A long time ago, Novell introduced Analyzer tool as part of the Novell Compliance Management Platform.

After a number of reincarnations, Analyzer was included in the IDM Standard and Advanced Edition packages and is now available to all IDM folks.

NetIQ Analyzer for Identity Manager is an Eclipse-based tool that can help to understand your environment, analyze data from different sources, and sometimes fix some data problems.

The Internal Analyzer database (HyperSQL Database, HSQLDB) can work pretty well for a small test environment, but has a huge performance degradation issue when the number of records grow, that almost don't allow you to use Analyzer in a real medium size or corporate environment.

NetIQ recommends using the external database (MySQL) for work with big data volume, but unfortunately didn't provide any “official” documentation on how to do it.

Ensure that you shift from the local database (HSQLDB) to the external database (MYSQL) if you are importing data more than 40,000 records.

https://www.netiq.com/documentation/idm45/analyzer_admin/data/configprefs.html#prefsdatabasesettings

We had a number of requests on our Support Forum about this topic and when once again I failed to recommend a link to “official” information, I decided to create a “How-to configure Analyzer to use external MySQL database” myself.

Most of the time I work in MS Windows and I will provide step by step instructions for Analyzer/MySQL for the Windows platform, but similar configuration steps can be used for Linux.

1. Download MySQL

• Current MySQL version 5.7.16 available on http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/ site

MySQL download site

I recommend you download offline the (full) installation package (385M).

offline installer

The current direct link to the MySQL MSI installer is:

http://dev.mysql.com/get/Downloads/MySQLInstaller/mysql-installer-community-5.7.16.0.msi

The order of the product installations doesn't matter.

We can install Analyzer first and MySQL second or vice versa. Any order will work for us.

I will start with the Analyzer installation.

Install Analyzer: run install.exe from <IDM Installation DVD>\products\Analyzer folder.
















First step to continue working with the product it is required to add a product license.






When the valid product license is applied, we will be able to continue to use Analyzer.




The next step is the MySQL installation:

Run the MSI installation file (mysql-installer-community-5.7.16.0.msi)






For our purpose (external DB for IDM Analyzer) we can use the Developer (Default) installation.



We can skip the Visual Studio/ Python dependencies page and continue with the MySQL installation, Next>



Execute>









Click Next to finish the configuration steps.



Select Server Configuration Type (default Developer Machine)

Port Number (default 3306)

On the next page you must specify your MySQL instance Root account (admin) password.



On the next screen, the installation wizard will continue the configuration of Windows service.











Test the connection to your MySQL service on the next screen. (Check button)



Apply MySQL Server Configuration, Next>





Configuration of MySQL server is successfully finished. Click the Finish button to complete the installation.



Installation Complete.



When the installation program is finished, it will execute the MySQL Workbench application.

The Workbench GUI shows that we have MySQL57 instance running on our workstation and this instance is listening for port 3306.



Next step: Reconfigure Analyzer to work with MySQL database.

Select on the menu bar: Window > Preferences…



Analyzer > Database Settings



We will create a new MySQL alias

After the MySQL installation, the MySQL JDBC driver is installed to C:\Program Files (x86)\MySQL\Connector.J 5.1

We will add the MySQL JDBC folder to JDBC Classpath.





The Test Connection button will allow you to validate connectivity to installed MySQL Database instance.

If everything is configured correctly, we will see a “Connection was successful” message.



Now we can apply the MySQL alias to Analyzer.



Test Connection

Apply



Press OK to reinitialize the DB connection.



Congratulations! Now we are ready to use Analyzer with the external MySQL database!