A suite of tools supports all of the functionality that Operations Center solution offers. The main components of Operations Center are the Operations Center server and console with various other tools that work in conjunction with the server.
Table 3-1 shows the products that are needed to complete the listed functions:
Table 3-1 Functions and Products
|
Function |
Tools |
|---|---|
|
Security management |
Console, Dashboard |
|
Management system data integration |
Console, Adapters, Experience Manager, Event Manager, F/X Adapter, Guard, SNMP Integrator |
|
Discovery data integration |
Console, Adapters |
|
Trouble ticket data integration |
Console, Adapters, Business Data Integrator |
|
Service modeling |
Console, Service Configuration Manager |
|
Monitoring (alarms, automation) |
Console, Dashboard, NOC Script |
|
Visualization |
Console, Dashboard |
|
Service level agreements |
Console, Dashboard, Service Level Manager |
|
Configuration management database |
Console, CMS |
|
Reporting |
Dashboard, SQL Views |
|
Version tracking |
Console, SQL Views |
|
Customizing |
NOC Script |
The following Operations Center tools are available:
An adapter is the integration point that allows the Operations Center server to connect to a management system. The adapter not only provides information from the third-party management system to the Operations Center server but also replicates much of the functionality available in the management system.
Adapters provide bidirectional access to many of the underlying management systems in order to allow end users to perform actions against monitored systems such as acknowledging or closing an alarm. This allows IT managers to control IT resources as a seamless component of the IT and business environment.
Different Operations Center adapters exist for each different third-party management system, and adapters are configured with a one-to-one relationship. That is, each adapter connects a Operations Center server to one specific instance of a third-party management system. Each adapter is written to the specific API that integrates bidirectionally with that system.
An Object Request Broker (ORB) is required for some adapters to broker the communication between the Operations Center adapter and the third-party management system with which it communicates.ORBs, which are written in C++ or Java, resides on the management system that is connected to the Operations Center adapter.
For more information about integration adapters, see the Operations Center 5.5 Adapter and Integration Guide.
Experience Manager conducts end user, synthetic testing on applications and Web sites and measures performance. Experience Manager emulates end user business processes against applications on a 24x7 basis, including Web and non‑Web environments, and applications.
The Experience Manager architecture consists of the following components:
Experience Manager uses MODL to create a meaningful element hierarchy for the interpretation of metrics.
For more information, see the Operations Center 5.5 Experience Manager Guide.
Business Data Integrator integrates business metric, help desk tickets, and other information residing in other databases. BDI allows the surfacing of data from any JDBC-compliant database. The Business Data Integrator adapter extracts data from specified sources and integrates it into Operations Center. The BDI Definition Editor is used to create and edit adapter definitions.
For more information, see the Operations Center 5.5 Data Integrator Guide.
The Event Manager filters and normalizes line-oriented ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) event data from sources such as a mainframe environment, telecommunications devices, log files, message traffic, SNMP traps, serial port devices, and telnet sessions. The data is received and identified by a parser and then optionally processed through a rule base. Event messages are constructed from the data and passed to the Operations Center server as an event.
The Event Manager’s architecture consists of the following components:
Agents are on a single machine or distributed across multiple machines. It is necessary to define an adapter for each instance of the Event Manager in the network. Only one Event Manager adapter can exist on each machine.
The Event Manager processes alarms in accordance with rulesets. Rulesets provide the Event Manager with instructions on how to process raw event data. Rulesets contain individual rules that provide a set of instructions on parsing and extracting useful information from events. You use the Event Manager Ruleset Editor to create and validate rulesets.
For more information, see the Operations Center 5.5 Event Manager Guide.
The File and XML (F/X) adapter distributes file and XML-based data collection, parsing, processing, and alarm generation into multiple Operation Center servers. The F/X adapter is a hierarchy-based adapter with the ability to receive alarms from multiple F/X Monitors.
When the adapter receives an alarm, it generates an alarm and processes it through the hierarchy. F/X Monitors dynamically create rich alarms with properties and values derived from a data source, using the parsing rules defined in the Monitor for the data source.
It is necessary to configure F/X Monitors to send alarms to the F/X adapter. You identify the F/X adapter using either an IP address or a hostname and the TCP/IP listen port configured for the adapter.
For more information, see the Operations Center 5.5 F/X Adapter Guide.
The SNMP adapter integrates SNMP data gathered from other management technology systems. The SNMP adapter allows you to poll, gather, and view data available on your SNMP agents.
For more information, see the Operations Center 5.5 SNMP Integrator Guide.
The Service Level Manager is the Operation Center tool for creating, monitoring, and reporting on service level agreements (SLAs). Service Level Manager uses the Service Warehouse to store data related to SLA performance.
For more information, see the Operations Center 5.5 Service Level Agreement Guide.
The Operations Center dashboard is a Web-based application that allows users to customize their own Web pages with content from Operation Center as well as other sources. It allows for single sign‑on, personalization, and integration of data from different sources.
Portlets, or Web-based applications built for integration into a portal, provide functionality and allow users to view selected content from the Operation Center server as well as other sources. Content, including content alarms from the Operation Center server, can be updated in real time.
For more information, see the Operations Center 5.5 Dashboard Guide.
The Configuration Management System is a Web application that combines Web 2.0 and structured social networking principles to significantly enhance enterprise CMDB usability, accessibility and accuracy—for CMDB projects. It makes CMDB visualization, navigation, search, analysis, and reporting measurably easier and more intuitive, to improve IT service quality.
Because users actively contribute to and maintain the CMS repository information, the risk of changes to the IT infrastructure can be reduced and impacts from outages can be more effectively managed.
For more information, see the Operations Center 5.5 Configuration Management System (CMS) Guide.
SQL Views provides functionality in Operation Center that allows for third-party applications to have read access to Operation Center data. The purpose of SQL Views is to take data from the Operation Center server and the Service Warehouse and make it accessible for you to query it and write reports using it.
External products such as Business Objects Crystal Reports or Microsoft Excel can be used to create reports.
In addition to reporting, Operation Center data can also be used by other applications for other business purposes.
Scripts created using NOC Script, formerly called FormulaScript, can be used with various features, including automations and algorithms. Operations Center ships with a library of default scripts, which can be customized to suit your needs. New scripts can also be added to the Script Library.
For more information see the Operations Center 5.5 Scripting Guide.
Third-party applications can interact with the Operations Center server using the Web Services Application Programmer Interface (WSAPI). This API provides a number of services that allow remote applications to query data that is warehoused in the Operations Center server. You can also use the API to create, update, or remove a limited set of elements.
The Operations Center Web Services tool has two components:
Operations Center Web Services Application Programmer Interface (WSAPI): This is an integration point for third-party applications to interact with the Operations Center server, including querying data and creating, updating, and removing a limited set of data in the Operations Center server.
Operations Center Web Services Client: This is a command-line utility that provides instant access to all available Web services capabilities. It is useful to test various approaches to Web services.
For more information, see the Operations Center 5.5 Web Services Guide.