Integrating ITM 6 with Netcool/OMNIbus

Back in July 2006, IBM released version 2.0 of the whitepaper, “Tivoli and Netcool Event Flow Integration”. This whitepaper is the latest by IBM in setting out to provide a series of best-practice solutions for integrating Tivoli Monitoring, Tivoli Netview, and Tivoli Enterprise Console with NetCoolOMNIbus. The following summarises our experience with integrating the event flow between Tivoli Monitoring 6.1 TEMS server and an OMNIbus Object Server.

Please note that this exercise was conducted on the following platforms:

  • Tivoli Monitoring 6.1 architecture – Windows 2003 Server (Standard Edition)
  • OMNIbus Object Server (including license server) – Linux RedHat Enterprise Server version 4
  • TME TECAD Probe – Linux RedHat Enterprise Server version 4

The following software components are required to enable the event integration between the two products.

Tivoli Monitoring 6.1

  • Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server (TEMS)
  • Tivoli Enterprise Portal (TEPS)

OMNIbus 7.x

  • A licensed server running with licenses to run an Object Server, the TME TECAD Probe and additional licenses to run the event list for your preferred platform.
  • At least a single object server configured and running.

TME10 TECAD Probe

  • OMNIbus Common Component Support
  • Non-native Probe Server
  • TME TECAD Probe version 4.0
  • Java Runtime 1.5.x

Miscellaneous

  • The tar file, ITM_OMNIbus.tar contains the appropriate configuration files for the ObjectServer, EIF configuration examples and the probes rules file. The tarball can be downloaded from here

In this scenario, the TEMS and TEPS will reside on the same Windows server, the license server and Object server on the same Linux server and the TME10 TECAD probe will be implemented on a separate Linux server. All servers are located on the same subnet so no firewall considerations have to be taken into account.

The order in which the implementation needs to take place can be broken down into a 3 step process. The 3 steps are as follows:

  1. Update the Object Server’s database schema
  2. Install the TME TECAD Probe’s dependencies, the probe software, and configure the rules file.
  3. Configure the OTEA-EIF on the TEMS.

Configure Object Server Schema

To update the fields of the of the Object Server, extract the file, itm_db_update.sql from the ITM_ OMNIbus tar and copy the file to your object server and pipe the contents through the nco_sql command. For example:

$OMNIHOME/bin/nco_sql -u <username> -p <password> -server <name of object server> < itm_db_update.sql

In short, this updates the active Object Server schema by adding 11 fields to the ‘alerts.status’ table, creates a new table called ‘alerts.itm_problem_events’ to support automation, adds 2 ‘Type’ conversions (enumerations),type ’20’ for ITM Problem, type ’21’ for ITM Resolution and creates an automation called ‘itm_event_clear’.

Please note that a restart of the Object Server isn’t required after updating the Object Server’s schema but if your event list was already active when the new fields were added to the alerts.status table, these new fields are not viewable until the even list has been re-synced.

Install and Configure the TME10 TECAD Probe

As I will be installing an individual probe on a separate Linux server that hasn’t had any OMNIbus software already installed, the following framework needs to be place to support this particular probe (and in order of installation):

  1. OMNIbus Common Component Support – The OMNIbus Common Component Support can be installed separately from the main OMNIbus installation package.
  2. Non-native Probe server – The component is installed in the format of a patch that can be downloaded separately and installed running the nco_patch command. For example:$OMNIHOME/install/nco_patch -install omnibus-3.x-linux2x86-probe-nonnative-base-0_1
  3. Java Runtime 1.5.x
  4. Ensure the environment is sourced correctly so the NETCOOL_LICENSE_FILE is pointing to the correct license server, OMNIHOME is set to the correct path, default /opt/netcool/omnibus and the correct java version is set in the path. For example:

export OMNIHOME=/opt/netcool/omnibus
export PATH=$PATH:$OMNIHOME/bin:/usr/java/jre1.5.0_08/bin
export  NETCOOL_LICENSE_FILE=@mylicenseserver>;

Now the framework is in the place, the tme10 tecad probe can now be installed. Like the non-native probe, the tme10 tecad probe comes in the form of a patch and must be installed using the nco_patch command. For example:

$OMNIHOME/install/nco_patch -install omnibus-3.x-linux2x86-probe-nco-p-tme10tecad-4_0

Now extract the rules file, tme10tecad.rules from the ITM_OMNIbus.tar file and copy the file into the following directory:

/opt/netcool/omnibus/probes/l<architecture>

With the probe installed the final configuration piece is to define the Object Server that the probe will forward the events to. This is the same process for defining a gateway, a new object server or desktop and is configured using the nco_xigen GUI or from the command line nco_igen.

The method I used here is from the command line.

Edit the $OMNIHOME/etc/omni.dat and define a new entry for the Object Server, the hostname and port of where the Object Server resides. For example:

[ITMSUPPORT]
{
Primary: orbomnibus-bk 4600
}

Now run the command, ‘nco_igen’ to generate the interfaces file (.interfaces.<architecture>)

Running the TME10 TECAD Probe

You can control the stating and stopping of the tme10 tecad probe through OMNIbus’s process control facility of simple start the probe from the command line using the following syntax:

./nco_p_tme10tecad -server <Object Server Name>

However, the probe will disconnect itself after 10 minutes of inactivity as we have not yet configured the TEMS server to forward events to the probe. To resolve this you will need to include the inactivity flag (-inactivity <seconds>)

By default, the probe startup and listen on port 9999 for events from the TEMS server. To change this run the probe with the port flag (-portnumber <tcp port>)

These, plus many others parameters (run nco_p_tme10tecad -help) can either be passed from the command line or entered in the tme10tecad.props which can be found in the same directory as the rules file (tme10tecad.rules).

Configure the TEMS Server.

To configure the TEMS to forward events to Omnibus via the TME10 TEACAD probe you follow the same steps as if you were configuring the TEC to forward events to the Tivoli Enterprise Console.
Ensure the TEC EIF Facility has been enabled within the TEMS, edit the file ‘om_tec.config’ and enter the hostname or IP address of the probe for the ServerLocation parameter and enter the listening port of the probe for the ServerPort parameter. For Example:

ServerLocation=<tme10tecad probe host>
ServerPort=<tme10tecad probe port number>
getport_total_timeout_usec=50500
NO_UTF8_CONVERSION=YES
ConnectionMode=co
BufferEvents=YES
BufEvtMaxSize=4096
BufEvtPath=./TECLIB/om_tec.cache

For the changes to take affect the TEMS will require a recycle.

Observations

The snapshot provides a view of an Omni Event List showing ITM 6.1 events; however the majority of the events are flagged with a severity of indeterminate. The mapping of the severities between IBM 6.1 and OMNIbus is controlled by the tme10tecad.rules file within the probe but the following change is required to ensure the correct severity is mapped between the 2 products.

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