Integrating with BMC Server Automation to enforce configuration changes

BMC Server Automation helps manage, control, and enforce configuration changes in data centers. With the integration of BMC Server Automation, BMC TrueSight Operations Management retrieves change information from BMC Server Automation for Probable Cause Analysis (PCA) candidates.

After you have set up the integration between TrueSight Operations Management and BMC Server Automation, you can create packages so that BMC Server Automation can deploy local agents to BMC Server Automation managed systems.

Benefits

A BMC Server Automation job might change the configuration of a device, causing its behavior to change. Integrating BMC TrueSight Operations Management with BMC Server Automation makes BMC Server Automation job history information available to probable cause analysis so that when you invoke probable cause analysis for an event, the probable cause analysis results page flags devices which have had BMC Server Automation jobs execute in the same time frame as the event that you are troubleshooting. In addition, certain events that are generated on BMC TrueSight Operations Management trigger the execution of a predefined snapshot job on BMC Server Automation. This snapshot job detects the configuration changes made to the device.

How does the BMC Server Automation integration work?

Packages can be created of all components in the Infrastructure Management Central Monitoring Repository. These packages are stored in BMC Server Automation, and then a BMC Server Automation job to deploy those packages to servers to be installed and configured is created.

To create packages for provisioning, you need to push packages from the base Infrastructure Management Central Monitoring Repository to BMC Server Automation, and then push packages from the extended Infrastructure Management Central Monitoring Repository to BMC Server Automation.

When you access probable cause analysis for a service degradation event, the probable cause analysis filters and ranks the events from most probable cause to least. The probable cause analysis results page indicates whether there has been a BMC Server Automation job executed on the device 24 hours before and 30 minutes after the current time stamp of the primary event. If a BMC Server Automation job has been executed on the device, the job name, job type, and start and end time of the job is displayed next to the device. For more information about probable cause analysis, see Performing probable cause analysis on an event from the TrueSight console.

The following BMC Server Automation job types are considered during probable cause analysis:

• Deploy Job (30) 
• Deploy Job Attempt (205) 
• File Deploy Job (40) 
• Network Shell Script Job (111) 
• Sync Job (190) 
• Deploy Apply Job (203) 
• Deploy Undo Job (204) 
• Snapshot Job

Supported software versions

The following table lists the supported software versions for the integration:

Enabling the integration

Perform the following tasks after installing the BMC TrueSight Presentation Server:

• Ensure that the BMC Server Automation Agent is installed and licensed on the following computers:
  • Computer that hosts the BMC TrueSight Presentation Server where the Central Monitoring Repository is installed.
  • On all remote computers on which the product packages are installed and configured.
  • Computer that hosts the BMC Server Automation server. 

• Add the following entry in the exports file that is located on the computer where TrueSight Presentation Server is installed.

  • (Microsoft Windows)  

    <Installation Directory of rsc>\exports -rw, user=administrator

    Default path of <Installation directory of rsc> is C:\Windows\rsc

  • (Unix) 

    <Installation Directory of rsc>/exports -rw, user=root

    Default path of <Installation directory of rsc> is /etc/rsc

• Give appropriate permissions for BladeLogic installation directory on the computer where TrueSight Presentation Server is installed.

• Use the command-line commands to enable the integration. For more information, see Command line options for configuring the BMC Server Automation integration.

• If you are using TrueSight Server Automation version 8.9.03 or later, perform the following steps before you create PATROL Agent packages : 

  • From the <TSPS_Install_Dir>/truesightpserver/modules/cma/auto_provision/Patrol/InstallScripts/bmc_ppm_patrol_install.cmd.tmpl file, search and replace the following information:

    
    Search for     : for /f %%i in (%TEMP%\PAgents.txt) do echo "Stopping %%i && net stop %%i"

    Replace with : for /f %%i in (%%TEMP%%\PAgents.txt) do echo "Stopping %%i && net stop %%i"

    Search for       : for /f %%i in (%TEMP%\PAgents.txt) do (call :start_agent_instance %%i %IS_AGENT%)

    Replace with  : for /f %%i in (%%TEMP%%\PAgents.txt) do (call :start_agent_instance %%i %%IS_AGENT%%)

    See the following images:

    

    

Editing the BMC Server Automation integration details

1. From the TrueSight console, select Administration > Integrations.
2. In the BMC Server Automation section, click the action menu for Configure TrueSight Presentation Server with BMC Server Automation and select Edit. 

      3.  You can change the following integration settings.

Considerations for upgrade customers

If you are an existing BMC ProactiveNet customer upgrading to BMC TrueSight Operations Management, the existing BMC Server Automation details are not migrated. You need to manually set up the integration using command-line options on the TrueSight Presentation Server.

Related topics

Installing an RSCD agent (Windows)

Installing the RSCD agent (Linux and Unix)

Agent compatibility

Configuring the exports file

Enabling the web services capability

Provisioning Operations Management components with BMC Server Automation

Command line options for configuring the BMC Server Automation integration