howto

In the previous post, I'd announced the Groovy4Netcool project. In this follow up post, I'll go through a simple script as an example to demonstrate how it can be used. The objective is to work with an event in the Netcool server, to get the value of a field and update that value.

First, I should highlight the files in this project are NOT required to use groovy to work
with Netcool server. Groovy language has inherent support to work with database via jdbc. The files in this project provide an infrastructure to make it easier to work with Netcool so that one does not have to know or deal with JDBC and SQL,
although they are available.

First, I need to set the connection parameters for the Netcool server in the NetcoolDataSource.groovy file.  read more »

In a previous post, I discussed different management systems integration types: data layer integration, functional integration, event integration and presentation layer integration. RapidInsight provides presentation layer integration functionalities as described in the post.

Problem:
You have number of different management tools for different management disciplines (fault mgmt, configuration & change mgmt, service desk, etc.), and technologies (Unix, Windows, LAN, WAN, Applications, etc.). Yet services you provide span multiple technologies and platforms, and you need to provide information to internal/external customers about the services they use. We'll consider can think about the scenario described in this post to understand what type of information you may need to provide to your users.  read more »

We have been releasing solutions that we use in the field as open source tools available for the community. Last couple of weeks we have released Smarts Trap Processing Monitor and Smarts Discovery Reporter. Both of these solutions were built on top of RapidWatcher independently, hence had conflicts (Thanks for the heads up Karl!)

The latest release of RapidWatcher includes the necessary files for both these solutions as part of the RapidWatcher package. Discovery Reporter is active but Trap processing Monitor is inactive by default. Of course, you can turn on Smarts Trap Monitor by following the directions in the previous post about it.  read more »

If you have already checked out our RapidWatcher product (you should! :), you are already familiar with how it can help you monitor various systems and take actions accordingly. You should also be familiar with RapidWatcher's status updates in the form of an RSS feed.
In this post, I will explain how an RSS feed from RapidWatcher can be used to create notifications in the Smarts server with the help of a simple RapidConnector adapter. The example can be modified to feeds other than RapidWatcher.

Building the solution

Once you have your RapidWatcher up and running, you can get the status information on managed systems by accessing the RSS feed URL (http://localhost:9191/RapidWatcher/ManagedObject/rssFeed) using a feed reader or browser. To see how a feed looks like, you can take a look at the RSS feed from the RapidWatcher demo.More...
RSS feed is of course an alternative to getting the same information via the web based user interface or the web services API.Here is a sample RSS feed from RapidWatcher.
 read more »

Application level monitoring refers to monitoring of the actual functionality of the applications rather than just whether the application is running or not. It is not uncommon for an application to be up and running yet not working as it should do to variety of reasons. Application level monitoring requires simulation of the common activities an application performs to ensure the application is working as expected, rather than relying on more typical methods of checking whether the process runs or the port is active.

 read more »

IT organizations may have different processes to handle faults depending on the time of the day. For example, the process during working hours may be different than off-hours, therefore a mechanism to differentiate events depending on the time of the day is necessary. RapidConnector provides a simple solution.

Requirement:

A technician needs to be notified immediately if there is a problem during working hours. But if the problem occurs during off-hours (for example evenings or weekends) it is acceptable to wait till the morning, therefore the technician should not be notified.

RapidConnector solution:

RapidConnector can subscribe to notifications (events), apply the necessary logic and update the notifications.

In this scenario, RapidConnector solution would do the following:

 read more »

How do you monitor your management solution? How do you ensure that the monitoring solution is working as expected? As this is a commonly repeated activity, there should be some best practices. What works in the field? Any thoughts on how to monitor the Smarts solution and related components are appreciated.

In the projects I’ve involved in, typically a collection of scripts are often developed as part of the implementation project or later by the administrators of the solution. I personally have not witnessed use of system/application management tools such as Tivoli/Patrol/NetIQ, etc. to monitor the monitoring solution probably because of financial/organizational reasons.  read more »

Events in a management server do not always contain meaningful information for the target audience. It is often necessary to augment the event information with additional information from relevant data sources such as files, databases, and EMC/Smarts^tm servers in real-time. Making the right information accessible directly from the event can provide significant productivity improvements, and enhance the user experience.

RapidConnector provides capabilities to easily enrich events in EMC/Smarts^tm Service Assurance Manager. RapidConnector components can be used to retrieve data from external data sources in real-time and populate event fields. Some potential uses of RapidConnector to enrich events may be:  read more »