Opalis Integration Server includes the following components:
- Action Server - The engine that runs Policies. Action Servers communicate with the Datastore. Action Servers do not require a Management Server to be online to be able to run Policies. You can deploy a single Action Server or multiple ones.
- Management Server - The central manager of Clients, Action Servers, Policies, the Policy Testing Console, and the Self Monitoring functionality. The Management Server deploys Integration Packs to Action Servers and Clients, deploys Policies to Action Servers, and acts as a communication link between the Clients, the Action Servers, and the Datastore.
- Client - The tool used by designers to create, modify,and deploy Policies.
- Operator Console - The Operator Console enables you to see which Policies are currently running, view their real-time status, and start or stop them from a browser console interface.
- Policy Testing Console – The tool used by designers to test Policies that are developed in the Client before they are deployed.
- Datastore - The Datastore is the Oracle or SQL Server database where configuration information, Policies, and logs are stored.
System requirements for Opalis
You need a Windows 2003 machine with SQL 2005 or 2008. Windows 2008 is sadly enough not yet supported.
Let’s start with the FUN part!
The Install Opalis Integration Server splash screen guides you through the four steps of installing Opalis Integration Server. Complete the following steps in the same order as they are listed on the splash screen:
Click Install the Management Server in step 1 of the Install Opalis Integration Server splash screen.The Management Service Setup screen appears.
Type your name and your organization’s name in the respective fields, then select which users on your computer will have access to the application.
Click Next. The Destination Folder page appears.
Type the user name (DOMAIN\Username format) and password that the Management Service and Operator Console Service will use.
Opalis Integration Server automates tasks across the entire server architecture. This type of automation requires high levels of access permissions. It is imperative to restrict access to the Action Server and Management Server computers such that only authorized administrators may alter the settings on these computers. So don’t put in a domain admin. It is imperative to restrict access to the Action Server and Management Server computers such that only authorized administrators may alter the settings on these computers.
That’s why Microsoft recommends the following:
- restrict interactive login access to local administrators group only
- Add only the minimum necessary users to the local admin group
Click Next. The Ready to Install the Application page appears.
Click Next. The Management Service is installed. When the wizard has finished the installation, click Finish. The Install Opalis Integration Server splash screen appears.
The Management Server installation program installs the following items:
- The Management Server service and all related library files.
- The Database Configuration utility.
- The License Manager utility.
- The Deployment Manager.
- The Self Monitoring components.
- The Audit Trail components.Let’s install the datastore now. The Database Configuration utility prepares the database where Opalis Integration Server stores information about your Policies. This database is called the Datastore. That’s the database where configuration information, Policies, and logs are stored.
When setting up the datastore you can choose between an Oracle server or a SQL server. In my lab environment I only have a SQL so I’m going to install the datastore or database on my sql server.
Click Configure the Datastore in step 2 of the Install Opalis Integration Server splash screen. The Database Configuration dialog appears.
On the Database Type page Type tab, select the Microsoft SQL Server option and click Next. The Server Details page appears.
In the Server field, type the name of the server that is running the SQL Server database that will host the Datastore. Do not use 'localhost' or '127.0.0.1'.
Create a new database - Select this option to create a new Management Database and type a name for this database.
Licenses provide information to the Management Server about the number of users, Action Servers, and satellites that you can run. A satellite license is a license that enables Policies to interact with remote machines.
Click Import a License in step 3 of the Install Opalis Integration Server splash screen. The License Manager dialog appears.
When I wanted to import a license using the License Manager I got an error saying:cannot connect to Management Server
So I checked the Opalis Services and they where all running fine
I started debugging this issue by looking in the Opalis Log files that you can find “%programfiles%\Opalis Software\Opalis Integration Server\ Management Service\Logs'”
In the log folder you will find two different log files. One called ActionServerWatchdog.log and the other one called OpalisManagementService.log.
I will go in more detail about the logging and auditing functionalities of Opalis in a later blogpost.
Open the OpalisManagementService.log file and there you will see why I was not able to connect to the Management server. When launching the Licensemanager tool , it tries to connect to the Management Server which in turn is unable to connect to the database. In the logfile I found an error saying that the DB connection could not be opened. You can find the DB connection string in there as well.
So the thing is to make sure that the account you used as the Opalis service account has the correct permissions on the database. In my case the account “contoso\svc_opalis” didn’t had the correct permissions to connect to the database.
Create a new login for the Opalis service account and give it permission to connect to the database. Once done you will be able to launch the License Manager tool and import the Opalis Licenses. - Click Import. The Import License dialog appears.
- In the Key field, type or paste the key that was sent to you by Opalis Software Inc.
- In the License file field, type the path of the license (.lic) file that was sent to you by Opalis Software Inc., or click the ellipsis (...) button to browse for it.
- Click OK. The License Manager prompt appears.
- Click OK. The License Manager dialog appears.
- Click Close. The Install Opalis Integration Server splash screenappears.
In the last step we will install the Opalis Client.
