A.18 IBM Tivoli Enterprise Console (T/EC)+, Database Edition

Table A-18 IBM Tivoli Enterprise Console (T/EC)+, Database Edition Adapter Properties

Property

Specify…

AckAffectsCondition

If True, an acknowledged alarm contributes to element condition and alarm counts. The default is True.

Assume there is one element with one critical event:

counts= 1‑CRITICAL element=RED

Acknowledge the alarm and set AckAffectsCondition to True. This results in reducing the alarm count by one and changing the element condition to green:

counts= 0‑CRITICAL element=GREEN

Acknowledge the alarm and set AckAffectsCondition to False. The result is the acknowledged alarm still exists:

counts= 1‑CRITICAL element=RED

In the example above, we assumed there was only one alarm. In reality, any other existing alarms continue to contribute to the element’s condition.

AlarmColumns

A comma-separated list that determines which alarm columns display and the order in which the alarm items display in the Alarms view. The defaults are: ‑ID, T/EC ID=originating_event_id, Status, Administrator, and Description.

Aliases for Alarm Columns: Assign new names to alarm columns using the format: display_name=current_name. For example, Condition=Status displays status data in a column named Condition.

ClosedAlarmsTimeout

The length of time (in seconds) to display an alarm after closing it in the Operations Center console. Enter ‑1 to display the alarm indefinitely. Enter 0 to remove it immediately. The default is 1800.

When storing historical data for T/EC events, set ClosedAlarmsTimeout to a value greater than the poll interval time specified for the DB.time property. Otherwise, alarms do not remain open long enough for a polling cycle to pick up and store as historical data.

DB.backoff.time

The number of seconds to extend queries, in addition to the standard 15 second query cycle. Slow or very busy T/EC servers occasionally experience event processing that takes longer than 15 seconds. Symptoms of such a problem include one or more alarms that remain open in Operations Center after closing them in T/EC. Resolve the problem by increasing this property value from the default of 5 seconds. The initial recommended value is 30 seconds, then an increase to 60 seconds, if the problem persists. Contact Support if the problem persists.

DB.database

The logical name of the database or partition where the T/EC tables reside within the T/EC database. For Oracle, this is the system ID (SID) of the database. For other databases, this is the database name. The default is tec.

DB.host

The host machine of the IBM Tivoli Event Console Database.

DB.password

The password for the DB.user account name.

DB.port

The TCP/IP communications port of the database, if different from system defaults for the given database type. This can be blank if using the default port.

Default ports for database types supported are:

  • Oracle: 1521
  • Sybase: 4100
  • MSSQL: 1433
  • DB2: 6789

DB.time

The poll interval, after initial discovery, for updated and new alarms. The default is 15 seconds.

DB.type

Enter one of the following database names:

  • oracle7: Oracle 7 only

  • oracleoci: Oracle native "OCI"

  • sybase: Sybase SQL Server

  • sybase_tli: Sybase SQL Server using TLI

  • mssql: Microsoft SQL Server

  • db2: IBM DB2 Universal Database

The default is oracle.

For information on setting up the Oracle driver or DB2 driver, see Section A.18.1, Setup for Native "OCI" Oracle Driver and Section A.18.2, Setup for DB2.

To use a different driver or database that is not supported by the predefined types, set up Operations Center to communicate with the database through a special syntax for the DB.type parameter.

The syntax is as follows:

driver | url | [time_select_query]

The driver is a standard Java class setting, as specified by the JDBC driver documentation for the unsupported driver. Specify the URL according to the documentation provided by the vendor.

An example, using the DB2 app driver:

COM.ibm.db2.jdbc.app.DB2Driver|jdbc:db2:tec|select current date

The last parameter is optional. Operations Center adjusts for time differences between management systems by obtaining the current date during initialization of the integration with the management source. This query is optional. It returns the current date of the database server using the native syntax of the database.

DB.user

The user account used to log in to the database. The default is tec.

ElementsTimeout

If there are no open alarms, and the element’s condition hasn’t changed in the last n seconds, and the element has no children, then the element disappears from the display. If another alarm is generated for this element, then it reappears. The default is 300 seconds.

ElementsTimeout < 0: Never time out.

ElementsTimeout = 0: Time out immediately.

ElementsTimeout > 0: Time out after specified time expires.

HierarchyFile

A file in the /OperationsCenter_install_path/database directory that contains an XML description of the element hierarchy to build below the adapter element. The default is examples/TecHierarchy.xml.

IntegrationStrategy

One of three types of T/EC integration strategies.

For further information about these types and their required properties, see the T/EC + adapter integration steps.

Specify the type followed by the required properties (using name/value pairs) separated by commas:

  • To set a direct connection to the database, specify: DB. The default is DB.

  • To retrieve events directly from the database, but push alarm using the T/EC postemsg utility, type: POSTEMSG,hostname=T/EC Enterprise Server hostname,port=T/EC Enterprise Server port,syncClass=event class (defined in the T/EC rule base which expects an alarm update from Operations Center).

MaxAlarms

The maximum number of alarms that the adapter queries and retains. Exceeding this number removes the oldest alarm. The default is 0, which allows an unlimited number of alarms.

MineClosedAlarmsTime

Controls the initial mining of alarms with a Closed status when the adapter starts. The default is 0, meaning Closed alarms are not mined. Only Open and Acknowledged alarms are mined.

Set to a number n greater than zero to mine Closed alarms that existed within the past n in minutes, in addition to mining Open and Acknowledged alarms.

Operations

Defines the available operations for alarms. The default is:

ack,close,reopen,suppress,assign

Script.onError

A script that executes if the adapter fails for any reason. For example, the script can print the reason for the failure as msg using log.info(msg).

Script.onInitialized

A script that executes when the adapter initializes. All of the Script.* properties are optional.

Script.onStarted

A script that executes when the adapter starts, either manually or automatically when the Operations Center server starts.

Script.onStopped

A script that executes after stopping the adapter.

SeedFile

A file in the T/EC reception log format that contains information about its managed elements. This file enables the Operations Center server to generate the elements hierarchy displayed in the Operations Center console.

SeverityMapping

Maps the T/EC severity codes to Operations Center severity codes. List the T/EC severity code first. The default is:

Fatal=Critical; Critical=Critical;Minor=Minor; Warning=Major; Harmless=Informational; Unknown=Unknown

StylesheetFile

The stylesheet file in the /OperationsCenter_install_path/database directory that applies to the HierarchyFile as a style markup to produce the final output.

Suppression Time

The time, in seconds, that an alarm can remain in the suppressed state. Enter 0 to disable the feature. The default is 1800.

The T/EC adapter has a Suppress Alarm operation which suppresses any alarm with an OPEN status for a fixed amount of time. A suppressed alarm’s severity level changes to SUPPRESSED and the alarm’s severity does not populate up the element hierarchy. The alarm remains in this state until one of the following occurs:

  • The operator closes the alarm

  • The alarm changes severity to OK

  • The timer expires

  • The operator uses the Unsuppress Alarm operation

UseAlarmTimesFor CondChanges

The date/time stamp to use for all alarm data stored by the Operations Center Data Warehouse. If true, the alarm’s date/time stamp is used. If false, the date/time stamp of when the Operations Center server received the alarm is used. The default is true.

A.18.1 Setup for Native "OCI" Oracle Driver

Communicating with an Oracle version 7 or 8i (versions 8.1.7 and earlier) database requires installing the appropriate JDBC driver from Oracle. Operations Center does not natively connect to an Oracle 7 or 8i (versions 8.1.7 and earlier) database, nor to an Oracle database through the Oracle Client (OCI).

Oracle Releases Prior to 8.1.7: Formula 3.5 includes updated database drivers. These drivers do not support Oracle databases prior to version 8.1.7. Customers using an Oracle version prior to 8.1.7 with HP OpenView Operations for UNIX should upgrade to Oracle 8.1.7 or later. If this is not possible, contact Customer Support for other options.

To install the driver for Oracle 7 or 8i (8.1.7 and earlier):

  1. Download the Oracle 7 or 8i driver and orai18n.jar file directly from Oracle.

    Obtain a JDBC 1.1.1 driver for Oracle 7.

    Oracle downloads are located at http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/tech/java/sqlj_jdbc/htdocs/winsoft.html.

  2. Unzip the Oracle driver file to the /OperationsCenter_install_path/classes directory.

  3. Save the orai18n.jar file to the /OperationsCenter_install_path/classes/ext directory.

A.18.2 Setup for DB2

Communicating with a DB2 database requires installing the appropriate JDBC driver from IBM. Operations Center does not natively connect to a DB2 database.

To enable TCP/IP communications, run an additional server program on the DB2 server. As noted in the DB2 documentation, to use the “net” version of the DB2 driver, a special server program, called db2jstrt, must run to allow a client to connect. Running this program with no arguments starts its listener on port 6789, which is the default setting for the DB2 driver. If this is not acceptable, change both ports.

To install the appropriate JDBC driver from IBM:

  1. Locate the JDBC driver in the DB2 installation directory.

    The file, db2java.jar, is usually found in the /sqllib/java directory.

  2. Place the JAR file in /OperationsCenter_install_path/classes/ext.

  3. Restart Operations Center.

  4. When configuring the adapter, enter db2 as the DB.type.