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BMC Helix Continuous Optimization 22.2 ... Collecting data Out-of-the-box ETLs Cloud ETLs

Microsoft Azure - Azure API Extractor

Use the Microsoft Azure - Azure API Extractor to collect configuration and performance data of the virtual machines and app services that are provisioned in the Azure cloud. The collected data is used for analyzing and optimizing the capacity of your Azure infrastructure. To collect data, the Azure API ETL makes API calls to the Azure services.

You can configure the ETL to collect data from the Azure Resource Manager model. The ETL supports the following subscription types for the Azure Resource Manager model:

  • PAY-AS-YOU-GO 
  • Azure Government

If you apply tags to organize your Azure resources by related business services, you can configure the ETL to use these tags to display the Azure metrics by business services.

The following video (3:59) provides information about the GovCloud (US) support introduced in the Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure API ETL.

Related topics

Entities, lookup information, metrics, and API calls for Azure Resource Manager model

Collecting data for additional instance type configuration metrics

Collecting additional metrics using Guest OS diagnostics

Collecting additional metrics using the Azure Monitor agent

Microsoft Azure API documentation Open link

Information

This video describes the functionality of TrueSight Capacity Optimization, but it is valid for BMC Helix Continuous Optimization too.

 https://youtu.be/9ZrJo-y1oeU

Collecting data by using the Azure API ETL

To collect data by using the Azure API ETL, do the following tasks:

I. Complete the preconfiguration tasks.

II. Configure the ETL.

III. Run the ETL.

IV. Verify data collection.

Step I. Complete the preconfiguration tasks

Before you configure and run the ETL, complete the pre-configuration tasks. 

StepDetails

Get your Azure subscription ID.

The subscription ID is a GUID that uniquely identifies your subscription to use Azure services.

    1. Log in to the Azure portal.

    2. In the left pane, select Subscriptions.

    3. Locate the required subscription from the list of subscriptions, and note down the Azure subscription GUID.

If you want to retrieve data for multiple subscriptions by using a single ETL, create a subscription list file that contains the Subscription ID of every subscription. The file can be in .txt or .csv format. You need a separate subscription file per tenant.

    1. Open a new .txt or .csv file.
    2. Add the subscription ID and click Enter.
    3. Repeat the previous step to add other subscription IDs. For example:
      <subscription ID1>
      <subscription ID2>
    4. Save the file.
Ensure that you have the required permissions to create an application in Azure Active Directory (AAD).
    1. Log in to the Azure portal.
    2. In the left pane, select Azure Active Directory. The Overview page is displayed.
    3. In the left pane of Azure Active Directory, click User Settings.

    4. In the right pane, review the App registrations setting.
      1. Yes - Allows any user in the Azure AD tenant to register AD apps.
      2. No - Only admin users can register AD apps.
        Select Overview and review your user information to verify whether your account is an admin account. If your account is assigned to the User role, contact your administrator to select Yes or assign you an administrator role.


        For more information about checking the Azure Active Directory permissions, see Check Azure Active Directory permissions Open link .
Create an AAD application to gain access to Azure resources.
    1. Log in to the Azure portal.

    2. In the left pane, select Azure Active Directory. The Overview page is displayed.

    3. In the left pane of Azure Active Directory, click App Registrations, and click New registration.

    4. Specify the following details and click Register.
      1. Name and redirect URI for the application.
      2. Supported account types as Accounts in this organizational directory only.

For more information about creating the Azure Active Directory application, see Create an Azure Active Directory application Open link .

Obtain the Application ID and generate an authentication key for the application.
    1. Log in to the Azure portal.

    2. In the left pane, select Azure Active Directory. The Overview page is displayed.

    3. In the left pane of Azure Active Directory, click App Registrations, and in the right pane, select the application that you created in AAD.


    4. Note down the application (client) ID.
    5. To generate an authentication key, click Certificates & secrets > Client secrets > New client secret.
    6. Provide a description and expiry duration for the key and click Add.
      Note down the generated authentication key value.

For more information about obtaining the application ID and generating the authentication key, see Get application ID and authentication key Open link .

Obtain the Tenant ID, which is the ID of the AAD directory where you created the application.

A Tenant is a representative of an organization within the Azure Active Directory. It is a dedicated instance of the Azure AD service. An AAD tenant is required for defining an application and assigning permissions to use REST APIs of other Azure services.

    1. Log in to the Azure portal and select Azure Active Directory.
    2. In Azure Active Directory, click Properties.
    3. Note down the value of the Directory ID, which is your tenant ID.


      For more information about obtaining the tenant ID, see Get tenant ID Open link .
Grant API access to the application.
    1. Log on to the Azure portal.

    2. In the left pane, select Azure Active Directory. The Overview page is displayed.

    3. In the left pane of Azure Active Directory, click App Registrations, and in the right pane, select the application that you created in AAD.

    4. In the left pane of Azure Active Directory, click API permissions > Add.
    5. On the Add permissions page, click Add a permission.
      1. On the Request API permissions page, select the Azure Service Management API.
      2. Permissions as user_impersonation (Access Azure Service Management as organization users (preview)).
        Note: If you select the DELEGATE PERMISSIONS check box before selecting the permission, the Select button is not enabled.
    6. Click Add permission.

Grant the Reader role to the application.

Ensure that the account in your Azure subscription has the Owner or User Access Administration role to manage access to Azure resources. If your account is assigned the Contributor role, you cannot grant roles.

    1. Log on to the Azure portal.

    2. In the left pane, select Subscriptions.

    3. Locate the required subscription and click Access Control (IAM).
    4. Click Add > Add role assignment, and select the role as Reader.
    5. In Assign access to, select Azure AD user, group, or service principal.
    6. Type your application in the search field.
    7. Click Save.

For more information about granting the Reader role to the application, see Assign application to role Open link .

The ETL needs to access the specific API endpoints. If your setup is behind a firewall, enable the access to these endpoints.

The ETL connects to these endpoints using HTTPS (port 443).

Step II. Configure the ETL

You must configure the ETL to connect to Azure 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, if required.

To configure the basic properties:

  1. Navigate to Administration > ETL & System Tasks, and select ETL tasks.

  2. 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 Microsoft Azure Connection.

  3. On the Run configuration tab, select Microsoft Azure - Azure API 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.

  4. 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 Azure API 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 the Azure resources.

  5. Click the Microsoft Azure Connection tab, and configure the following properties:

    PropertyDescription
    Subscription access modeDepending on your Azure subscription mode, select Single or Multiple. You must use the values that you obtained during the preconfiguration procedure.
    Subscription ID(For single subscription) Specify the ID of the subscription for which you want to retrieve data.

    Multiple subscription file path 

    (For multiple subscriptions) Upload the file containing the subscription IDs from the UI. The file is uploaded to the filesystem where the ETL Engine runs.

    For information about creating this file, see the Creating the subscription file. When the ETL runs, it retrieves data for all the subscriptions that are mentioned in the file.

    Resource manager deployment modelFor the Resource manager deployment model, configure the following properties:
    Tenant ID

    The Tenant ID from your Azure Active Directory properties.

    Application ID

    The Application ID from the App registrations in the Azure Active Directory.

    Authentication key

    The Authentication key that you generated after creating the web application in Azure Active Directory.

    Business Service hierarchy

    If you want to create and view Azure data by business services, retain the default selection of Create Business Service hierarchy based on specified tag key. Specify the appropriate tag key name. For example, Service.

    Otherwise, select Do not create Business Service hierarchy.

    Example scenario:
    You have VMs that are tagged as follows:

    • AS1: {user=John, Purpose=Dev, Service=Data Solutions}
    • vl-pub-bco-qa35: {user=Adam, Purpose=Production, Service=Data Solutions}
    • vl-pun-bco-qa20: {user=Jane, Purpose=QA, Service=Data Solutions}

    When you run the ETL, data is displayed in a hierarchy as follows:

    If you do not use business services, data is displayed as follows:

    Is target Azure Government CloudIf you are using the Azure Government Cloud account, specify Yes to collect data from the Government cloud entities.
    Collect App Services?Select Yes if you want to monitor and collect metrics for Azure App Services.

  6. (Optional) Override the default values of properties in the following tabs:

    PropertyDescription
    Execute in simulation modeBy default, the ETL execution in simulation mode is selected to validate connectivity with the data source, and to ensure that the ETL does not have any configuration issues. In the simulation mode, the ETL does not load data into the database. This option is useful when you want to test a new ETL task. To run the ETL in the production mode, select No.
    BMC recommends that you run the ETL in the simulation mode after ETL configuration and then run it in the production mode.

    PropertyDescription
    Associate new entities to

    Specify the domain to which you want to add the entities created by the ETL.

    Select one of the following options:

    • New domain: This option is selected by default. Select a parent domain, and specify a name for your new domain.
    • Existing domain: Select an existing domain from the Domain list. 

    By default, a new domain with the same ETL name is created for each ETL. 

    PropertyDescription
    Task groupSelect a task group to classify the ETL.
    Running on schedulerSelect a scheduler for running the ETL. For cloud ETLs, use the scheduler that is preconfigured in Helix. For on-premises ETLs, use the scheduler that runs on the Remote ETL Engine.
    Maximum execution time before warningIndicates the number of hours, minutes, or days for which the ETL must run before generating warnings or alerts, if any.
    Frequency

    Select one of the following frequencies to run the ETL:

    • Predefined: This is the default selection. Select a daily, weekly, or monthly frequency, and then select a time to start the ETL run accordingly.
      • Start timestamp: hour\minute: Select the HH:MM start timestamp to add to the ETL execution running on a Predefined frequency.
    • Custom: Specify a custom frequency, select an appropriate unit of time, and then specify a day and a time to start the ETL run.
      • Custom start timestamp: Select a YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM timestamp to add to the ETL execution running on a Custom frequency.

  7. Click Save.
    The ETL tasks page shows the details of the newly configured Azure API 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:

  1. On the Add ETL page, click Advanced.

  2. Configure the following properties:

    PropertyDescription
    Run configuration nameSpecify the name that you want to assign to this ETL task configuration. The default configuration name is displayed. You can use this name to differentiate between the run configuration settings of ETL tasks.
    Deploy statusSelect the deploy status for the ETL task. For example, you can initially select Test and change it to Production after verifying that the ETL run results are as expected.
    Description A short description of the ETL module.
    Log levelSpecify the level of details that you want to include in the ETL log file. Select one of the following options:
    • 1 - Light: Select to add the bare minimum activity logs to the log file.
    • 5 - Medium: Select to add the medium-detailed activity logs to the log file.
    • 10 - Verbose: Select to add detailed activity logs to the log file.

    Use log level 5 as a general practice. You can select log level 10 for debugging and troubleshooting purposes.

    PropertyDescription
    Metric profile selection

    Select the metric profile that the ETL must use. The ETL collects data for the group of metrics that is defined by the selected metric profile.

    • Use Global metric profile: This is selected by default. All the out-of-the-box ETLs use this profile.
    • Select a custom metric profile: Select the custom profile that you want to use from the Custom metric profile list. This list displays all the custom profiles that you have created.

    For more information about metric profiles, see Adding and managing metric profiles.

    Levels up to

    Specify the metric level that defines the number of metrics that can be imported into the database. The load on the database increases or decreases depending on the selected metric level.

    To learn more about metric levels, see Adding and managing metric profiles.

    PropertyDescription
    Instance type definition JSON file path

    Upload the JSON file that contains the instance type configuration metrics.

      1. Click Choose file and navigate to the directory that contains the file.
      2. Click Upload.

    For more information about using this JSON file, see Collecting data for additional instance type configuration metrics.

    PropertyDescription
    List of properties

    Specify additional properties for the ETL that act as user inputs during run. You can specify these values now or you can do so later by accessing the "You can manually edit ETL properties from this page" link that is displayed for the ETL in the view mode.

    1. Click Add.
    2. In the etl.additional.prop.n field, specify an additional property.
    3. Click Apply.
      Repeat this task to add more properties.

    PropertyDescription
    Empty dataset behaviorSpecify the action for the loader if it encounters an empty dataset:
    • Warn: Generate a warning about loading an empty dataset.
    • Ignore: Ignore the empty dataset and continue parsing.
    ETL log file nameThe name of the file that contains the ETL run log. The default value is: %BASE/log/%AYEAR%AMONTH%ADAY%AHOUR%MINUTE%TASKID
    Maximum number of rows for CSV outputA numeric value to limit the size of the output files.
    CSV loader output file nameThe name of the file that is generated by the CSV loader. The default value is: %BASE/output/%DSNAME%AYEAR%AMONTH%ADAY%AHOUR%ZPROG%DSID%TASKID

    Continuous Optimization loader output file name

    The name of the file that is generated by the Continuous Optimization loader. The default value is: %BASE/output/%DSNAME%AYEAR%AMONTH%ADAY%AHOUR%ZPROG%DSID%TASKID

    Remove domain suffix from datasource name (Only for systems) Select True to remove the domain from the data source name. For example, server.domain.com will be saved as server. The default selection is False.
    Leave domain suffix to system name (Only for systems)Select True to keep the domain in the system name. For example: server.domain.com will be saved as is. The default selection is False.
    Skip entity creation (Only for ETL tasks sharing lookup with other tasks)

    Select True if you do not want this ETL to create an entity and discard data from its data source for entities not found in Continuous Optimization. It uses one of the other ETLs that share a lookup to create a new entity. The default selection is False.

  3. Click Save.
    The ETL tasks page shows the details of the newly configured Azure API ETL.


Step III. Run the 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:

  1. Navigate to Administration > ETL & System Tasks, and select ETL tasks.
  2. On the ETL tasks page, click the ETL. The ETL details are displayed.


  3. In the Run configurations table, click Edit  to modify the ETL configuration settings.
  4. On the Run configuration tab, ensure that the Execute in simulation mode option is set to Yes, and click Save.
  5. Click Run active configuration. A confirmation message about the ETL run job submission is displayed.
  6. 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.
  7.  If the ETL run status is Warning, Error, or Failed:
    1. On the ETL tasks page, clickin the last column of the ETL name row.
    2. Check the log and reconfigure the ETL if required.
    3. Run the ETL again.
    4. 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

  1. On the ETL tasks page, click the ETL. The ETL details are displayed.
  2. In the Run configurations table, click Edit  to modify the ETL configuration settings. The Edit run configuration page is displayed.
  3. On the Run configuration tab, select No for the Execute in simulation mode option, and click Save.
  4. 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:

  1. On the ETL tasks page, click the ETL, and click Edit task. The ETL details are displayed.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.


Step IV. Verify data collection

Verify that the ETL ran successfully and the Azure data is refreshed in the Workspace.

To verify whether the ETL ran successfully

  1. Click Administration > ETL and System Tasks > ETL tasks.
  2. In the Last exec time column corresponding to the ETL name, verify that the current date and time are displayed.
  3. 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 Azure data is refreshed:

  1. In the Workspace tab, expand (Domain_name_for Azure) > Systems.

  2. In the left pane, verify that the hierarchy displays the new and updated Azure instances that you have provisioned in the Azure cloud.

    Resource Manager deployment mode

  3. Click an Azure virtual machine instance, and click the Metrics tab in the right pane.
  4. Check if the Last Activity column in the Configuration metrics and Performance metrics tables displays the current date.

For information about the configuration and performance metrics data that this ETL collects, see the following topics:

Where to go from here

After data is collected, you can analyze and manage the capacity of Azure entities from the Azure views.

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Last modified by Shweta Patil on Oct 10, 2022
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