Integrating with Datadog

As a tenant administrator, it's important that you can monitor the connected systems and quickly identify and resolve any issues. The BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations Datadog connector collects events and maximum value of the system metrics from Datadog.

You can view the collected data in various BMC Helix applications and derive the following benefits:

BMC Helix application	Type of data collected or viewed	Benefits
BMC Helix Operations Management	Events	Use a centralized event view to monitor, filter, and manage events, and perform event operations in one place. Process events to help identify actionable events quickly from a large volume of data. For more information, see Monitoring events and reducing event noise.
BMC Helix Operations Management	Metrics	Use alarm and variate policies to detect anomalies and eliminate false positives for more accurate results while monitoring the health of your system. For more information, see Detecting anomalies by using static and dynamic thresholds.
BMC Helix AIOps	Situations (created from events)	Improve the mean time to resolve (MTTR) based on the situation-driven workflow. Lower the mean time to detect or discover (MTTD) and the time required for investigating tickets. For more information, see Monitoring situations.
BMC Helix Dashboards	Events	Create dashboards to get a consolidated view of data collected from third-party products across your environment. For more information, see Creating custom dashboards

Editing and deleting integrations

Event deduplication and suppression for reducing event noise

As a tenant administrator, perform the following steps to configure a connection with Datadog , verify the connection, and view the collected events and metrics data in various BMC Helix applications.

Supported versions

This connector supports Datadog API version v1 for data collection.

Planning for the connection

Datadog prerequisites

Create a Datadog user with standard role and obtain the API token and application key for that user.

The standard role has the following permissions by default:

APM Read
CI Visibility Read
Dashboards Read
Incidents Read
Monitors Read
Notebooks Read
RUM Apps Read
SLOs Read

For more information, see the following sections in the Datadog documentation:

BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations prerequisites

Depending on the location (SaaS, on-premises) of the third-party product, choose one or more BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations deployment modes and review the corresponding port requirements. For information about various deployment modes and port requirements, see Deployment scenarios.
Based on the deployment modes, use the BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations SaaS deployment or the BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations on-premises gateway or both. For more information about the gateway, see Deploying the BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations on-premises gateway.

The on-premises gateway must be able to reach the third-party product on the required port (default is 443).

In the preceding list, third-party product refers to Datadog.

Configuring the connection with Datadog

Access BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations:
- BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations SaaS – Log on to BMC Helix Portal, and click Launch on BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations.
- BMC Helix Intelligent Integrationson-premises gateway – Use one of the following URLs to access BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations:
  - http://<hostName>:<portNumber>/swpui
  - https://<hostName>:<portNumber>/swpui
On the CONNECTORS tab, click in the SOURCES panel.
Click the Datadog tile.
Specify the following details for the source connection:
1. Specify the Datadog host name and port number (default port number is 443).
2. Specify the Datadog HTTP or HTTPS port number depending on the connection protocol .
3. Select the HTTPS option to use an https connection to the Datadog host.
4. Specify the API version V1 token and the application key.
  For information about creating the API token and application key, see Datadog prerequisites.
Click VALIDATE AND CREATE.
The specified connection details are validated and the corresponding source connection is created in the Source Connection list.
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.
Ensure that the options for the datatypes for which you want to collect data are selected.

Configure the collectors for the selected data types by clicking the respective data type in the Collectors section. Specify the parameters for the selected data type, as explained in the following table:

Parameter name and description Data Type

Datadog Events

Datadog Metrics

Collection Schedule

Specify the data collection frequency using one of the following methods:

Constantly by specifying the schedule in minutes, hours, or day using the Duration option
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.
Periodically by specifying the schedule through a cron expression using the Cron schedule option

A cron expression is a string consisting of five subexpressions (fields) that describe individual details of the schedule. These fields, separated by white spaces, can contain any of the allowed values with various combinations of the allowed characters for that field.
Default: */5 * * * * (evaluates to 5 minutes)
Format:

Minutes Hours (24-hour format) Day of Month Month Day of Week

Example:
If you specify 10 15 3 7 *, data is collected at 15:10 hours every third day in the month of July.

For more information about how this parameter affects data collection, see Data collection schedule.

(tick)

Data Collection Window

Specify the historical time period (in minutes) from the current time for which the data should be collected.

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:

For events, the 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 metrics, instead of all data, only the maximum valued data is collected within the specified data collection window. As example, if you are collecting system idle time, and the data collection window is set for 5 minutes, then you will get only one metrics data, that is, the maximum time the system remains idle within a 5 minutes collection window. By reducing the data collection window you can collect more metrics data.

For more information about how this parameter affects data collection, see Data collection window .

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.

Metrics

Select one or more metrics from the list. The connector does not collect metrics data if you do not select any option from the list. The list shows only the metrics whose name beginning with the term 'system', for example, system.cpu.idle and system.cpu.user.

The system metrics are grouped as per the following table:

Table: Space aggregation grouping of system metrics

Space aggregation grouping by (max only)

Metric name

Host and Device

system.net.bytes_rcvd
system.net.bytes_sent
system.net.packets_in.count
system.net.packets_in.drop
system.net.packets_in.error
system.net.packets_out.count
system.net.packets_out.drop
system.net.packets_out.error
system.net.tcp.en_drops
system.net.tcp.en_overflows

Host and Device name

system.disk.free
system.disk.in_use
system.disk.read_time
system.disk.read_time_pct
system.disk.total
system.disk.used
system.disk.write_time
system.disk.write_time_pct
system.io.avg_q_sz
system.io.avg_rq_sz
system.io.await
system.io.r_await
system.io.r_s
system.io.rkb_s
system.io.rrqm_s
system.io.svctm
system.io.util
system.io.w_await
system.io.w_s
system.io.wkb_s
system.io.wrqm_s

Host

system.cpu.context_switches
system.cpu.guest
system.cpu.idle
system.cpu.interrupt
system.cpu.iowait
system.cpu.num_cores
system.cpu.stolen
system.cpu.system
system.cpu.user
system.fs.file_handles.allocated
system.fs.file_handles.allocated_unused
system.fs.file_handles.in_use
system.fs.file_handles.max
system.fs.file_handles.used
system.fs.inodes.free
system.fs.inodes.in_use
system.fs.inodes.total
system.fs.inodes.used
system.load.1
system.load.15
system.load.5
system.load.norm.1
system.load.norm.15
system.load.norm.5
system.mem.buffered
system.mem.cached
system.mem.commit_limit
system.mem.committed
system.mem.committed_as
system.mem.free
system.mem.nonpaged
system.mem.page_tables
system.mem.paged
system.mem.pagefile.free
system.mem.pagefile.pct_free
system.mem.pagefile.total
system.mem.pagefile.used
system.mem.pct_usable
system.mem.shared
system.mem.slab
system.mem.slab_reclaimable
system.mem.total
system.mem.usable
system.mem.used
system.proc.count
system.proc.queue_length
system.swap.cached
system.swap.free
system.swap.pct_free
system.swap.swap_in
system.swap.swap_out
system.swap.total
system.swap.used
system.uptime
system.io.block_in
system.io.block_out
system.net.conntrack.count
system.net.conntrack.expect_max
system.net.conntrack.max
system.net.conntrack.tcp_max_retrans
system.net.conntrack.tcp_timeout_max_retrans
system.net.iface.mtu
system.net.iface.num_rx_queues
system.net.iface.num_tx_queues
system.net.iface.tx_queue_len
system.net.ip.forwarded_datagrams
system.net.ip.fragmentation_creates
system.net.ip.fragmentation_fails
system.net.ip.fragmentation_oks
system.net.ip.in_addr_errors
system.net.ip.in_csum_errors
system.net.ip.in_delivers
system.net.ip.in_discards
system.net.ip.in_header_errors
system.net.ip.in_no_routes
system.net.ip.in_receives
system.net.ip.in_truncated_pkts
system.net.ip.in_unknown_protos
system.net.ip.out_discards
system.net.ip.out_no_routes
system.net.ip.out_requests
system.net.ip.reassembly_fails
system.net.ip.reassembly_oks
system.net.ip.reassembly_overlaps
system.net.ip.reassembly_requests
system.net.ip.reassembly_timeouts
system.net.ip.reverse_path_filter
system.net.tcp.abort_on_timeout
system.net.tcp.active_opens
system.net.tcp.attempt_fails
system.net.tcp.backlog_drops
system.net.tcp.current_established
system.net.tcp.established_resets
system.net.tcp.failed_retransmits
system.net.tcp.from_zero_window
system.net.tcp.in_csum_errors
system.net.tcp.in_errors
system.net.tcp.in_segs
system.net.tcp.out_resets
system.net.tcp.out_segs
system.net.tcp.passive_opens
system.net.tcp.paws_connection_drops
system.net.tcp.paws_established_drops
system.net.tcp.prune_called
system.net.tcp.prune_ofo_called
system.net.tcp.prune_rcv_drops
system.net.tcp.retrans_segs
system.net.tcp.syn_cookies_failed
system.net.tcp.syn_cookies_recv
system.net.tcp.syn_cookies_sent
system.net.tcp.syn_retrans
system.net.tcp.to_zero_window
system.net.tcp.tw_reused
system.net.udp.in_csum_errors
system.net.udp.in_datagrams
system.net.udp.in_errors
system.net.udp.no_ports
system.net.udp.out_datagrams
system.net.udp.rcv_buf_errors
system.net.udp.snd_buf_errors

Any other system metrics are also grouped by host.

Host Filter

Specify hosts filter for collecting the metrics data. The connector does not collect metrics data if you do not specify any host filter. For more information about the host filtering syntax, see the Datadog documentation on Advanced Filtering Open link .

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

Configure the distributors for the selected data types by clicking the respective data type in the Distributors section. Specify the parameters for the selected data type, as explained in the following table:

Parameter name and description
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. Default: 250
Max Batching Delay Specify the maximum time (in seconds) to wait before building a batch and processing. Default: 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. Default: 2 seconds Example: Base Retry Delay is set to 2 seconds. Retry is performed after 2, 4, 8, 16, ... seconds.
Max Intra-Retry Delay Specify the maximum limit for the base retry delay. Default: 60 seconds Example: Max Intra-Retry Delay is set to 60 seconds. Base Retry Delay is set to 2 seconds. Retries are performed 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64,... seconds later again.
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. Default: 5 minutes Example: Max Retry Duration is set to 8 hours. Base Retry Delay is set 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 be completed.

Click CREATE DISTRIBUTORS to create the required distributor streams for the selected data types.
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 the data streams, see Starting or stopping data streams.

Verifying the connection

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

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

Viewing data in BMC Helix applications

View data collected from Datadog in multiple BMC Helix applications.

To view events in BMC Helix Operations Management

In BMC Helix Operations Management, select Monitoring > Events.
Filter the events by the DatadogEvent class.

Incoming events from Datadog (except from an unknown host) 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 more information about events, see Monitoring and managing events Open link .

To view metrics in BMC Helix Operations Management

In BMC Helix Operations Management, select Monitoring > Devices.
Click the links for the required device.
On the Monitors tab, click the required monitor.
The Performance Overview tab shows the metrics graph. For information about metrics, see Viewing collected data .

Viewing Situations in BMC Helix AIOps

Before you view situations in BMC Helix AIOps, ensure that the following prerequisites are met:

CIs are present in BMC Helix Discovery or BMC Helix AIOps for the events that are being collected from Datadog .
Create a Business Service model in one of the following applications:
- BMC Helix Discovery. For more information, see Managing models.
- BMC Helix AIOps. For more information, see Managing models.
Perform one of the following tasks:
- To view ML-based situations, the AIOps Situations feature is enabled in BMC Helix AIOps. For more information, see Enabling the AIOps features.
- To view policy-based situations, the correlation policy is created in BMC Helix Operations Management. For more information, see Creating and enabling event policies.

To view Situations

In BMC Helix AIOps , go to the Situations page.
This page shows the Situations created from the events that are ingested into BMC Helix Operations Management .
Click the required Situation to view the messages contained in the Situation and other details such as priority and severity of the message.
For information about Situations, see Monitoring situations.

Mapping of event attributes between Datadog and BMC Helix Operations Management

The following table shows the mapping between Datadog and BMC Helix Operations Management:

Event attribute	Datadog	BMC Helix Operations Management
Event severity (Indicated by event status in Datadog)	Error	Critical
	Warn	Minor
	Info	Info
	Ok	Ok

Mapping of metrics attributes between Datadog and BMC Helix Operations Management