Analyzing a Tivoli Data Warehouse collection issue

This scenario is an example of a discussion I had recently with an OMEGAMON user.  The user wanted to be able to analyze issues in the Tivoli Portal (TEP) using history data from the Tivoli Data Warehouse (TDW). 

Fair enough.  At first glance it looked like the history data was configured.  However, when the user tried to access the history data, no information was being returned. 

Here's an example of what we were looking at in the the history collection popup.  In this example the user wants to see IMS bottleneck history.  When you look at the bottleneck line it looks like there is information specified in there for TDW summarization and retention.  If you look to the left it looks like there is an entry for IMS bottlenecks.  So why no data?

If you look more closely at the above example you will see that next to the DBCTL history entry you see a "running man" icon.  However, there is no running man icon next to IMS bottlenecks.  What this means is that history collection is not really running for bottlenecks.  If you look closely at IMS Bottlenecks on the left portion of the popup you see that the icon is grey (as opposed to green).  If the icon is grey that means it has not been distributed to a managed system (meaning an agent or IMS system) for collection.  Therefore collection is not occurring.

When you have a problem with TDW it pays to take a closer look at these type of options.