Backstory: Linux 7.6.04 sp 4 with remote Oracle DB.  Not really relevant to 
this issue...

The other night we were adding servers to our server group.  So we had all of 
the servers down and had started installing the new servers.  We got through 2 
ARS installs.  Then we licensed those and installed CMDB - during the CMDB 
install we had to go add a record for the AIS:GlobalPreferences for each 
server, so we started one of the other servers up, added the data, and moved on.

After we got done with those installs we stopped (we were in an outage window 
and just about out of time).  Then we started up our admin server and finally 
the other 5 ARS servers.

The next morning I come in to find that ALL of of the existing active tasks 
have been re-assigned by the Remedy Application Service.  In most cases they 
have all been assigned to the same person in each group.  All of them are last 
modified by "Remedy Application Service" and the task audit shows a clear 
assignment to the individual by the RAS.   It didn't matter if the tasks were 
already assigned to a person - they all got assigned to one person in each 
group.

Management was not impressed.

At this point - to the best of my knowledge - we have no applications using the 
Assignment Engine.  As far as I know that is the only thing that can change 
Assignments in a bulk way.

So I re-check the configuration of everything - and find that Task Management 
is set to have Round Robin assignment.  That doesn't fit what happened - if 
anything it was using capactiy management.

The audit logs compared to the arerror logs that show shutdowns, etc,  indicate 
this only happened during our outage window.  And it happened around the time 
we brought up the admin server.  Also, it definitely happened at the end when 
only the admin server was up.  So the admin server had to be the one to do this.

It has not happened since.  I have noticed that the records in Application 
Pending for AE-ASSIGN are just constantly growing.

So here's my working theory: Please poke holes in it.  I can't find any other 
explanation.


1.       The assignment engine is not in use and has been broken for a long 
time - we just didn't notice.

2.       Application Pending - which we manually clean out from time to time- 
had a bunch of AE-ASSIGN records in it

3.       For some unknown reason the AE started to work when we bounced the 
admin server during the installs and processed the AE-ASSIGN records

4.       When AE-ASSIGN records are processed they do not check to see if there 
is an assignee because the workflow that creates the record did that.

5.       Bringing up the other servers for some reason broke it again, and it 
stopped.

We've turned on AE logging but so far there's nothing in it - this sort of 
confirms my SWAG above.

Ideas?  I really have no direct proof it was the AE - but there are no 
escalations affecting assignment and I don't know of any other processes that 
do.

William Rentfrow
wrentf...@stratacominc.com
Office: 715-204-3061
Cell: 715-398-5056


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