BMC Discovery 11.x Extractor
Use the BMC Discovery ETL to fetch the relationships between business services, applications, and the supporting IT infrastructure. The ETL connects to the BMC Discovery to collect this mapping information. You can use it to effectively manage your business services and applications. These relationship details are displayed as a hierarchy in the BMC Helix Continuous Optimization. The ETL makes the REST API calls for fetching the mapping information from BMC Discovery.
Supported BMC Discovery versions:
- 21.02
- 20.02, 20.08
- 11.3, 11.2, 11.1
The following video (5:49) provides information about the enhancements done in the BMC Discovery 11.x extractor.
Information
This video describes the functionality of TrueSight Capacity Optimization, but it is valid for BMC Helix Continuous Optimization too.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=fQSPhgl6Olc
Collecting data by using the BMC Discovery 11.x Extractor
To collect data by using the BMC Discovery 11.x Extractor, do the following tasks:
I. Complete the preconfiguration tasks.
II. Configure the ETL.
III. Run the ETL.
- Create a user in the BMC Discovery and assign the API access rights. The ETL uses the credentials of this user and REST API calls to connect to BMC Discovery for data collection.
- Log in to the BMC Discovery as an administrator.
- Click settings .
- Under Security, click Users > Add.
- On the Add User page, do the following:
- From the Template list, select User.
- Specify the user name and password details.
- Under Groups, select these check boxes to assign rights and add the user to these Public groups: api-access and never-deactivate
- Click Apply.
- Add manual groups for creating business services.
- Log in to the BMC Discovery as an administrator.
- Under Quick View, click any of the following options:
- Application Instances - To add groups to application instances
- Hosts - To add groups to systems under hosts
- Virtual Machines - To add groups to virtual machines
- Select the check boxes corresponding to the application instances, systems, or virtual machines for which you want to add manual groups.
- Click Actions > Manual Groups, create the required manual groups, and select them. The selected groups are displayed under Manual Groups.
- Ensure that the BMC Discovery is configured to use the HTTPS protocol.
- (optional) To import virtual machines that are created in VMware, ensure that the following prerequisites are met:
- BMC Discovery is upgraded to March 2019 or later TKU.
- Each virtual machine has a vCenter UUID and is discovered using vCenter credentials. To specify vCenter credentials, do the following steps:
- Log in to the BMC Discovery as an administrator.
- Click Manage > Credentials.
- Click Add > Other, and select vCenter from the Credentials Types list.
- Specify the vCenter credentials and other details, and click Apply.
- Run the discovery process.
You must configure the ETL to connect to BMC Discovery for data collection. ETL configuration includes specifying the basic and optional advanced properties. While configuring the basic properties is sufficient, you can optionally configure the advanced properties for additional customization.
A. Configuring the basic properties
Some of the basic properties display default values. You can modify these values.
To configure the basic properties:
- Navigate to Administration > ETL & System Tasks, and select ETL tasks.
On the ETL tasks page, click Add > Add ETL. The Add ETL page displays the configuration properties. You must configure properties in the following tabs: Run configuration, Entity catalog, and BMC Discovery Extractor
On the Run Configuration tab, select BMC Discovery 11.x Extractor from the ETL Module list. The name of the ETL is displayed in the ETL task name field. You can edit this field to customize the name.
- Click the Entity catalog tab, and select one of the following options:
Shared Entity Catalog:
Select if other ETLs access the same entities that are used by the BMC Discovery 11.x ETL.- From the Sharing with Entity Catalog list, select the entity catalog name that is shared between ETLs.
- Private Entity Catalog: Select if this is the only ETL that extracts data from BMC Discovery.
Click the BMC Discovery Extractor tab, and configure the following properties:
Property Specify Data Integration API URL The data integration API URL through which the REST API calls are initiated. Username The name of the user that you created during the preconfiguration steps. Password The password of the user. Business Service hierarchy To create a business service hierarchy, retain the default selection, and specify the appropriate manual group name. The default name is Service. The business service hierarchy is created based on the manual group value. The following scenarios explain when business services are created.
Import Manual Groups as Tags Specify the manual groups that you want to import as tags for the business application instances. The default manual groups are AppTier and Owner. You can use these tags for creating service pools. Use proxy Specify whether you want to use a proxy server, and provide the following details. The default selection is No.
- The fully qualified domain name and the port number of the proxy server host.
- If the proxy server requires authentication, select Yes, and specify the proxy server user name and password.
By default, the proxy server uses the HTTPS protocol for communication.
(Optional) Override the default values of properties in the following tabs:
- Click Save.
The ETL tasks page shows the details of the newly configured BMC Discovery ETL.
(Optional) B. Configuring the advanced properties
You can configure the advanced properties to change the way the ETL works or to collect additional metrics.
To configure the advanced properties:
- On the Add ETL page, click Advanced.
Configure the following properties:
- Click Save.
The ETL tasks page shows the details of the newly configured BMC Discovery ETL.
After you configure the ETL, you can run it to collect data. You can run the ETL in the following modes:
A. Simulation mode: Only validates connection to the data source, does not collect data. Use this mode when you want to run the ETL for the first time or after you make any changes to the ETL configuration.
B. Production mode: Collects data from the data source.
A. To run the ETL in the simulation mode
To run the ETL in the simulation mode:
- Navigate to Administration > ETL & System Tasks, and select ETL tasks.
- On the ETL tasks page, click the ETL. The ETL details are displayed.
- In the Run configurations table, click Edit to modify the ETL configuration settings.
- On the Run configuration tab, ensure that the Execute in simulation mode option is set to Yes, and click Save.
- Click Run active configuration. A confirmation message about the ETL run job submission is displayed.
- On the ETL tasks page, check the ETL run status in the Last exit column.
OK Indicates that the ETL ran without any error. You are ready to run the ETL in the production mode. - If the ETL run status is Warning, Error, or Failed:
- On the ETL tasks page, clickin the last column of the ETL name row.
- Check the log and reconfigure the ETL if required.
- Run the ETL again.
- Repeat these steps until the ETL run status changes to OK.
B. To run the ETL in the production mode
You can run the ETL manually when required or schedule it to run at a specified time.
To run the ETL manually
- On the ETL tasks page, click the ETL. The ETL details are displayed.
- In the Run configurations table, click Edit to modify the ETL configuration settings. The Edit run configuration page is displayed.
- On the Run configuration tab, select No for the Execute in simulation mode option, and click Save.
- To run the ETL immediately, click Run active configuration. A confirmation message about the ETL run job submission is displayed.
When the ETL runs, it collects data from the source and transfers it to the BMC Helix Continuous Optimization database.
To schedule the ETL run in the production mode
By default, the ETL is scheduled to run daily. You can customize this schedule by changing the frequency and period of running the ETL.
To configure the ETL run schedule:
- On the ETL tasks page, click the ETL, and click Edit task. The ETL details are displayed.
On the Edit task page, do the following, and click Save:
- Specify a unique name and description for the ETL task.
- In the Maximum execution time before warning field, specify the duration for which the ETL must run before generating warnings or alerts, if any.
- Select a predefined or custom frequency for starting the ETL run. The default selection is Predefined.
- Select the task group and the scheduler to which you want to assign the ETL task.
Click Schedule. A message confirming the scheduling job submission is displayed.
When the ETL runs as scheduled, it collects data from the source and transfers it to the BMC Helix Continuous Optimization database.
Verify that the ETL ran successfully and check whether the Discovery data is refreshed in the Workspace.
To verify whether the ETL ran successfully
- Click Administration > ETL and System Tasks > ETL tasks.
- In the Last exec time column corresponding to the ETL name, verify that the current date and time are displayed.
- In the Last exit column corresponding to the ETL name, verify that the status is OK.
In case of WARNING or ERROR, click in the last column of the ETL name row to review the log files.
To verify that the BMC Discovery data is refreshed:
- Click Workspace tab.
- Expand All Domains > (domain_name) > (business_service) > (systems) > (system_name).
- In the left pane, verify that the hierarchy displays the new and updated business services and computer systems in your environment.
- Click an computer system, and click the Metrics tab in the right pane.
- Check if the Last Activity column in the Configuration data table displays the current date.
The following image shows sample metrics data. To learn more about these metrics and other related concepts, see Entities, lookup information, and API calls for BMC Discovery.
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