Commandline Interface to Blackout Schedule
In our firm sometimes an extra maintenance is planned for one of the applications we are monitoring. Normally we are informed per email, but sometimes we are forgotten. Therefore we would like to have a way to give our colleagues themselves the possibility to stop / blackout the task that is running against their application. The idea we have is to define a different blackout in every task and give our colleagues a command line or PowerShell possibility to define the blackout. Is this possible?
Best Answer
@Antoon Rodoe Hi Antoon,
I think there are two parts to your request: command-line interface and the ability to do frequent changes to your black-out schedule.
The product currently does not have a command-line interface for modifying the black-out schedule. Nevertheless, you can modify the black-out schedule by executing the Framework configuration utility, running the CVFW_Maintenance script.
You might need to have one or several robots that would be available for running the CVFW_Maintenance script. To facilitate the application blackouts, you may even consider installing an Agent on computer(s) that are used for different purposes and never schedule any scripts or autochecks on these machines.
Hope this helps.
Thank you,
Yuriy
Hello @Yuriy Look, L
Thanks for your answer!
I thought so, that there is no command line interface. I'll post an enhancement request later on.
The use of the CVFW_Maintenance script is a workaround. We didn't use the blackout function before. In this solution we would give our server guys the possibility to run this script and change the CVFW ini file (on the Agent Manager Server because a Group of agents is involved). I'll make a test if it works in our environment.
What about writing a database interface/sql script? Wouldn't it make sense to adjust the (CV)Blackout settings directly in the database?
My thoughts as well...
Edited to add: Ah, but that would also require a mechanism to publish the configuration in the database to the Agents. Just writing the config to the database will not help, only after publishing that data to the Agents will they have the updated config.
So that would still require a mechanism to trigger publishing the configuration from the command line. So I think Antoons idea makes sense.
I posted the idea here:
Please vote!
@Antoon Rodoe Hi Antoon,
Maybe you can elaborate on why command-line interface is important for you. I can guess you are looking for some kind of automation...
Thank you,
Yuriy
@Yuriy Look
Hello Yuriy,
We want to delegate the responsibility of the availability and Performance of an application (in our firm called Service) to the Group that is responsible for the application / Service itself. If they are planning a maintenance for their service, they should have the possibility to put the script tasks in a maintenance mode themselves. In our firm we are using Microsoft SCOM for the system monitoring. In SCOM they put their systems in maintenance mode. In that situation the relevant script tasks should be put in maintenance mode to. The interface between SCOM and Dynatrace Enterprise Synthetic Monitoring would be a PowerShell script or a command line call.
Antoon
@Antoon Rodoe Hi Antoon,
What you’ve put in your previous comment does not tell why GUI is not as good as command line. But, if command-line is so important to you, you can mimic what the Framework does in a separate script and take parameters of the needed action from a file. Since the maintenance utility code is available to you, this should be doable. The file can be a plain text file, a .csv, a .ini, an XML file – whatever you can parse.
To execute a script, you can use TP.exe from the Recorder installation directory with the following parameters:
-u <UserId>, usually Admin;
-p <Recorder database password>, usually admin;
-s <script name>;
-r <project name>. This parameter is optional and defaults to shared, the project that has all Framework assets.
Would this approach satisfy your needs?
Thank you,
Yuriy
@Yuriy Look
Hi Yuriy,
I'm sorry I don't exactly understand what you want to achieve with the Recorder script. My server guys don't have a Recorder installed on their PCs. Of course I can copy the blackout part of the CVFW Maintenance script and bring it in a new script. But what would that bring if our server guys cannot use it? Perhaps I’m thinking in a wrong direction.
Antoon
Hi Antoon,
This is related to my original post in this thread, specifically to this phrase:
...you may even consider installing an Agent on computer(s) that are used for different purposes and never schedule any scripts or autochecks on these machines.
Onece again, installing Agent software per se would not make the machine a robot, it can be installed on any machine should it be beneficial. Hope you now understand what I mean.
Thank you,
Yuriy
Community Member of the Month
November 2019
Announcing Dynatrace's Community Member of the Month for November 2019, Carlos J.! Click here to read more! Employee Member of the Month
November 2019
Announcing Dynatrace's Employee Member of the Month for November 2019, Hannah M.! Click here to read more! 
