1.1 Overview
Figure 1-1 Data Integrator Architecture
Operations Center offers rich integrations with virtually any source of technology data. The Data Integrator, which is an optional component of the Operations Center platform, extracts business metrics from databases, including sales totals and help desk tickets, and also extracts analytics from business intelligence tools.
The data extracted by a Data Integrator adapter is forwarded to the Operations Center platform for correlation, analysis and visualization, and can be further leveraged through Service Views and the dashboard.
Metrics from your data store can surface key performance indicators used by lines of business to measure their success. Using Operations Center to correlate these metrics, such as cross-referencing daily sales and help desk tickets, can provide additional information. This information can then populate real-time executive dashboards that identify the service performance of applications.
This is a true way of correlating business metrics with technology performance and availability. An increase in calls to a call center or a drop in revenue can be significant warnings of technology problems. Tying technology problems to their real business impact—such as the number of customers who complain—provides an accurate way to prioritize.
Analyzing this information over time can even help identify trends, such as a drop in sales totals when response time dips below a certain threshold. It can also assist in setting cost-effective performance thresholds for different geographies, customer groups and time periods.
1.1.1 Secure Access to Relevant Data
Instead of wading through large volumes of data, the Data Integrator extracts only the data needed to determine how technology is supporting the business. Also, the tool adheres to a database environment’s security settings, so users cannot extract data, unless they have permission to do so.
1.1.2 Point-and-Click Interface
A point-and-click interface enables quick access to database information. Data Integrator automatically discovers the available schemas in any relational SQL database, including DB2, Oracle, SQL Server, and Sybase. Just point and click to select fields or values for integration, then specify the time interval for capturing data, and how Operations Center should determine element or alarm severity.
1.1.3 Share Adapter Definitions
The Data Integrator has a central management facility. Defined integrations can be stored and reused, which is valuable to organizations with many instances of the same database distributed throughout their environment. Each Data Integrator runtime license supports access to a single database schema.