“Lights Out”Configuration using Tivoli Netcool AutoDiscovery Tools

“Lights Out”Configuration using Tivoli Netcool AutoDiscovery Tools

Antonio Rolle

Director

generationE Technologies

October 25, 2006

IBM Software Group

© 2006 IBM CorporationTivoli Netcool User Symposium2

"Lights Out" Configuration of Proviso, RAD & xSMs

Leverage the information collected by Tivoli Application Discovery Depending Mapping (TADDM), Precision for IP Networks and data contained in your Configuration Management Database (CMDB) to automate the configuration of Proviso, Real Time Active Dashboards (RAD), xSMs. During this session learn how ensure that all of your services, servers and applications are monitored based on information collected by Application Discovery and Precision IP.

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Techniques for Configuration Manual

Bulk loading

– Simple to understand and architect

– No operational/runtime external dependencies

– Difficult to handle updates and changes

Auto population from events

– Leverages existing investment in event enrichment: Quick to value

– Difficult to construct multi-parent relationships

– Limited support for updates/deltas

Dynamic access

– Very up to date access to externally managed data

– Depends on external databases being HA to serve system

– Trickier to conceptualize and configure

– Benefit: Updates and deltas are handled gracefully

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Agenda

generationE Technologies Overview

ITIL CMDB Concepts

Utilizing TADDM Autodiscovery Data

Utilizing Precision Autodiscovery Data

Utilizing Other CMDB Data

Case Study

IBM Software Group


generationE Background

Founded in 1999; headquarters in Chicago

Fortune 500 and Service Provider Focus

Offices in Chicago, Dallas, & San Clemente

40 Professional Services Personnel and growing

Key Business Activities:

• Software solution sales

• Consulting Services

• Maintenance & Support

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generationE Practice Areas

Fault Management & Service Assurance

• Security Management

• Systems Management

• Application Management

• Network Management

• Database Management

Capacity & Performance Management

IT Service Management

• Service Level Management

• Asset Management

• Configuration Management

• Change Management

• Incident Management

• Problem Management

• Service Desk

Job Scheduling

Process Improvement

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Agenda


ITIL CMDB Concepts



Utilizing other CMDB Data

Case Study

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ITIL Configuration Management Database

Purpose of the Configuration Management Database

Hold relationships between system components, including Incidents, Problems, Known errors, Changes and Releases.

Holds corporate data about employees, suppliers, locations and business units.

Automates the management of configuration item details to reduce errors and costs.

Reconciles data between data sources.

Supports Service Level Management: linking configuration items to supported services

Holds inventory details on CIs: supplier, cost, purchase date, license renewal, maintenance agreements.

“Forrester strongly believes that the term “a CMDB” is a complete misnomer. No vendor is capable of developing a single database that holds all the relevant information in the required format at the same time and that can scale to the needs of larger corporations.”

- Thomas Mendel, Forrester Analyst

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“

”

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable

from magic.

Clarke’s Third Law

Source: Arthur C. Clarke

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Agenda


ITIL CMDB Concepts




Case Study

IBM Software Group


Tivoli Application Discovery Dependency Mapping (TADDM) Overview

Application Mapping with Dependencies

The software lets IT managers see the logical and physical dependencies among applications, servers and devices, experts say.

“If you want to manage an IT service, you need to first define what it’s made up of, how it’s configured

Glenn O’Donnell, Meta

CMDB

“The CMDB is the center of the ITIL Universe”

ComplianceAutomated solutions dramatically reduce auditor testing. Ernst & Young estimates that manual processes need to be tested 30 times more than automated processes to ensure accuracy.

INVENTORY

ORDER ENTRY

LOGISTICS

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Application Maps Auto Discovery Configuration Management Change Tracking

Visualize Business services & Metrics Track SLA’s over time Business and Customer Impact Problem Resolution

Determine Service Dependencies Using TADDM

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Integrated Architecture

RAD ObjectServer

xSMs

Probes

ITC

AM

ITM

TADDMServer

Service ConfigRepository

Applications and Services

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Netcool RAD Integration:Application Dependency Discovery

Desired Integration Points: Discover Services and Dependencies

Import Service Info into RAD

Monitor relevant components

Goal: Automate all the above

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Export from TADDM using its API

Use XSL to parse exported XML files to RAD Shell files

Use RAD shell to import these RAD shell files

Application Discovery RAD Integration - How?

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RAD Visualization

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Netcool SSM Integration:Application Dependency Discovery

Desired Integration Points: Discover processes running on hosts

Generate SSM configuration files

Monitor relevant processes

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SSM Discovered Process Monitoring

Export Discovered Processes

Generation SSM Configuration Files

“Tweak” The Configuration Files

Push Configuration Files to $SSM_HOME/config

Execute cfg-help.pl to load configuration file

Confirm in agentConfigTable or psControlTable

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Agenda


ITIL CMDB Concepts




Case Study

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Netcool/Precision

Scalable Network Discovery and Centralized Data Repository

Extendable discovery for layers 1, 2 & 3 devices, interfaces and connectivity

Broad support; IP, HSRP, CDP, Ethernet, VLAN, MPLS IP VPNs, Layer

Ethernet VPNs, IP over ATM

Dynamic, always active and event driven to detect network change as it occurs

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The Netcool Information Model (NCIM) Schema

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The Netcool Information Model (NCIM) Schema

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Tivoli Netcool Impact Presicion Data Source Adapter

Bi-directional DSA that allows Impact to query Precision’s NCIM database.

Precision Listener allows Impact to receive notifications from Precision that things have changed. It can’t tell you what changed though.

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Sample Precision Data Read PolicyUSE_SHARED_SCOPE;function ActionNode_PrecisionSamplePolicy(OrgNodes) { log("**PrecisionSamplePolicy**");Type = "Precision";Filter = "Subject = '" + "RIVERSOFT.3.0.MODEL.QUERY" + "' AND Query='" + 'select * from master.entityByName;' + "'";Filter = Filter + " AND Timeout='100000'";log("Filter is " + Filter);

out=GetByFilter(Type, Filter, CountOnly); if (Num > 0) { runFunction0=true; } // Num > 0 if ( runFunction0 = true ) { // display all the rows

ActionNode_DisplayQueryResults(OrgNodes);i=0;

while(i<Num){ Log("out["+i+"]= "+out[i].EntityName);i=i+1;}log("Num is " + Num);

}}

function ActionNode_DisplayQueryResults(OrgNodes) { log("**DisplayQueryResults***");log("ErrorString is " + OrgNode.ErrorString);log("FieldNames is " + OrgNode.FieldNames);log("EntityName is " + OrgNode.EntityName);}ActionNode_PrecisionSamplePolicy(OrgNodes);

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Netcool RAD Integration:Precision for IP Networks

Desired Integration Points: Update RAD Server & Application Model

with network connectivity information

Monitor relevant components

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Export server list from TADDM using its API

Extract related switch or router information from Precision IP

Import switch and router information into RAD

Precision IP RAD Integration - How?

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Integration example - ASM

View automatically partitioned by application

Application details for a specific device (from ASM)

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Agenda


ITIL CMDB Concepts




Case Study

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SQL Data Sources

– Oracle

– DB2

– Netcool/OMNIbus

– Sybase

– MS SQL

– PostgreSQL

– MySQL

– Informix

– ODBC

Socket DSA

Standard Technologies

– JMS

– Web Services

– XML (RO)

– POP3/SMTP

– Instant Messaging

– LDAP

– SNMP

– Flat File (RO) Applications

– Netcool/Precision

– Smallworld (RO)

– Alcatel 5620 (RO)

– Cramer Dimension

– TIBCO

Netcool/Impact Data Source Adapters

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Other CMDB Data Sources

Microsoft Enterprise Project Manager

HP OpenView Service Desk

Mercury Application Mapping

Troux Technologies 4 Platform CMDB(SQL)

BMC Remedy CMDB (WebServices)

Voyence Control (WebServices)

CA Unicenter (WebServices)

Altiris (MS SQL Server DSA)

Home Grown (*)

…

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Typical Uses of Netcool/Impact

Customers use Impact to process high-volume event streams and:

– Gather additional information about an event (“enrichment”)

– Decide which events should be filtered out (“suppression”)

– Set markers in diverse data sources (“correlation”)

– Take action on devices (“auto-correction”)

– Alert staff about a high-priority condition (“notification”)

– And escalate, if none of the above actions produced the desired results (“escalation”)

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Agenda


ITIL CMDB Concepts




Case Study

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Case Study

Scenario

– Customer has deployed RAD to manage service levels, manage IT priorities to service requirements

Challenges

– Manually create comprehensive application maps, with deep configurations and interdependencies

– Manually create and maintain business application groupings

– Cannot identify what has changed in an application to resolve application performance and availability issues

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Questions

Antonio [email protected]://www.generationetech.com

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Agenda


ITIL CMDB Concepts




Case Study

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Service Management Logical Architecture

Realtime Event

Management

Historical Performance

Management

Distributed-data

Management

Service-dependency

Management

virtual CMDBvirtual CMDB Event EngineEvent Engine

Discovery Monitoring

Visualization

Da t a

Ac c e s s

Ev en t

Ac c e s s

3rd Party Applications, Databases,

middleware & OSS

3rd Party Event & Element

Management Tools

The The Business Business PerspectivePerspective

IT IT Infrastructure Infrastructure ManagementManagement

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Methodology Meets Technology

Discover Business Dependencies

Discover the Network Infrastructure

Discover the Application

Infrastructure

Discover Business Applications

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RAD and TADDM Integration Installation

Acquire the installation file for RAD/TADDM

AppDiscoIntegration4June2006Rad30.tar.gz Unzip and untar the file Make sure you are logged in as the RAD

administrative user (netcool) and that $NCHOME is set appropriately

Run the untarred install script:

install.sh The installer script will copy all needed files to

$NCHOME/guifoundation/webapps/sla/integrations/appDisco

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RAD/TADDM Integration

The steps to move data from TADDM to RAD vary depending on whether the two application reside on the same server.

There are some steps required to set up TADDM to be able to export services properly. This generally consists of importing custom templates for the purpose of RAD.

If they do both reside on the same server, then there is one script which will do everything:

importAppDiscoToRad.sh ad_uid ad_password raduid radpasswd

If the application reside on different servers the process is essentially the same but we must add the external server name for TADDM to the above command

We can also use partial commands which will allow us to only use a portion of the import/export functionality

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Importing pre-created TADDM data to RAD

We will start with data that has already been exported from TADDM in xml format. This data should be in the directory:

$NCHOME/guifoundation/webapps/sla/integrations/appDisco/exportedFromAppDisco

Make sure the $RAD_HOME variable is set:

export RAD_HOME=$NCHOME/guifoundation/webapps/sla

Execute the following script:

xslParseAppDiscoData.sh

Execute the following script:

importDataToRad.sh

Documents

“Lights Out”Configuration using Tivoli Netcool AutoDiscovery Tools