Maintenance of Altium Concord Pro
Health Monitor
An Altium Concord Pro installation includes a web-based Health Monitor. Accessed by an administrator through the Health page of Concord Pro's browser interface, it delivers a visual summary of the state of the host machine and the Concord Pro storage system.
As well as the quick visual summary of the server's health, the page also provides the ability to download all log files in a single Zip archive, as well as facilitating the creation of a status report - again, conveniently archived into a Zip file - that can be passed to Altium's Support, and therafter to the Developers.
The Altium Concord Pro installation also includes a standalone Health Monitor tool that can be launched on the computer hosting Concord Pro, using the desktop shortcut that is created when Concord Pro is installed. Alternatively, the Health Monitor tool can be found in the \Program Files (x86)\Altium\Altium Concord Pro\Tools\HealthMonitor folder as the avhealth.exe executable. Note that the folder also includes a simplified command-line tool: avConsoleHealth.exe. In this standalone variant, the Health Monitor operates as an independent entity that queries Concord Pro and its host system, and is therefore able to deliver crucial data and information even in the unlikely event that Concord Pro is not fully functioning. It provides additional features beyond those available in the web-based Health Monitor.
The standalone Health Monitor is aimed at IT departments and covers, in general terms, the following critical areas:
- Concord Pro Environment – the state of the hosts PC’s hardware, such as its hard disks, memory, CPU and the adequacy of its performance.
- Concord Pro Server Backend – the state of the server’s supporting database, file storage and repository.
- Concord Pro Services – the state the server’s range of services, hosted as IIS Application Pools, such as the Identity, Authorization and License Manager services.
Backup and Recovery
Over time, your Altium Concord Pro instance will accommodate a growing, and impressive amount of data. The value of this data cannot be overstated, for it is a mixture of source data that can be re-used in future design projects, as well as data from which past, current, and future products are fabricated and assembled. It is data that has been released and ratified under the highest scrutiny, and stored securely with the utmost integrity. And as with all valuable data, longevity of its integrity is ensured by being able to perform a backup.
The Altium Concord Pro installation caters for the archival of your Server data through the provision of a command-line-driven Backup & Restore tool. The tool's executable - avbackup.exe - is located in the \Program Files (x86)\Altium\Altium Concord Pro\Tools\BackupTool folder, for a default installation of Altium Concord Pro.
Proxy Server Support
For a company that accesses the internet through a proxy server, proxy configuration information can be defined for Altium Concord Pro - post installation. This enables Concord Pro Services to successfully connect with internet-based services through the company's proxy server, as and when required.
Proxy configuration information is entered into the [Proxy] section of the LocalVault.ini file. For a default installation of Altium Concord Pro, this file can be found in the following location: \Program Files (x86)\Altium\Altium Concord Pro.
Command Line Server Management Tool
Altium Concord Pro provides a Command Line tool to cater for the following aspects of configuration:
- User Management - allowing Altium Concord Pro to be preloaded with bulk user and role configurations derived from company systems or records, thereby avoiding a need to individually create the entries through Concord Pro's browser interface. The tool supports the import of Users, Roles, and user-role membership data from standard comma-delimited *.csv files.
- Part Choice Indexing - allowing you to manually perform a re-indexing of the Part Choices for your managed components, sourced through user-defined Part Sources (connections to local parts databases).
The tool - avconfiguration.exe - is included with your Altium Concord Pro installation and can be found in the \Program Files (x86)\Altium\Altium Concord Pro\Tools\VaultConfigurationTool folder.