A.3 Step 2. Create a Business Metric Demo Adapter

After the demo database is created, a Data Integrator adapter needs to be created to tap into the database. A Data Integrator definition, Business Metric Demo adapter already exists.

A.3.1 Creating the Business Metric Demo Adapter

  1. In the Explorer pane, expand the Administration root element.

  2. Right-click Adapters, then select Create Adapter to open its dialog box:

  3. Click the Type drop-down list, then select Business Metric Demo.

  4. Edit the Database property value if not using the default the demo database name.

  5. If necessary, specify the host name.

    The host name defaults to localhost, assuming your local machine is running Operations Center.

    The Port connects to the database and the default SQL server port, 1433, displays.

  6. If necessary, change the port number.

  7. If necessary, specify new user name and password, as defined by your administrator.

    The Username and Password are the defaults used to connect to the database.

    The user must have appropriate SQL permissions to read from the demo database. The default user is sa and the default password is admin.

  8. Select the Start Adapter Automatically check box to start the adapter automatically after it has been created.

    Otherwise, you must start the adapter manually each time.

  9. Click Create to create the adapter.

    The adapter starts automatically if the Start Adapter Automatically check box was selected:

    The adapter displays elements from the demo database in the Explorer pane.

  10. In the Explorer pane, expand Elements > Adapter: BusinessMetric Demo > Metrics.

  11. Double-click Services.

Figure A-1 Explorer Pane. Elements from the Demo database display.

The Business Metric Demo adapter is a Data Integrator adapter definition that instructs Operations Center to pull data populated in the BusinessMetric database to produce a demo hierarchy for metrics and services.

Each Services branch contains elements that represent services (such as Expenses, Invoices, Online Trading, Projects, and Services and Support), which contain specific business metrics as modeled by elements (such as time to repair or invoice delay time). For example, the Expense service contains child services, Accounts Payable and Reconciled AP to GL.

Their state or condition is fed by alarms that are created for business metrics. For example, if 950 invoices approved per hour, then the condition is in an OK state.

The hierarchy produced represents the metrics as a top-level objects as well as specific elements underneath the services.

A.3.2 Generating Data

The Business Metric adapter is set to poll hourly for updates from the database.

A batch data fill utility, /ManagedObjects/demo/BusinessMetricGenData.bat, to generate new data on minute or hourly intervals. We recommend setting it for Hourly intervals, which allows state changes in the data over time.

The Business Metric Demo performs a query on adapter start that reads data that is current as of the last hour.

If the adapter or your server is restarted after the initial install, there might not be any alarms, unless the restart/start occurs within an hour of the last alarms being generated for the MO_BSMDB database.

This means that the BusinessMetricDemoGenData.bat file must be run to generate new alarms. The adapter polls the database hourly for any updates or deletions, and adds and removes alarms from the Operations Center server based on the changes to the database. The alarms held in memory are automatically removed after the total number of alarms exceeds the max alarm limit as defined in the adapter properties, which is by default set to 1K.

If the demo being utilized for an extended amount of time, it is a good idea to rerun the BusinessMetricDemo.sql script on occasion to clear the database and start over. The demo database can become very large as there is currently no mechanism to delete records and in this case, records are continually being added to when the BusinessMetricDemoGenData.bat is run to insert new records.