Evaluating metadata

ProactiveNet Performance Management or the TrueSight Infrastructure Management evaluates the metadata in the following order:

Adapter-overrides: The adapter-overrides, if set, have the highest precedence. This metadata provides you complete control of metadata at a global level.
KM metadata: If no adapter-overrides are available, the KM metadata serves as the default metadata.
Adapter-defaults: If the KM is not enabled with metadata, adapter-defaults are used to fetch the metadata. These adapter-defaults are shipped with BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management or TrueSight Infrastructure Management. If the adapter-defaults are not available for a KM, BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management or TrueSight Infrastructure Management generates the default metadata for the KM.

Note

You cannot edit the adapter-defaults metadata.

This section provides the information about following topics:

Handling metadata

Handling multiple versions of a KM

When multiple versions of a KM are available, the latest version of adapter-defaults will work for earlier versions of KM. The latest metadata is available to BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management or the TrueSight Infrastructure Management. If you have specified a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) in metadata, the same KPI should be available in all supported versions of the KM.

Handling metadata settings

Metadata should be set globally for a KM. You cannot set the metadata individually for a specific KM instance or host.

Handling migration of customized adapter-defaults files

Changes made to the adapter-defaults files by multiple users can be extracted and then migrated to adapter-overrides files.

Metadata specification for a KM

You need to set the metadata for application classes and instances in the KMs before they are imported into BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management or TrueSight Infrastructure Management. The application class metadata is static in nature. The instance metadata is dynamic and depends on the type of resource (such as CPU and memory) from which it is discovered.

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Metadata keywords

The following table lists the keywords that are used for the field attributes in metadata.

Field attributes

Attribute	Description
Name	Specifies the name of the PATROL namespace variable
Mandatory	Indicates whether it is mandatory to set a namespace variable
Level	Indicates the level on which a namespace variable is set

The following table lists the keywords that are used for the value attributes in metadata.

Value attributes

Attribute	Description
Value Type	Value Type can have the following values: String: Only one string is allowed for the Value attribute List of strings: More than one strings can be specified for the Value attribute. Specify these strings in PSL list format.
Mandatory	Indicates whether it is mandatory to set the Value attribute
Value	Values can be literals. A value should be used as specified in the metadata specification and it should match the spelling and case sensitivity. A value can be an empty list or it can be left blank if not specified as mandatory in the metadata specification.
Dependency	Specifies the additional parameters that can be specified for the dependency metadata variable

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Static metadata

The topic lists the static metadata for application classes and parameters:

Application class attribute specifications

The following section explains attribute specifications for an application class:

Monitor category

The monitor category specifications are used for categorization and probable-cause-analysis (PCA) heuristics. This specification is represented by the MetaKMCategory variable.

The following table lists the field requirements for the Monitor category specification:

Field requirements

Field	Description
Name	MetaKMCategory
Mandatory	Yes
Level	Application Class

The following table lists the value requirements for the Monitor category specification:

Value requirements

Value	Description
Value Type	String
Mandatory	Yes
Value	Valid values: System, Database, Application, Web, User Transactions, Mail, Security, Network, IP Services, Directory, Other

Monitor Type

The following table lists the field requirements for the Monitor Type specification. This specification is represented by the MetaKMType variable.

Field requirements

Field	Description
Name	MetaKMType
Mandatory	Yes
Level	Application Class

The following table lists the value requirements for the Monitor Type specification:

Value requirements

Value

Description

Value Type

String

Mandatory

Yes

Value

Valid values are:

CONTAINER: KMs that are used to group other KM instances. These KMs do not have any attributes.
MONITOR: KMs whose instances represent the state of the monitored resources through consumer, standard, or collector parameters
CONSOLEONLY: KMs that are used only for the configuration through the PATROL console such as Event Management KM
TRANSIENT: KMs whose instances are created and destroyed within a short span of time

Display name

The name that is displayed on the BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management or the TrueSight Infrastructure Management consoles. For example, an application class displayed on the PATROL console as INET_Web_Url , you can set value of the MetaKMDisplayName variable (which represents the Display name specification) as Web URL to make it more intuitive.

The following table lists the field requirements for the Display name specification:

Field requirements

Field	Description
Name	MetaKMDisplayName
Mandatory	Yes
Level	Application Class

The following table lists the value requirements for the Display name specification:

Value requirements

Value	Description
Value Type	String
Mandatory	Yes
Value	Specify a human-interpretable name for the application class, or specify a blank string (" ") in case application class name is already human-interpretable

CDM Class Name

Application class represents the resource that it monitors. Each application class should publish to the CDM classes to which it corresponds.

The following table lists the field requirements for the CDM Class Name specification:

Field requirements

Field	Description
Name	MetaKMCDMClassName
Mandatory	Yes
Level	Application Class

The following table lists the value requirements for the CDM Class Name specification:

Value requirements

Value	Description
Value Type	String
Mandatory	Only if token-ID is specified on the instance of the KM.
Value	CDM Class Name. For example, BMC_FileSystem, BMC_ComputerSystem, BMC_Databases etc.

Config Variable

The configuration details also known as namespace details are stored in Config Variable as texts.

The following table lists the field requirements for the Config Variable specification.

Field requirements

Field	Description
Name	MetaConfigVar
Mandatory	Yes
Level	Application Class

The following table lists the value requirements for the Config Variable specification.

Value requirements

Value	Description
Value Type	List of strings
Mandatory	No
Value	List of namespace variable [which will be set on instance with config information]

Example

The info box that has the solution version information is not exposed on the BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management Ops UI or the TrueSight console. You can send this information to the BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management Ops UI through a config parameter. KM version loaded on PatrolAgent has to be exposed through this namespace variable as config parameter.

- SolutionVersion such as for UNIX SolutionVersion = 9.4 , for VMWARE SolutionVersion is 3.0

set("../SolutionVersion", "9.4"); # to set it from a parameter

The preceding command enables the end user to find which KM(s) (solution) version is loaded on PatrolAgent on BPPM UI or the TrueSight console.

Perform the following steps to view the config parameter set on the instance:

On the BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management Ops UI:

Go to Device grid.
Click the device, go to Tools menu on a particular instance
Click Show graph.
Click Monitor Information.

On the TrueSight console:

Log on to the TrueSight console and select Monitoring > Devices.
Click the device, and select the Monitors tab on the Device Details page.
This page displays a list of Monitors.
Click the specific Monitor name whose information you want to see.

Parameter attribute specifications

The attribute specifications in the following sections are parameter-specific. However, these specifications should be set on the application class level, not on the parameter level.

Availability

The parameters that monitor the availability of a device or database are published by using the MetaAvailabilityParams variable. The following table lists the field requirements for the Availability specification.

Field requirements

Field	Description
Name	MetaAvailabilityParams
Mandatory	Yes
Level	Application Class

The following table lists the value requirements for the Availability specification.

Value requirements

Value	Description
Value Type	List of strings
Mandatory	No
Value	List of parameters

Response-time

The parameters that monitor the response time of an action or operation are published by using the MetaResponseTimeParams variable. The following table lists the field requirements for the Response-time specification.

Field requirements

Field	Description
Name	MetaResponseTimeParams
Mandatory	Yes
Level	Application Class

The following table lists the value requirements for the Response-time specification.

Value requirements

Value	Description
Value Type	List of strings
Mandatory	No
Value	List of parameters

Key-Performance-Indicator

The parameters that are key performance indicators of a resource are published by using the MetaKpiParams variable.

The following table lists the field requirements for the Key-Performance-Indicator specification.

Field requirements

Field	Description
Name	MetaKpiParams
Mandatory	Yes
Level	Application Class

The following table lists the value requirements for the Key-Performance-Indicator specification.

Value requirements

Value	Description
Value Type	List of strings
Mandatory	No
Value	List of parameters

Graph-by-default

The parameters whose values should be plotted on a graph by default on the BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management GUI or on a TrueSight console are published by using the MetaGraphByDefaultParams variable.

The following table lists the field requirements for the Graph-by-default specification.

Field requirements

Field	Description
Name	MetaGraphByDefaultParams
Mandatory	Yes
Level	Application Class
Dependency	MetaKpiParams

The following table lists the value requirements for the Graph-by-default specification.

Value requirements

Value

Description

Value Type

List of strings

Mandatory

No

Value

List of parameters

*Note:*

Specify a prioritized list of parameters. Graph is displayed according to the priority of parameters. 1^st index has the highest priority.

Normal-distribution

A parameter that behaves in a consistent way with very few or no deviations from the mean are tagged as Normal Distribution. These parameters for not require any normalization. Response Time typically does not fall into this category as it sporadically has extreme spikes.

The following table lists the field requirements for the Normal-distribution specification.

Field requirements

Field	Description
Name	MetaNormalDistributionParams
Mandatory	Yes
Level	Application Class
Dependency	MetaResponseTimeParams

The following table lists the value requirements for the Normal-distribution specification.

Value requirements

Value	Description
Value Type	List of strings
Mandatory	No
Value	List of parameters

Monitor-for-abnormalities

The parameters that should be monitored for abnormalities (outside baselines) and for which alarm ranges are defined are published by using the MetaNormalDistributionParams variable. Some parameters that should be monitored for abnormalities, however, for which alarm ranges are not defined, thresholds need to be overridden.

The following table lists the field requirements for the Monitor-for-abnormalities specification.

Field requirements

Field	Description
Name	MetaNormalDistributionParams
Mandatory	Yes
Level	Application Class
Dependency	MetaAvailabilityParams

The following table lists the value requirements for the Monitor-for-abnormalities specification.

Value requirements

Value	Description
Value Type	List of strings
Mandatory	No
Value	List of parameters

Config

The parameters that specify whether value collected is related to configuration of a resource such as memory and CPU are published by the MetaConfigParams variable.

The following table lists the field requirements for config attribute specification.

Field requirements

Field	Description
Name	MetaConfigParams
Mandatory	Yes
Level	Application Class

The following table lists the value requirements for the config attribute specification.

Value requirements

Value	Description
Value Type	List of strings
Mandatory	No
Value	List of parameters

Statistical

The parameters that indicate performance and whether the value collected is numerical are published using the MetaStatsParams variable.

The following table lists the field requirements for the statistic al attribute specification.

Field requirements

Field	Description
Name	MetaStatsParams
Mandatory	Yes
Level	Application Class

The following table lists the value requirements for the statistical attribute specification.

Value requirements

Value	Description
Value Type	List of strings
Mandatory	No
Value	List of parameters

Application collection status

Each application has a collector parameter that collects data for its parameters. The parameter that indicates the collection status of the collector parameter is published by the MetaACSParams variable. The following table lists the field requirements for the application collection status attribute specifications.

Field requirements

Field	Description
Name	MetaACSParams
Mandatory	Yes
Level	Application Class

The following table lists the value requirements for the application collection status attribute specifications.

Value requirements

Value	Description
Value Type	List of strings
Mandatory	No
Value	List of parameters

Delta

The parameters that contain a delta value are published by using the MetaDeltaParams variable. The following table lists the field requirements for the delta specification.

Field requirements

Field	Description
Name	MetaDeltaParams
Mandatory	Yes
Level	Application Class

The following table lists the value requirements for the delta specification.

Value requirements

Value	Description
Value Type	List of strings
Mandatory	No
Value	List of parameters

Value Format (%d)

This is used to convert and represent the parameter value as integer.

The following table lists the field requirements for the Value Format specification.

Field requirements

Field	Description
Name	MetaFormat
Mandatory	No
Level	Parameter

The following table lists the value requirements for the Value Format specification.

Value requirements

Value	Description
Value Type	String
Mandatory	No
Value	%d

Parameter display name (Title)

No variable is required to publish the display name of a parameter. Use the Title field of a parameter to display a meaningful name of the parameter. The following table lists the field requirements for the display name specification.

Field requirements

Field	Description
Name (Parameter field)	Title
Mandatory	Yes
Level	Parameter

The following table lists the value requirements for the display name specification.

Value requirements

Value	Description
Value Type	List of strings
Mandatory	No
Value	Display name of parameter

Units

No variable is required to publish the units of a parameter. Currently, in KMs, the Units field contains the units as well the context. The Units field of a parameter should be used to define the proper units and units should be defined from a standard list as shown in the following table. The following table lists the field requirements for the Unit specification.

Field requirements

Field	Description
Name (Parameter field)	Units
Mandatory	Yes
Level	Parameter

The following table lists the value requirements for the Unit specification.

Value requirements

Value	Description
Value Type	List of strings
Mandatory	No
Value	ms, sec, min, hr, day, wk, B, KB, MB, GB, b/s, kb/s, mb/s, gb/s, pkts/sec, %, err/sec, pkts, blks, bytes/sec, #, cents, $, per min, per sec, deg C, KB/min, s, KB/sec, RPM, centisecs, KBytes, NoneNote: In case, the units of a parameter can not be derived from the preceding list, the KM developer needs to set it to a customized unit. For example, the units for the HostStatus parameter can be the following: 1-UP, 0 - DOWN.

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Dynamic Metadata

Any metadata that is set on runtime is a dynamic metadata. In the BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management or the TrueSight environment, all the instances coming from PATROL Agent are validated by the Integration Service and depending on the MetaKMCDMClassName, MetaTokenID and MetaFQDN values the instances are converted to a device. For example, Token ID is a dynamic metadata used to consolidate all the instances (representing a device) to one device when the monitoring is performed through different KMs.

The following section lists the dynamic metadata:

MetaTokenID

The following table lists the field requirements for the MetaTokenID specification.

Field requirements

Field	Description
Name	MetaTokenID
Mandatory	Yes
Level	Instance

The following table lists the value requirements for the MetaTokenID specification.

Value requirements

Attribute	Value
Value Type	String
Mandatory	Yes
Value	<tokenid>

where, <tokenid> is based on the type of instance monitoring. For example, for a device shown as an instance, <tokenid> would be <device tokenid> as specified by CMDB.

PSL command

set("/<application name>/"."sid"."/MetaTokenID","<host name>".":"."<domain name>")

For example,

set("/REMOTE_HOSTS/"."bmc-test-rhel"."/MetaTokenID","bmctest".":"."test.bmc.com")

MetaFQDN

The following table lists the field requirements for the MetaFQDN specification.

Field requirements

Field	Description
Name	MetaFQDN
Mandatory	Yes
Level	Instance

The following table lists the value requirements for the MetaFQDN specification.

Value requirements

Attribute	Value
Value Type	String
Mandatory	Yes
Value	<Fully qualified host name>/<IP Address> <Fully qualified host name> is Mandatory and <IP Address> is NOT Mandatory Note: / is a delimiter and is required if you are mentioning the <IP Address> too.

PSL command

set("/<application name>/"."sid"."/MetaFQDN","fqdn")

For example,

set("/REMOTE_HOSTS/"."bmc-test-rhel"."/MetaFQDN","bmc-test-rhel.test.bmc.com")

MetaParentFQDN

The following table lists the field requirements for the MetaParentFQDN specification.

Field requirements

Field	Description
Name	MetaParentFQDN
Mandatory	Yes
Level	Instance

The following table lists the value requirements for the MetaParentFQDN specification:

Value requirements

Attribute	Value
Value Type	String
Mandatory	Yes
Value	<Fully qualified host name>/<IP Address> <Fully qualified host name> is Mandatory and <IP Address> is NOT Mandatory Note: / is a delimiter and is required if you are mentioning the <IP Address> too.

PSL command

set("/<application name>/"."sid"."/MetaParentFQDN","fqdn")

For example,

set("/VSM_HOST/"."bmc-test-esx"."/MetaParentFQDN","bmc-test-vc.vc.bmc.com")

MetaParentTokenID

The following table lists the field requirements for the MetaParentTokenID specification.

Field requirements

Field	Description
Name	MetaParentTokenID
Mandatory	Yes
Level	Instance

The following table lists the value requirements for the MetaParentTokenID specification.

Value requirements

Attribute	Value
Value Type	String
Mandatory	Yes
Value	<parent tokenid>

PSL command

set("/<application name>/".sid."/MetaParentTokenID","<host UUID>":"<host name>")

For example,

set"/VSM_HOST/"."bmc-test-esx"."/MetaParentTokenID","42156bba-1ac9-df4c-f62f-6554262d9ed8":"pe-pun-bpc-dw02")

MetaTitle

The following table lists the field requirements for the MetaTitle specification.

Field requirements

Field	Description
Name	MetaTitle
Mandatory	Yes
Level	Parameter

The following table lists the value requirements for the MetaTitle specification.

Value requirements

Attribute	Value
Value Type	String
Mandatory	No
Value	<string>

PSL command

set("/<application name>/"."sid"."/<parameter name>/MetaTitle","<string>")

For example,

set("/NT_CPU/"."CPU_0"."/CPUTotal/MetaTitle","This is CPU total parameter")

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Evaluating metadata

Handling metadata

Handling multiple versions of a KM

Handling metadata settings

Handling migration of customized adapter-defaults files

Metadata specification for a KM

Metadata keywords

Static metadata

Application class attribute specifications

Monitor category

Monitor Type

Display name

CDM Class Name

Config Variable

Parameter attribute specifications

Availability

Response-time

Key-Performance-Indicator

Graph-by-default

Normal-distribution

Monitor-for-abnormalities

Config

Statistical

Application collection status

Delta

Value Format (%d)

Parameter display name (Title)

Units

Dynamic Metadata

MetaTokenID

MetaFQDN

MetaParentFQDN

MetaParentTokenID

MetaTitle

Comments