -reportpath .html parameter so the report will be generated in a folder which can be easily accessed, without having to log in on the core (for instance -reportpath c:\AppAssureReports\Myreport.html).
Please note that the name of the report is altered to include the date trailing after the report name (for instance c:\AppAssureReports\Myreport.html becomes c:\AppAssureReports\Myreport_2015-03-01.html). This feature allows identifying and sorting generated reports by name.
If the -reportpath parameter is not mentioned, the report path is c:\users\username\downloads and the report name is __.html, for instance c:\users\johndoe\downloads\AACore1_760f2a26-d582-4989-9512-4e5dab1782a5_2015-02-25.html
2. Generating an ad-hoc At-A-Glance report from a remote workstation
This is a common scenario when desiring to check one or more cores status by generating an ad-hoc report.
To be able to generate the report, you need to have port 8006 open outbound on the workstation and to be able to resolve the name of the core or be able to access it via IP address.
To run the report use the -corenames parameter. For instance run
PS c:\>.\CondensedEvents.unified.3.x.ps1 -corenames AACore1
You will be prompted to enter the username and password in a pop-up dialog window.
The report is generated by default to is c:\users\username\downloads and the report name is __.html, for instance c:\users\johndoe\downloads\AACore1_760f2a26-d582-4989-9512-4e5dab1782a5_2015-02-25.html
A particular case is generating the report for a few cores -- for instance the source and the target core. In this case, the -corenamesparameter takes the name or IP Addresses of the cores separated by coma (no spaces). For instance, the example below illustrates generating the report for 3 cores.
PS c:\>.\CondensedEvents.unified.3.x.ps1 -corenames AACore1,10.100.192.3,AATargetCore
Please note that you will be prompted to enter the username and password for each of the 3 cores in the example above.
3. Generating a scheduled report for multiple cores with the same username and password
This is a common situation for small core environments when an integrated report for one or more cores needs to be generated on a schedule.
To be able to generate the report, you need to have port 8006 open outbound on the workstation and to be able to resolve the name of the core or be able to access it via IP address. To do this, the -username and -password parameters are to be used.
Please note that the At-A-Glance reporting script uses encoded passwords. Although this is not a true encryption, it has been adopted to keep passwords away from prying eyes without affecting the portability of the script. (True encryption is not portable from one machine to another without having the specific key).
To setup encoded passwords, please run the script with the -encodedpassword parameter as described in KB#148219 (https://support.quest.com/appassure/kb/148219)
As in most cases you would want to have the report sent via e-mail, please use KB#148193 (https://support.quest.com/appassure/kb/148193) to set e-mail reporting.
For best practices as how to run the script on a schedule, please use https://support.quest.com/appassure/kb/147472
for example, the command line for the scheduled script would look as below:
-mail -reportpath c:\myreports\MyCoresreport.html
4. Generating a scheduled report for many cores from a remote workstation.
This is a common situation for large backup domains. It has been tested with good results by creating reports for real life environments with over 125 cores.
To be able to generate the report, you need to have port 8006 open outbound on the workstation and to be able to resolve the name of the core or be able to access it via IP address.
The most common case is having the same username and password for most cores but still have quite a few with different credentials.
To solve the issue with minimal administrative effort, a cores csv file needs to be created. To do it easily, please run the script with the -createcorefile parameter as described in KB#148282 (https://support.quest.com/appassure/kb/148282)
In a nuttshell, you provide the username and encoded password as fields for some of the cores in the cores file created above and as parameters for those that share a common user name and password. For instance, if you are trying to generate a report for 100 cores and 80 share the same username and password, you enter only the core name, one per line in the cores files. For the other 20 files, you enter them in the format corename,username,encodedpassword in the cores file.
this would look like this:
corename,username,password
AACORE8,supportlab3\administrator,QQBiAGMAXwAxADIAMwA0AA==
The credentials for the cores AACORE3,AACORE4,AACORE5,AACORE6 are provided via the -username and -password parameters in the script command line
As in most cases you would want to have the report sent via e-mail, please use KB#148193 (https://support.quest.com/appassure/kb/148193) to set e-mail reporting.
For best practices as how to run the script on a schedule, please use https://support.quest.com/appassure/kb/147472
Assuming that the cores file above has been saved as c:\temp\cores.csv, the script command line would look like:
PS c:\>.\CondensedEvents.unified.3.x.ps1 -corenames -username -password-mail -reportpath
for example, the command line for the scheduled script would look as below:
PS c:\>.\CondensedEvents.unified.3.x.ps1 -corenames c:\temp\cores.csv -username mydomain\JohnDoe -password TQB5AFAAYQAxADAALgAyADMALgAyADAALgAxADUANgB3ADAAcgBkAA== -mail -reportpath c:\myreports\MyCoresreport.html
If you decide to include all the usernames and encoded passwords in the cores file, the script command lines becomes:
PS c:\>.\CondensedEvents.unified.3.x.ps1 -corenames -mail -reportpath
for example, the command line for the scheduled script would look as below:
PS c:\>.\CondensedEvents.unified.3.x.ps1 -corenames c:\temp\cores.csv -mail -reportpath c:\myreports\MyCoresreport.html
Please note that in all scenarios, if the script is unable to pull the required data, it performs some sort of basic troubleshooting, meaning that it pings the core that may have an issue and then attempts to retrieve the status of the AppAssureCore and AppAssuremongod services via WMI.
For instance, if the Repository information is retrieved but no agent events are available, There is a good chance that the AppAssuremongod service is stopped (and shown in the report). If both the AppAssureCore service and the AppAssuremongod Service are shown as unreachable despite the repository information being retrieved, this indicates that there is a WMI issue on the core which in most cases can be resolved by restarting the WMI service. If the repository information is not available but agent events are, it may be that the repository is executing a repository check and thus is not available.
A report example (generated on a few test cores in the support lab) is attached to the KB. Please use it to get a feel of the various navigation options. Please note that cores for which reports cannot be generated are shown with a red background in the cores list section.
The list of script parameters with explanations is shown below:
PARAMETERS
The current version of the script is attached to this KB.
