LCG Grid Deployment - CERN ROC

Remedy / GGUS interface : FAQ

This FAQ page is mainly addressed to Service managers who, within the GD and FIO groups, use to receive Remedy-PRMS tickets opened by the Grid Global User Support.

We are not going here to explain the "raison d'etre" of the interface nor the technical details of its implementation. But in order to better understand the interaction between the two systems (and so accept some of the answers given), it may be useful to think to the GGUS system as a normal user of Remedy , submitting request for support.

Q: I have received an e-mail from ar admin [arsystem@sunar01.cern.ch] . Is it connected to a GGUS ticket?

A: If the Remedy ticket was generated by a GGUS ticket this is clearly specified in the subject. Normally with the notation " GGUS-Ticket-ID " . If you don't find this information you can be (almost) sure that you will have to deal only with Remedy.

Q: Why the subject says "assigned to ROC CERN" if the ticket is assigned to me?

A: All the information reported in the subject of a Remedy opened by GGUS contains information coming from the GGUS system; e.g. a subject like

CT376633  assigned to ROC CERN Support  ("job status problem - GGUS-Ticket-ID: 
#14665 - ASSIGNMENT ") - (ROC CERN  -  Medium  priority)

gives information about GGUS ticket ID assignment, and priority in GGUS when the ticket was assigned to the Cern ROC the first time. Subsequent assignments, ticket ID and priority in Remedy are, in general independent Note: consider that even if the Remedy ticket is assigned to your service, the corresponding GGUS ticket will remain assigned to the ROC until the closure of the two.

Q: How do I get a Remedy account?

A: If you have received an e-mail from ar admin you are very likely to have already a remedy account set. If you don't remember to have requested it, ask to Nick, Maite, Harry, or send an e-mail to remedy.support@cernNOSPAMPLEASE.ch

Q: How do I Connect to Remedy?

A: The server to connect to is sunar01. You can connect with the following methods

1. Using the windows terminal server client Use the "Terminal Server Client" from inside the "Applications/Internet" menu at the top left of your screen. On the connecting window
   • in the "General" tab set the computer to "cernts.cern.ch", domain to "CERN" and client hostname to the hostname of the machine you are using.
   • In the "Display" tab
     • you can change the resolution of the screen. The suggested resolution for nodes in the ROC room is "1280x960".
     • change the Colour to "True colour (24 bit)"
2. From command line

   rdesktop cernts -a 15 -g 1280x1024
      

3. Using the browser
   Remedy web interface

Q: Should I use Remedy or GGUS to handle my ticktes?

A: Unfortunately, for the time being, you may have to use them both. There are, in fact, some known issues in the interface which makes impossible, while dealing with a Remedy ticket opened by GGUS:

1. to change the status of a Remedy ticket (e.g. to close it) using GGUS
2. to communicate with an end-user using Remedy
3. to re-assign a ticket to a different GGUS support unit using remedy

Q: How can I add a comment to a Remedy ticket not assigned to me

A: If you don't want to re-assign the ticket to yourself you can add a entry in the worklog, but you need first to configure your client as follows:

"User Prefereces" (link on left bottom) --> Set "Auto Assign" to 'No'

Q: How the comments I do in a Remedy ticket are mapped in the corresponding GGUS ticket?

A:

• Entries in the Reply box will go in the history of the GGUS ticket as public _ comments and in the _internal diary
• Entries in the Worklog will be added in the internal diary

All comments made in GGUS will be added in the worklog of the Remedy ticket

Q: How do the changes in the status of a Remedy ticket reflect on the corresponding GGUS ticket?

A: Changes in the status done in Remedy are translated in GGUS in the following way

status in Remedy	status in GGUS
Assigned (to CERN ROC)	Assigned
Assigned(to a support unit)	In progress
Open	In progress
On hold	Waiting for reply
Fixed	Solved
Closed	Solved

Note that the corresponding changes in GGUS are not automatically done in the reverse way.

Q: How do the changes in the status of a GGUS ticket reflect on the corresponding Remedy ticket?

A: Changes in the status of a GGUS ticket are not reflected in the status of a Remedy ticket. That is a consequence of the fact that GGUS is seen by Remedy as a "normal" user, which is not entitled, in principle, to change the status of any tickets in the system, even if submitted by himself. If a change is needed itn the status of a Remedy ticket this will have to be done manually.

Q: I (or somebody else) closed a ticket in GGUS. What should I do with the corresponding Remedy ticket?

A: The closure, as any other change in the status of a GGUS ticket, is not reflected in the status of a Remedy ticket. In this case the Remedy ticket will have to be closed manually. When you close the Remedy ticket it is better to de-select the Notify flag in the reply box . If you don't, the state transition in remedy would be sent to GGUS and would appear in the history as a late comment after the closure

Q: I (or somebody else) re-directed a GGUS ticket to a different support unit. What should I do with the corresponding Remedy ticket?

A: The GGUS support units are in general not represented in Remedy. So, if a ticket gets assigned to a different support unit other than the CERN ROC, for the CERN service administrator's purposes, that Remedy ticket has to be considered as fixed. In this case the Remedy ticket will have to be closed manually. When you close the Remedy ticket you should pay extreme attention to de-select the Notify flag in the reply box . If you don't, the state transition in remedy would be sent to GGUS and the GGUS ticket would be closed even if assigned to a different support unit, which is usually perceived as an annoying interference between ROCs

Q: I need to make a question to the end-user: can I do it through Remedy?

A: Unfortunately not. This feature has been requested, but it was not implemented yet. So if you need to contact the user you should use the mail to submitter feature of GGUS. Be aware that using the Reply to User box in Remedy will not have the same effect. In fact when you are "replying to user" in Remedy you are actually talking to the GGUS user, which would treat your question as a comment and put it in the GGUS ticket's history. Now, by default, people submitting GGUS ticket are not registered to be notified of every update. So it is very likely that, using Remedy, your question gets unnoticed by the end user.

Q: I fixed a Remedy ticket some time ago and now it appears again in my intray in "Ficed" status: What does it mean?

A: Assuming that the Remedy ticket was correctly closed and the corresponding GGUS ticket set to "solved", what couls have happened is that the GGUS ticket was updated after some time (e.g. an update with a post-mortem comment, a re-opening). If it happens within five days after the Remedy ticket was fixed, it is somehow "re-opened", in the sense that the automatic procedure that should close it after five days is re-set. This is very ususla to happen to tickets opened by the CODs. These tickets, after being closed by the ROCs, are often subject to comments and state transitions due to the interface with the CIC portal. In this case the best and safer thing is to have another look to the ticket, understand the change that was made after the closure and, if there is no need to re-open it, set again to "fixed" with a comment in the worklog. It is definitely preferable to de-select the Notify flag in the reply box unless you don't want this comment to be recorded in the history.

Unfortunately not. This feature has been requested, but it was not implemented yet. So if you need to contact the user you should use the mail to submitter feature of GGUS. Be aware that using the Reply to User box in Remedy will not have the same effect. In fact when you are "replying to user" in Remedy you are actually talking to the GGUS user, which would treat your question as a comment and put it in the GGUS ticket's history. Now, by default, people submitting GGUS ticket are not registered to be notified of every update. So it is very likely that, using Remedy, your question gets unnoticed by the end user.

-- Main.aretico - 27 Oct 2006