ISA 4.0 glitch

For the Eclipse / Rational / Expeditor fans, I'we already mentioned how useful ISA (IBM Support Assistant) can be. Let me refresh this, as they constantly update the tool.

Apart from the IBM support searches, it also includes IBM Java tools for different analysis (log viewers, java heap and core analysis and so on). All these tools comes and Eclipse plugins, deep burried within the install of ISA.

And here comes the 'BUT': if you install it as default, it will for sure clutter your c: drive, as the default install is made in 'c:\program files\...whatever'

Same happened to me, on some previous install of the tool, when I was amazed to discover that my c: drive was almost full. Digging a little bit with the 'TreeSize Free' tool (this unveal your biggest folders in size), I discovered the cause: ISA installed in the default location, with the results of analysis stored as well on the same location.

So, here is a workaround: install ISA 4.0 on different drive. How ? It's saying on the FAQ on the IBM site, but basically you need to launch the installer as:

On Windows
setupwin32.exe /v"RCPDATA=c:\myisadata"

On Linux®
setupwin32.sh -V rcpData=/data/isa

What triggered this article was that I've just discovered 7GB of my d: wasted on some unsuccessful MDD4J analysis, launched as a plugin from ISA (I've tried to look into some 250MB Java heapdumps .. oh oh). Appears that these analysis results are stored under: \rcpdata\.metadata\.plugins\

happy digging :)