3.4 Operations Center Servers

The Operations Center solution includes the following servers:

3.4.1 Operations Center Server

The Operations Center server is the main component to the Operations Center solution. It contains the engine that integrates data, manages the hierarchy of data as elements and relationships among them, and performs data calculations.

The Operations Center server has specific requirements for the hardware and software on which it is installed as well as security considerations. For information about ports and database connections, see Section 3.7.1, Operations Center Server Port Usage.

The Operations Center server accesses other management systems and both Operations Center data sources and external data sources. Users and other Operations Center and third-party products also access the Operations Center server.

For access, you will need the host name and IP address of the machine on which Operations Center server is installed. To install Operations Center server, you will need administrative access to the machine. Operations Center server is configured with a default administrative password which you can change.

3.4.2 Remote Container

The Remote Container server is a scaled down version of the Operations Center server that runs all adapters and integration but has no other functionality (for example, no monitoring, modeling, service level agreement support, and so on).

The Remote Container server has the following uses:

  • Distributes the running of adapters and integrations among multiple machines

  • Runs adapters or integrations under a different JVM or configuration than the Operations Center server

    The Remote Container can run either 32‑bit or 64‑bit and can connect to a Operations Center server running 64‑bit. If you have a management system that runs on 32‑bit, such as BMC Remedy ARS, you could use integrate data from it into a Remote Container server which is also running 32‑bit. Then, you could connect your Operations Center server (which is running 64‑bit) to the Remote Container server to use the Remedy data in your Operations Center solution.

Similar to other adapters which bring in data from management systems, a Remote Container adapter brings data into the Operations Center server from the Remote Container server:

  • Elements appear to be and act as local elements. Operations Center functionality (such as models and SLAs) can be applied to them the same as other elements.

  • Creating and administering a Remote Container adapter is different than other adapters in Operations Center. A Remote Container adapter requires a connection be established to a Remote Container server.

  • Properties for elements (such as name, time skew, daemon host, daemon port, login account/password) establish the connection. Operations on these elements include creating, starting, stopping, and deleting.

The Remote Container server does not allow client sessions; the only connection is through integration with the Operations Center server. The Remote Container server also does not have an associated Web server.

The Remote Container server is a Java program that runs its own Java Virtual Machine (JVM). It can be installed on the same host machine and use the same daemon as the Operations Center server and uses its own JVM. Or, the Remote Container server can be installed on a different host machine than the Operations Center server.

The hardware and software requirements for the Remote Container host machine are the same as the Operations Center server.

For more information, see Using Remote Containers in the Operations Center 5.6 Adapter and Integration Guide.

3.4.3 Web Server

A Web Server provides access from Operations Center Web clients to the Operations Center server.

The Operations Center server contains a Web server that is compatible with the Java Servlet and JSP Technologies from Sun Microsystems.The Web server is configured during installation and can be started and stopped. It can also run in either production or development mode. The Web server also has options for auditing.

For more information on configuring the Web server, see Web Server Pane, Configuring Web Server Start and Stop, and Using the Web Server in the Operations Center 5.6 Server Configuration Guide.

The dashboard ships with a version of Apache Tomcat, which it uses as its Web server by default. You can opt to use an Apache Web server if it is needed to deploy security or other plug‑ins, or if the Web server needs to be customized beyond the options available with the Tomcat server. If users’ browsers are required to make HTTP requests through an Apache Web server rather than the dashboard supplied Tomcat server, then you must set up a reverse proxy.

For the current version of Apache Tomcat that the dashboard uses as well as other information about dashboard; see the Operations Center 5.6 Dashboard Guide. The Web server for the dashboard can be installed on either the same host machine as the Operations Center server or a different host machine.

3.4.4 Image Server

An Image Server is required by Operations Center to allow Web clients to render dynamic and 3‑D charts. The Image Server is installed with the dashboard and requires a Java runtime environment (JRE) and ports for communication. The Image Server must be configured to recognize IP addresses or host names for every URL needed to access Operations Center.