Adding the BMC Helix plugin in an on-premises Grafana instance

If you are using an on-premises Grafana instance, you can add the BMC Helix plugin in your instance to leverage BMC Helix capabilities. You can use the BMC Helix to obtain Event, Metrics, and Cloud Security data.

You must be a tenant administrator to add the BMC Helix plugin in your Grafana instance.

For example, Tina is a tenant administrator and her company uses a monitoring software that is not yet integrated with BMC Helix. Tina's company uses an on-premises instance of Grafana that imports data from the monitoring software, which Tina uses to create dashboards. Tina learns about BMC Helix and wants to leverage its capabilities along with the Grafana instance that her company uses. How can Tina use BMC Helix capabilities?

Tina can download the BMC Helix plugin from the Grafana community, and add it as a data source in her company's Grafana instance.

To add the BMC Helix in an on-premises Grafana instance

1. Log in to BMC Helix as a tenant administrator.
2. Navigate to the user icon displayed on the screen and click API keys.
3. On the API keys page, click Add key.
   
   
4. Enter a description for the API key.

5. Copy the access key, secret key, tenant ID, and tenant URL and save them for later use.

   Can I copy the secret key later?

   No. The secret key is available for copying only when it is generated for the first time. Afterwards, it is saved in an encrypted form by using the OpenBSD Bcrypt scheme. This encryption is irreversible.
   If you do not copy the secret key when it is generated or if you lose it, you must generate a new one.

6. Set the key expiry; you can set the key to never expire.

   Best practice

   Although you can set the key to never expire, for enhanced security purposes, we recommend that you set a definite key expiry date. After the key expires, you can extend the date by editing the API user.
   For more information, see Setting up API users for programmatic access .

7. Log in to BMC Helix Dashboards as a tenant administrator and navigate to Configuration > Add data source.
8. Select the BMC Helix data source.
   For a list of all plugins that you can add, see Out-of-the-box data source plug-ins.
   
   
9. On the Settings page, enter the access key, secret key, tenant URL, and tenant ID that you just copied.
   
   
10. Click Save & Test.
    A success message is displayed when the configuration is complete.

Where to go from here

Configure the BMC Helix data source. For more information, see Adding and configuring a data source.