PBXrookie

In station admin you can do a Synchronize>Retrieve>All. Once a job is created in the Scheduler you can change the properties of the job to be weekly, monthly or whatever.
We do a weekly retrieve and a weekly reconcile but we try to do all the changes through OTM to avoid problems. We had bunch of conflicts between the Corporate dir and CPND and Station and ended up rebuilding all the systems.

Cflynt

Thanks that is what I was looking for. I wasn't sure that it would take it if I tried to mess with the job that was already scheduled. My question to you though is what do you mean that you had to rebuild all of the systems? Do you mean that you had to rebuild OTM or did it do something to the switches? Basically what do you mean about what kind of conflicts you had and was it anything I need to be watching out for.

Thanks again for your hellp.

Chad

PBXrookie

We were told to strictly use OTM to make changes to avoid corrupting the databases, particularly CPND. The vendor told us that with MAT you could make a CLI change and then do a retrieve to update MAT but with OTM there was a danger of corrupting databases. We had a bunch of TN's change name in Station Admin and CPND. We were told the best way to make a name change on a set was to hit the directory button and change the name on the employee record.
The databases couldn't be repaired through Access so we re-installed OTM and rebuilt all the sites in OTM.
We are upgrading to OTM 2.0 soon and I'm wondering if they changed the way you can move a set. In MAT all you had to do was put an "x" or something on the location to make it unique and then change the TN. In OTM 1.2 you had to change the TN to a spare and transmit the change. Has there been any change to that process?

Machivelli

First let me apologize for replying two weeks after the fact … better late then never!

Ok, here’s the scoop on OTM. The Rook is half right and half wrong in his posts. YES Nortel’s official stance is that if you are using OTM, then you MUST USE OTM FOR ALL ADDS MOVES AND CHANGES. I.E. Anything that has you in LD’s 10-12 and 95. Reason being, OTM was not designed to be a “Backup” database to store information about your sets. It’s supposed to be you’re “Primary Interface” to the PBX. And for those few of you out there with CSE1K’s it’s the ONLY way Nortel will support said changes. I’ll get back to telling you the exact reasons for not flip flopping between OTM and the System Terminal, after I dispute Rook on his MAT analogy…

NO, it was not supported in MAT to make changes on the PBX and then have them retrieved into MAT by using either the Retrieve – All, or Reconcile. Back to the whole back up thing, MAT wasn’t designed to do this either. Station Admin didn’t change from MAT to OTM, the same problems exist in both. Those out there that think that key or feature change you made on the CEO’s set was updated in MAT, haven’t been paying close attention. The parse routine in Station Admin, both MAT and OTM does not compare key for key or FTR for FTR on each TN that it retrieves. Why, because it thinks it’s the master database (Nortel LOVES saying that) so why should it update itself, if it already has that TN in its database, it moves on. A Reconcile will pick up if you’ve outed a TN, but not much more. The only way to get the databases to match is to wipe out the databases and let MAT rebuild them, and then re-sync with the PBX. JOY!!

Back to OTM! The beast of the problem with OTM is the Employee Editor (Selector, what ever you want to call it). It now controls all of the CPND data, which is not easily updated in a reverse manner. Granted if you take a couple extra steps you can do the same thing in OTM that we did in MAT. This is to again blow away the databases and rebuild. Granted if you’ve built you’re Organizational Hierarchy or added any unique information in the Employee Editor it will be lost, just like you lost the “Admin” data if you rebuild in MAT. And NO I will not post how to rebuild the Station Admin/CPND database’s in OTM in this forum. My brothers back in the MerApps group would have me SHOT on sight! Granted that doesn’t mean you can’t PM me or Email me. Oh wait, let me add my old Military Disclaimer. I can neither confirm nor deny this information if requested.

<YOU Know you miss me Chris, life’s to boring without me around to stir up the hive LOL>

Cflynt

Thanks for your reply. That helps out a lot. Also of course adds fear! But unless upgrading our server will increase the speed of our OTM I don't forsee us using it for major station admin anyways due to how slow it is. Obviously will still use it for our ITG stuff. And Corporate Directory, and will continue with the database backups although you say it isn't the same, but just as an extra measure along with what we are currently doing manually. But might just have to leave Station Admin alone if it has the possibility of screwing things up. I will let it continue to retrieve and reconcile weekly to keep Corporate Directory up to date but will steer clear of Station admin until more is learned about it or if they come out with a better version that coincides better with CLI.

Thanks for your input.

Chad

gwebster

What is your network connection between your local PC (on which you are trying to access WebAdmin) and the OTM WebServer? Also what is the network connection between the OTM and the Meridian 1? If you ping between the components, are the response times acceptable?

Cflynt

I am on 100Mb to a Cisco 48 port switch which is ran Gigabit over to our Cisco core switch and Gigabit back to another 48 port Cisco switch which has one port off of it going to our Business Policy Switch that has 3 VLANS for ITG and a Trunk port into a Cisco Router for the VLAN Tagging. The OTM Server is off of one of the VLAN ports on the BPS. If I ping my OTM Server from my personal pc all response times are <1ms. Need any more info hehe! My OTM Server is an IBM Netfinity 4500R xSeries 340 w/PIII 866 and 582mb of RAM. Dunno if it is wanting more of a PC or not. It is running on Windows 2000 Server SP3.

Chad

Machivelli

With regards to the slow response times when using Web Station Admin, you have to take into account a lot more then when just using the Clients Station Admin. The biggest factor is going to be IIS and how fast it can interact with the databases. IIS on it's own is not a bad web server, but it's not designed to be a racehorse when interacting with SQL engines. Gettting a faster CPU and adding more RAM "May" help, only because your giving IIS more Clock Cycles to perform it's tasks. Bumping up these two things is never a bad thing! For example two weeks ago I was at a Customers site that was using a 800MHz Server with 512Meg of RAM, not bad on the performance side, but nothing spectacular either. This week I'm at a different customer that's using a Dell PowerEdge 2550 with a 1.4GHZ CPU and 4Gigs of RAM. This puppy is screaming!! Or as I like to say "It's suckin the butt right out of the Cat!"

SPEED IS GOOOOOOOOOOD.

[Edited on 17/12/2002 by Machivelli]

Steamer

Machivelli - is there an NTP or bulletin that states this?
My understanding from the OTM manuals is that the retrieve and reconcile capabities there so we can use the TTY if we want.
Steamer