Important Starting from version 22.2, the documentation for BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations and Developer Tools resides in a separate space: BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations.

(Deprecated) Integrating with SolarWinds NPM


SolarWinds NPM that enables you to detect, diagnose, and resolve network performance issues. As a tenant administrator, you use BMC Helix Developer Tools to add, edit, and delete SolarWinds NPM integrations.

The SolarWinds NPM integration instances that were configured before the 22.1 release are now deprecated. A deprecated integration continues to work with 22.1. You can edit the integration. However, you cannot configure new instances of the integration. We recommend that you use BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations to configure new instances. For more information, see Integrating-with-SolarWinds-NPM.

Related topic

Supported-out-of-the-box-integrations-for-BMC-Helix-Developer-Tools

Enabling-disabling-or-deleting-integrations

Troubleshooting-the-connector-configuration-issues

Tip: View separate events and alerts in BMC Helix Operations Management

You can see SolarWinds NPM events on the Events page of BMC Helix Operations Management. Although SolarWinds NPM separates alerts and events, you can see them all as events in BMC Helix Operations Management. To see the difference, view the event details. If the event was an alert in SolarWinds NPM, the event class appears as SolarWindsAlert. If the event was an event in SolarWinds NPM, the event class appears as SolarWindsEvent.


Before you begin

Ensure that the SolarWinds NPM host is accessible from your docker-enabled Linux server.


To edit a SolarWinds NPM integration

  1. From BMC Helix Developer Tools, open the Configured Integrations tab if the tab does not open by default.
    This tab shows deprecated SolarWinds NPM integrations and all other configured integrations. The following example shows tile for a deprecated SolarWinds NPM integration: 
    deprecated_SW_integration.png

    The tile shows the following information:

    • The name of the integration with its build number.
    • The incoming data. In this example, 5,046 CIs and 36 events have been received.
    • The name of the user who modified the integration along with the time of the modification. In this example, it is the admin user.
    • The connector status. In this example, the status is Active.

     

  2. On the deprecated SolarWinds NPM integration that you want to edit, select Edit from the Actions menu configuremenu_icon.png.
  3. Enter or edit the following source details:
    solarwinds_integ.png


    • Integration Name: Provide a name for the integration.
    • Select Connector: Select another connector if required. 

    • API URL: Enter the API URL.

      How do I obtain the API URL?

      The API URL is the name of the host where you have installed SolarWinds NPM, appended by port 17778. Ensure that you use the https protocol in the API URL.
      https://<

      Unknown macro: confluence_display.

      _host_name>:17778

      SolarWinds NPM uses the following default ports:

      • API URL: 17778
      • User interface URL: 8787
    • User Name and Password: Enter the credentials that you used while installing SolarWinds NPM.
    • Select entities to be registered: Select the available entities whose data you want to view after they are registered. You can select all entities.

  4. In the Customize Entity Configuration section, configure the advanced settings for the entities that you have selected in the previous step. You should see the Configure option for the selected entity types as shown below. 
    Dynatrace_CustomizeEntities.png

    To configure the advanced settings, do the following steps:

    1. Click Configure.
    2. Based on the type of the entity selected, configure the following settings:
      • Event: Specify the refresh time for events in seconds. By default, the refresh time is set to 60 seconds.
      • CI: Specify the refresh time for CIs in hours. By default, the refresh time is set to 24 hours.
    3. Click Save.
  5. Click Configure to configure the integration. 
  6. Click Update.
    The Configured Integrations tab shows the updated integration.


To validate the SolarWinds NPM integration

  • Ensure that the status of the integration is Connected. The following statuses are also valid:
    • Configuring
    • Disabled
    • Disconnected

  • From BMC Helix Operations Management, go to Events to ensure that you can see the events in BMC Helix Operations Management.
    For more information, see Event monitoring.

  • From BMC Helix Discovery, go to Explore > Data, and then click <number> Import Records in the Miscellaneous section to ensure that you can see the records from the source (host) in BMC Helix Discovery. Use these records further to create a business service model for the source depending on your use case requirements in BMC Helix AIOps. For more information, see Creating a model.


SolarWinds NPM event class

The following event classes are created in BMC Helix Operations Management to display the SolarWinds NPM data:

  • SolarWindsEvent
    • Parent class name: EVENT

    • Attributes

  • SolarWindsAlert
    • Parent class name: EVENT

    • Attributes


SolarWinds NPM event slot mapping

The following table shows the event slot mapping between SolarWinds NPM and BMC Helix Operations Management.


Frequently asked questions on the SolarWinds NPM integration

This section lists a few frequently asked questions (FAQs) with answers that might provide more insight into this integration.

What is the difference between an alert and an event in SolarWinds NPM?

For this information, see the SolarWinds NPM documentation.

Why can't I see all the entities in BMC Helix AIOps?

In BMC Helix AIOps, you can see only business services. To view all entities other than business services, go to the BMC Helix Discovery console.  For example, to check the list of imported Configuration Items (CIs), do the following steps:

  1. In the BMC Helix Discovery console, from the main menu, select Explore > Data.
    The Infrastructure page opens. This page lists the total number of each type of infrastructure item in the system, as well as any infrastructure objects assigned to you. It also displays a list of infrastructure-related reports.

  2. To view a list of CIs, under the Miscellaneous section, click <count> Import Records.
    A list of CIs is displayed. For more information about how to search or filter these infrastructure items, see Managing your IT infrastructure.

  3. Click any Dynatrace CI from the list to display the View Object page, which lists the attributes of the object and its relationships with other objects. For more information about the attribute mappings, see ImportRecord and for more information about steps to modeling the services, see Start anywhere application modeling.

Why are the SolarWinds NPM events missing if the integration was disabled for more than three days?

By default, the BMC Helix Developer Tools collects the historical event data for the last three days (72 hours) only from SolarWinds NPM. If you disable the SolarWinds NPM integration and enable it after three days, the maximum historical event data collected is available only for the last three days. For example, If you disabled the integration on July 10th and enabled it on July 20th, you will see the historical data is from July 17th to July 20th only (for the last three days or 72 hours). Any historical event data before the last three days is not collected.


 

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