SupportConnect - CleverPath Newsletter, Version 05.02
  

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Computer Associates
E-News
CleverPath™ Newsletter
Version 05.02
April 19, 2005

In This Newsletter
Important Announcements
> License Patches are Now Available to Address a Potential Buffer Overflow Condition
> CleverPath™ Portal Null Exception

Product News
> CleverPath™ Forest & Trees® 7.0 Support Expiration Date Announced
> CleverPath™ Support Schedules
> Improved Customer Support through Remote Access

Product Updates
> CleverPath™ Aion® r10 is Now Generally Available
> CleverPath™ Forest & Trees® r7.1 is Now Generally Available
> CleverPath™ Reporter r4.2 Cumulative Patch is Now Available
> Advantage™ Data Transformer ODBC Scans Incomplete - Patch Available

General Information
> CleverPath™ Aion® r10 z/OS Introduces Support for XPLINK and VTAM Generic Resources
> Autofit Excel Workbooks with CleverPath™ Forest & Trees®
> Possible Memory Error Publishing From CleverPath™ Reporter to CleverPath™ Portal
> Potential Error Condition While Installing CleverPath™ Portal r4.7 With DB2 UDB
> Configuring CleverPath™ Portal r4.7 to Prevent Ingres® r3 Database Errors
> Deploying CleverPath™ Portal r4.7 With IBM's Websphere 5.x
> Using the Advantage™ Data Transformer Script Debugger
> Creating PDF Output With CleverPath™ EUREKA:Reporter™
> CA User Groups
> General Product Information
> Support Contact Information
> CleverPath™ Press

Special Events
> Upcoming Events
> Advantage™ Data Transformer Enterprise Metadata Edition Education Course Schedules
> CleverPath™ Aion® Business Rules Expert Education Course Schedules
> CleverPath™ Forest & Trees® Education Course Schedules
> CleverPath™ Portal Education Course Schedules
> CleverPath™ Reporter Education Course Schedules

 *** Important Announcements ***
License Patches are Now Available to Address a Potential Buffer Overflow Condition
Working closely with eEye Digital Security and iDEFENSE, the CA Customer Support team has resolved multiple vulnerability issues recently discovered in the CA License software. Both eEye and iDEFENSE have confirmed that these vulnerabilities have been properly addressed. CA has made patches available to any affected license users.

Buffer overflow conditions can potentially allow arbitrary code to be executed remotely with local SYSTEM privileges. This affects releases of the CA License software v1.53 through v1.61.8 on the specified platforms. Customers with these vulnerable versions should upgrade to CA License 1.61.9 or higher. CA License patches that address these issues can be downloaded by clicking here.

To verify what release of CA License software you are using, you can run the lic98version utility. For additional information, please review the FAQ document on SupportConnectSM. CA Customer Support strongly recommends the application of the appropriate CA License patch.

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CleverPath™ Portal Null Exception
CleverPath Portal users may see the following error message displayed on their web browser while traversing folders or opening documents:

     Portal Exception: Null

A solution was recently emailed to all hyper solution subscribers. For more information on the exception and how to prevent it, please see Hyper Solution QI65813 accessible from SupportConnectSM.

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Product News
CleverPath™ Forest & Trees® 7.0 Support Expiration Date Announced
With the recent release of CleverPath Forest & Trees r7.1, we have just recently announced the support expiration schedule for release 7.0. Mainstream customer support for CleverPath Forest & Trees release 7.0 will expire August 31, 2006. Your successful deployment of CleverPath Forest & Trees is very important to us. This information is being provided proactively to allow you to begin making arrangements to migrate to r7.1. CA Technical Services is available to assist in any or all parts of your migration, including analysis of the current system, preparation for the migration, testing, and performing the migration itself. For more information, please outline your needs at http://www3.ca.com/contact/. To view the support announcement letter posted on SupportConnectSM, please click here.

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CleverPath™ Support Schedules
CleverPath customers are reminded that CA's commitment to quality includes a recommendation to leverage the most current releases of our products. Our support policy includes the announcement of a support expiration notice with the general availability of newer releases. Please note that support for the following releases has recently expired:

Product Release Expiration Date
CleverPath™ Aion® Windows & UNIX 9.1 31-Jan-05
CleverPath Aion OS/390 9.01 31-Jan-05
CleverPath™ Portal 4.01 31-Mar-05
CleverPath™ Predictive Analysis Server 2.0 31-Jan-05

Please be aware that support is expiring for the following product releases within the next 8 months:

Product Release Expiration Date
Advantage™ Data Transformer & EME 2.0 30-Jun-05
CleverPath™ Reporter 4.0 30-Nov-05
CleverPath Reporter 4.0.1 30-Nov-05

For more information about CleverPath product support schedules as well as the most current releases and maintenance, please click here.

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Improved Customer Support through Remote Access
Have you ever tried to explain your software problem to a CA Customer Support engineer and wished that you had a way for us look at your environment first-hand? Well, your wish has come true!

As part of our continuing effort to improve the service we provide to you, our valuable customers, CA Customer Support now has a tool available that removes the complexities of making a remote connection to your machine. The remote connection is secure and is established within a few minutes via a web broker service. CA Customer Support can then view your desktop and share control of your mouse and keyboard. At any time during a remote support session, you can easily take control of your computer by moving the mouse. Among other things, you will be able to demonstrate directly to CA Customer Support the steps you took to create a problem or allow the CA Customer Support engineer to directly gather relevant diagnostic information from your system with your permission. To learn more, please review the information available on SupportConnectSM by clicking here.

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Product Updates
CleverPath™ Aion® r10 is Now Generally Available
Computer Associates International, Inc. (CA) is pleased to announce the general availability of CleverPath Aion r10. CleverPath Aion r10 offers comprehensive business rules and business process management, delivering unmatched benefits in the areas of productivity, flexibility, integration, and automation optimizing business efficiency. CleverPath Aion r10 delivers significant enhancements to the industry-leading CleverPath™ Aion® Business Rules Expert (CleverPath Aion BRE) product and a new, separately licensed product - CleverPath™ Aion® Business Process Manager (CleverPath Aion BPM).

CleverPath Aion BPM offers process optimization through an open, integrated package including a robust workflow engine that supports human-to-human, system-to-human, and system-to-system activities, business rules management for the business audience, and business activity monitoring with a full-featured, customizable dashboard that offers effective monitoring and reporting for ongoing process optimization.

Please read the CleverPath Aion r10 Product Announcement Letter and Press Release for further information.

Orders for CleverPath Aion r10 General Availability (GA) DVDs are now being accepted. In North America, you can call 1-800-637-5858 or contact your local account representative or reseller. Outside of North America, please contact your local CA office or distributor. Contact information is available at ca.com/camap.htm.

CleverPath Aion customers active on maintenance can download electronic DVD images of CleverPath Aion r10 from the Downloads area of SupportConnectSM. For more information about downloading CleverPath Aion r10 from SupportConnect, please reference informational solution QI64488.

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CleverPath™ Forest & Trees® r7.1 is Now Generally Available
We are pleased to announce the general availability of CleverPath Forest & Trees r7.1. CleverPath Forest & Trees is a complete, integrated, and open dashboard development environment for building and deploying interactive content that directly supports deeper understanding of your business. Either as a stand-alone product or delivered in conjunction with CleverPath™ Portal (as CleverPath™ Dashboard Option), CleverPath Forest & Trees enables the rapid creation and deployment of rich, visual, interactive content for dashboard-style information delivery.

New functionality being introduced includes:
  • New 3-tier data access leveraging ADO.Net
  • New "Safe Mode" capability providing "sandbox" portlet development and deployment
  • New SOAP interface to support web services integration into an EIS/DSS or dashboard portlet application (similar to the XML DOM scripting object introduced in CleverPath Forest & Trees r7.0)
  • Enhanced visualization capabilities including the introduction of 3D map charts
  • Inclusion of a directory of reusable code samples
Please review the CleverPath Forest & Trees r7.1 Product Announcement Letter available on SupportConnectSM for more information.

Orders for the CleverPath Forest & Trees r7.1 General Availability (GA) CD are now being accepted. In North America, you can call 1-800-637-5858 or contact your local account representative or reseller. Outside of North America, please contact your local CA office or distributor. Contact information is available at ca.com/camap.htm.

CleverPath Forest & Trees and Dashboard Option customers active on maintenance can download electronic CD images of CleverPath Forest & Trees r7.1 from the Downloads area of SupportConnect. For more information about downloading CleverPath Forest & Trees r7.1 from SupportConnect, please reference informational solution QO64340.

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CleverPath™ Reporter r4.2 Cumulative Patch is Now Available
The CA Customer Support team is pleased to announce that the latest CleverPath Reporter r4.2 Cumulative Patch for Windows is now available. This Patch (CVPRPT_4.2.00_05_050128) includes the most recent software maintenance for CleverPath Reporter 4.2 and is available for immediate download.

For more information, please review the announcement notice and the Readme documents available on SupportConnectSM.

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Advantage™ Data Transformer ODBC Scans Incomplete - Patch Available
Advantage Data Transformer Enterprise Metadata Edition (ADTEME) customers may experience difficulty using the ODBC scanner. When performing an ODBC scan, it only advances to the database object level with no errors being reported to the scanner.odbc file. This problem has been reported after customers have applied recent Advantage™ Repository for Distributed Systems (ARDS) maintenance to their environment (QO45677 or QO54014).

To address this problem, CA Customer Support recommends that ADTEME customers apply the appropriate corrective patch accessible from SupportConnectSM:
ADTEME r2.0 - QO64949
ADTEME r2.1 - QO53608

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General Information
CleverPath™ Aion® r10 z/OS Introduces Support for XPLINK and VTAM Generic Resources
CleverPath Aion r10 for z/OS adds several important new features to exploit the latest mainframe operating system technologies available such as XPLINK and VTAM Generic Resources. Customers running CleverPath Aion on z/OS will want to carefully review the articles below to learn how these new product innovations can be used to improve the performance and scalability of their CleverPath Aion mainframe environment. You must upgrade to CleverPath Aion r10 to take advantage of these new features.

CleverPath Aion r10 z/OS XPLINK Support
CleverPath Aion r10 for z/OS supports XPLINK for Aion components running in both the batch and online environments. XPLINK (eXtra Performance LINKage) is an alternative module linkage convention that results in smaller, faster DLLs. To enhance the performance of XPLINK-enabled Aion user applications, Aion provides an XPLINK version of many of its system DLLs. These DLLs are automatically utilized by user applications built with the XPLINK option. Application DLLs built without the XPLINK option continue to use the traditional z/OS linkage.

There are a number of performance-related advantages to building Aion applications with the XPLINK option. XPLINK-enabled applications support higher transaction volumes, provide improved response times, and reduce CPU utilization. More details on implementing XPLINK support can be found in this Technical Document (Document ID TEC358475) on SupportConnectSM.

CleverPath Aion r10 z/OS VTAM Generic Resources Support
CleverPath Aion r10 for z/OS now supports online client access via VTAM Generic Resources to Aion components running in the Multitasking Aion Execution System (MAES). With Generic Resources, VTAM automatically routes client connection requests to the one member of a "pool" of servers best able to service the client request. Most CICS and IMS client programs require only minor changes to gain the flexibility, reliability, and scalability of Generic Resources.

There are many advantages to accessing MAES using Generic Resources. With Generic Resources, each connection request to MAES is routed to the MAES region currently servicing the least workload. If one of the MAES regions in the Generic Resource pool were to unexpectedly terminate, subsequent connection requests would automatically and transparently be routed to other MAES regions. When the terminated region is restarted, it rejoins the pool of available MAES regions and will receive the majority of subsequent connection requests until the workload is equally shared among the MAES regions. The ability to dynamically join the generic resource pool can also be used to add additional capacity. For example, if an unanticipated workload results in unacceptable response times, additional MAES regions can be added to the generic resource pool to service subsequent connection requests.

More details on implementing Generic Resources support in MAES can be found in this Technical Document (Document ID TEC358476) on SupportConnect.

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Autofit Excel Workbooks with CleverPath™ Forest & Trees®
CleverPath Forest & Trees customers who export data to Microsoft Excel may discover that they need to modify the workbook so that all the column data is visible. It is possible for the end-user to do this manually via Excel by selecting the whole workbook and using the menu options Format --> Column --> Autofit selection. However, this approach is not practical for more complex CleverPath Forest & Trees applications that generate large numbers of different spreadsheets. Using the CleverPath Forest & Trees OLE Automation add-in functionality allows you to do this all automatically. This ensures the end-user gets the best possible view of the resulting spreadsheet data every time. For information on how to implement this in your CleverPath Forest & Trees applications, please reference this Technical Document (Document ID TEC355309).

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Possible Memory Error Publishing From CleverPath™ Reporter to CleverPath™ Portal
The integration between CleverPath Reporter and CleverPath Portal allows users to quickly disseminate critical business reporting data throughout their organizations. However, while publishing very large CleverPath Reporter reports to CleverPath Portal, users could encounter memory related error conditions. This is generally caused by insufficient memory being allocated to the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). This problem can be easily addressed by making some minor configuration changes to your CleverPath Reporter environment. For more information, please click here to view the Technical Document (Document ID FAQ356325) recently posted to SupportConnectSM.

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Potential Error Condition While Installing CleverPath™ Portal r4.7 With DB2 UDB
CA Customer Support would like to proactively alert customers about a potential error condition while CleverPath Portal r4.7 is attempting to establish database connectivity with DB2 UDB. Customers may see an error such as:

     DB2 JDBC Driver Unsupported VM encoding Cp500

This problem can be resolved by updating the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) to include multi-language support. For more detailed information, please see informational solution QI64865 available on SupportConnectSM.

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Configuring CleverPath™ Portal r4.7 to Prevent Ingres® r3 Database Errors
Customers running CleverPath Portal r4.7 with Ingres r3 should be aware of possible database errors when running long running tasks such as publishing large documents. The errors are related to CleverPath Portal's connection timeout configuration, which will stop and rollback a transaction after 10 seconds by default. Customers can avoid this problem by extending the connection timeout value. Please see SupportConnectSM informational solution QI64524 for details on the error and a recommendation on how the connection value should be set.

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Deploying CleverPath™ Portal r4.7 With IBM's Websphere 5.x
CleverPath Portal r4.7 supports a number of different deployment scenarios including using IBM's Websphere application server. This enables customers who have already made an investment in this technology to utilize this with CleverPath Portal as well. More details on setting up this type of configuration can be found on SupportConnectSM in this Technical Document (Document ID TEC356322).

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Using the Advantage™ Data Transformer Script Debugger
If you've written a data movement script by hand or you've modified the SQL from a generated program or you're getting results from a program that you don't understand, one of the best ways to diagnose the behavior is to run your script through the Transformer Debugger. There is now a single document that describes the whole process from setup and troubleshooting to full details of use. Please see this Technical Document (Document ID TEC354434) on CA's SupportConnectSM site.

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Creating PDF Output With CleverPath™ EUREKA:Reporter™
CleverPath EUREKA:Reporter users may need to export reporting data to PDF format. Although this is not an intrinsic feature of CleverPath EUREKA:Reporter, it can be accomplished by deploying some complementary software tools. Customers who require this functionality are advised to review the following Technical Document (Document ID TEC358503). This provides an overview of the conversion process and how to configure your CleverPath EUREKA:Reporter environment.

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CA User Groups
CA recognizes the integral role that our user groups play in the quality and development of our products and services. CA user groups offer its members the opportunity to discuss current product releases, network with other users, participate in technical discussions and presentations, and provide input on product enhancements. We endorse and support the formation of user groups to help ensure active and ongoing communication between our customers and our product development and support personnel.

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General Product Information
Advantage™ Data Transformer

CleverPath™ Aion® Business Process Manager

CleverPath™ Aion® Business Rules Expert

CleverPath™ Forest & Trees®

CleverPath™ Portal

CleverPath™ Predictive Analysis Server

CleverPath™ Reporter

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Support Contact Information
For international support contact information, please visit ca.com/camap.htm.

Advantage™ Data Transformer
   1-866-291-5520

Advantage™ Data Transformer Enterprise Metadata Edition
   1-866-291-5520

CleverPath™ Aion® Business Process Manager
   1-866-204-7399

CleverPath™ Aion® Business Rules Expert
   1-866-204-7399

CleverPath™ EUREKA:Reporter™
   1-877-584-7267

CleverPath™ EUREKA:Strategy™
   1-800-949-2212

CleverPath™ Forest & Trees®
   1-800-949-2212

CleverPath™ OLAP
   1-800-949-2212

CleverPath™ Portal
   1-877-584-7267

CleverPath™ Predictive Analysis Server
   1-631-342-6025

CleverPath™ Reporter
   1-877-584-7267

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CleverPath™ Press
CIO Today - "Product Review: Computer Associates CleverPath™ Aion® BPM"

Line56 - "Business Rules Engine Evaluation"

eWEEK - "Computer Associates Releases New BPM Suite"

CXOtoday - "CA Releases Its CleverPath™ Aion® r10 BPM Solution"

DMReview - "CA CleverPath™ Aion® r10 Enhances Quality of Business Processes and Improves Compliance"

CRN - "CA Eyes Integrators With Business-Process 'Playbook'"

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Special Events
Upcoming Events
Please make plans to join CA at these upcoming industry-leading events in the next three months.

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Advantage™ Data Transformer Enterprise Metadata Edition Education
Course Schedules
Advantage Data Transformer Enterprise Metadata Edition: Data Movement Introduction

Advantage Data Transformer Enterprise Metadata Edition: Data Movement Advanced

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CleverPath™ Aion® Business Rules Expert Education Course Schedules
CleverPath Aion Business Rules Expert: Introduction

CleverPath Aion Business Rules Expert: Advanced Topics

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CleverPath™ Forest & Trees® Education Course Schedules
CleverPath Forest & Trees: Turning Data Into Information

CleverPath Forest & Trees: Developing Decision Support

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CleverPath™ Portal Education Course Schedules
CleverPath Portal: Administering the Portal Server

CleverPath Portal: Managing Knowledge for the Advanced End User

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CleverPath™ Reporter Education Course Schedules
CleverPath Reporter: Designing Reports I

CleverPath Reporter: Designing Reports II

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