A binary code background rests behind a blue holographic lock with blue data points moving away ffrom its center.

There are 2 required components that ISIM (v7.0 and above) would need to operate. You would need:

LDAP Instance which stores all the user accounts and organizational data.
DB2 Instance which stores the historical and pending data.

We'll be diving in deeper on how we have best used the ISIM's DB2 for reporting, querying and troubleshooting.

Reporting

ISIM OOTB comes with a set of reports that users could generate based on requests, users, accounts, services, or audit and security. However, what if the customer is to request an ad-hoc report that is not in the list of the out-of-the-box reports. You have two options in this case:

Customize a Report through ISIM's Front End.
Create a custom query through ISIM's DB2.

I prefer option #2 as the report would only be used at the time of request and if the customer was to request a similar report in the future the customization would be simple. Option #1 is a valid option as well as you can generate a report through csv or pdf, however if the customer has no preference on file format I would chose option #2 for flexibility.

Next Steps

Before moving forward you would need a Toad for DB2 or IBM Data Studio to access ISIM's DB2. You would also need the DB2 Schema so that you would have a better understanding on what tables you would need to access.

The Report

Let's say that the customer would like to see a report that would contain the number of accounts that was created on a specific day.

There are few tables that you would need to query in this case. The PERSON table, regardless of the person type that you have created the user would exist in the person table with the default attributes of the person object class. The ACCOUNT table has all the data of every account in ISIM.

Your query would look something like this:

You can then either export the result from this query and send it to the customer or you could create your own TDI Assembly and email the report to the customer.

Troubleshooting

Throughout our experience one of the ways ISIM DB2 is used most is when there are performance issue within ISIM. The most common issue that we have faced is when ISIM is slower than normal and accessing the Admin Console or it's menu would take a significant amount of time. The reasons for these could be:

Customer Network Issue.
Resources have been re-allocated.
ISIM has more than a few pending requests.
None of the above, you would need to better investigate the issue.

Let's say in this case that you have contacted the customer and confirmed that option #1 and #2 are not the reasons why ISIM is performing poorly. The next best thing to do is and investigate #3.

Note: It's always best to start applying a solution in the non-prod environments, If you do notice the the issue is only happening in PROD and you have a full understanding of why then go ahead, otherwise don't apply a solution yet.

Solution

If you could not access the Admin Console to view the requests it would be best to go through ISIM's DB2 and do a quick query to understand the issue you are dealing with. Once you do access ISIM's DB2 you could make this request.

This would give you a better understanding of the number of requests in ISIM that are Running (R) or Not Started (I).

The number of requests could be a sign that ISIM is performing poorly. In cases where there are a few number of requests it would be best to know what those requests are. If you change the query from a select count(*) to a select * you could see the types of request that was made. Click here for more information on the PROCESS table.

Once you have a better understanding of the requests that was made and know how to replicate these requests. Then you could clear the pending requests. The best way to clear these requests is to execute the following commands IBM Technote.

There you go, once the commands have been executed the pending requests have been cleared and you should potentially notice a significant change in ISIM's performance. If in this case it doesn't resolve the performance issue you would have to investigate further.

How to Use ISIM's DB2 for Reporting and Troubleshooting

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