Getting more from Device Manager

I complained on a previous post about the lack of features in Device Manager. Consequently I've started writing some software to alleviate this situation. Here's the first of hopefully a series of tools to plug some of the gaps.

HDvM Checker will query a host running Device Manager & HDLM agent and return the version. Just enter a host name and click check. This is an early tool and I've done limited testing. I'd be grateful for any feedback. You can download it here.

*Disclaimer* - if you decide to use this software it is entirely at your own risk.

HiCommand Export

Has anyone tried to use the HiCommand database transfer command (hcmdsdbtrans)? You can use it to export the contents of a database for later re-importation.

I've been looking at it as a way to get a Device Manager test environment, or to get a configuration between sites where there's no IP connectivity. The command produces a configuration file which as luck would have it, is a zip file. So just run the command and change the extension to ".zip" and you can look at the contents.

There are lots of files in CSV format within the export. These contain all of the expected details, such as the list of hosts, arrays, replication details and so on. There are a few interesting things of note, which I can't find anywhere else in Device Manager, either in the web interface or the CLI. For example, there's a file called licencekey.csv which lists all of the licences installed on the arrays in the database. Another file, host.csv (not surprisingly) lists all of the hosts defined in Device Manager. This seems to contain data I've not been able to locate in other parts of the product, specifically the O/S version for those hosts which have reported back via an agent. It's a shame this information is being collected and not being made available.

One file contains the SQL commands to rebuild the database. This is useful as I can see what data is being stored and how it interrelates.

I believe there is an official API for Device Manager but I've never been able to get a hold of the documentation. Does anyone know if it is a published document?