Integrating with Azure Monitor

Azure Monitor sends notification about any potential critical condition of the applications and services, so that you can proactively take the corrective measures.

Configure a connection with Azure Monitor, to view event data from Azure Monitor in the following products and derive actionable insights:

• BMC Helix Operations Management
  BMC Helix Operations Management displays Azure Monitor alerts as events.
• BMC Helix AIOps

As a tenant administrator, perform the following steps to configure a connection with Azure Monitor, verify the integration, and view the collected data in various BMC products.

Plan for the connection

• Choose the BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations deployment mode and review the corresponding port requirements. For information about various deployment modes and port requirements, see Deployment scenarios.
• Based on the deployment mode, either use BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations or deploy the BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations on-premises gateway. For more information, see Deploying the BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations on-premises gateway.

To configure a connection with Azure Monitor

1. In BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations, on the CONNECTORS  tab, click in the SOURCES panel.

2. Click Azure Monitor.
3. Specify the following details for the source connection:

   1. Specify a unique instance name. 

      Recommendation

      We recommend that you specify the instance name in the following format: 

      <sourceType>_<sourceControllerServerName>{_<InstanceQualifier>}                    

      The instance qualifier helps you to distinguish the multiple instances configured from the same source server. For example, you can name your instances as Azure_Monitor_Alerts, Azure_Monitor_Alerts_TEST, and so on.

   2. Specify the Azure Monitor Tenant Id, Client Id, and Client Secret.

   3. Specify the Azure resource URL (default value is https://management.azure.com/).

   4. Specify the Azure authentication host (default value is management.azure.com).
   5. Specify the Azure Active Directory (AD) authentication host (default value is login.microsoftonline.com).
   6. Specify the number of maximum concurrent REST API requests that should be executed during a collection schedule (default value is 5).
   7. Click Proxy and specify if you want to configure a proxy server. If yes, specify the host name and port number (default value is 8888).
4. Click VALIDATE AND CREATE.
   The specified connection details are validated and the corresponding source connection is created in the Source Connection list.

5. Select the source connection that you created from the list if it is not selected already.
   

   Important

   The destination host connection is created and configured automatically for each tenant when the source connection is created.

6. Ensure that the options for the datatypes for which you want to collect data are selected.

7. Click a data type and specify the configuration parameters in the Collectors section as described in the following table:

   Parameter Name	Data Type
   	Azure Monitor Alerts
   Collection Schedule Specify the data collection frequency (in minutes). Default: 5 minutes Example: Collection Schedule is set to 5 mins.  Current time is 00:30. If you run the collector just after 00:30, data is collected every 5 mins, first at 00:30 and next at 00:35, and so on. For more information about how this parameter affects data collection, see Data collection schedule.	Applicable Default: 5 minutes
   Data Collection Window Specify the historical time period (in minutes) from the current time for which the data should be collected from Microsoft SCOM.  Default: 5 minutes Example: Collection Schedule is set to 5 mins. Data Collection Window is set to 5 mins. Current time is 00:30. If you run the collector just after 00:30, data is collected first at 00:30 for the interval, 00:25 - 00:30, and next at 00:35 for the interval, 00:30 - 00:35, and so on. For more information about how this parameter affects data collection, see Data collection window.	Applicable Default: 5 minutes
   Data Latency Specify the time (in minutes) by which the data time window should be shifted back on the timeline. This parameter is useful in delayed data availability situations. Default: 0 minutes Example: Collection Schedule is set to 5 mins. Data Collection Window is set to 10 mins. Data Latency is set to 2 mins. Current time is 00:30. If you run the collector just after 00:30, data is collected first at 00:30 for the interval, 00:18 to 00:28 and next at 00:35 for the interval, 0:23 to 00:33, and so on. For more information about how this parameter affects data collection, see Data latency.	Applicable
   Subscriptions Select one or more subscriptions from the list. This list is updated automatically fromAzure Monitor.	Applicable
   Resource Groups Select one or more resource groups from the list. This list is updated automatically fromAzure Monitor.	Applicable
   Event Levels Select one or more event levels from the list. This list is updated automatically fromAzure Monitor.	Applicable
   Event Categories Select one or more event categories from the list. This list is updated automatically fromAzure Monitor.	Applicable

8. Click CREATE COLLECTORS to create the required collector streams for the selected data types.

9. Click a data type and specify the configuration parameters in the Distributors section as described in the following table:
   

   Parameter Name	Default
   Max Batching Size Specify the maximum number of data items to send in a single POST request to the destination API. The batch size depends on the destination’s ability to buffer the incoming data.	250
   Max Batching Delay Specify the maximum time (in seconds) to wait before building a batch and processing.	3 seconds
   Base Retry Delay Specify the initial time (in seconds) for which to wait before retrying to build a batch and processing. The waiting time increases in the following sequence: n1, n2, n3, and so on, where n indicates the number of seconds. For example, if you set the value to 2 seconds, retry is performed after 2, 4, 8, 16, ... seconds.	2 seconds
   Max Intra-Retry Delay Specify the maximum limit for the base retry delay. For example, if you set the value of this parameter to 60 seconds and the value of the Base Retry Delay parameter to 2 seconds, retries would be performed 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 64,...seconds later again.	60 seconds
   Max Retry Duration Specify the total time for retrying a delivery. For REST destinations, a delivery is a batch of data items in one POST request.  For example, if you set the value of this parameter to 8 hours, and the value of the Base Retry Delay parameter to 2 seconds, requests are sent for 2+4+8+16+32+64+132... until 8 hours in total duration is reached. After that, no subsequent attempts are made to retry the delivery. The assumption here is that if there is an outage or other issue with the destination tool, recovery should take less than the value of the Max Retry Duration parameter to complete.	5 minutes

10. Click CREATE DISTRIBUTORS to create the required distributor streams for the selected data types.
11. Click one of the following buttons:
    
    • SAVE STREAM: Click this button if you want to edit the integration details before creating the instance. After you save the stream, the connector that you just created is listed in the SOURCES panel. Move the slider to the right to start the data stream.
    • SAVE AND START STREAM: Click this button if you want to save the integration details and start receiving data immediately.

          For more information about data streams, see Starting or stopping data streams .

To verify the integration

In BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations , on the SOURCES panel, confirm that the data streams for the integration you created are running. Data streaming is indicated by moving colored arrows.

A moving dark blue arrow () indicates that the event stream is running. Event data will be pushed according to the configured Collection Schedule interval.

To view events in BMC Helix Operations Management

In BMC Helix Operations Management, select Monitoring > Events to view the events received from Azure Monitor.

Incoming events from Azure Monitor are processed in BMC Helix Operations Management through a set of deduplication rules to determine whether the incoming event is a duplicate event or a new event. For more information, see Event deduplication and suppression for reducing event noise.

For information about events, see Monitoring and managing events .

To view situations in BMC Helix AIOps

Before you view situations in BMC Helix AIOps, create a Business Service model in BMC Helix Discovery. For information about creating models, see Creating a model  

In BMC Helix AIOps, on the Overview page, view the situations for the event data received from Azure Monitor.

For information about situations, see Monitoring and investigating situations .