Integrating with Prometheus

Prometheus is an open-source system monitoring and alerting solution that collects and stores metrics as time-series data.

Configure an integration with Prometheus , to view the alert and metric data from Prometheus in BMC Helix Operations Management and derive actionable insights.
BMC Helix Operations Management displays alerts as events, even though Prometheus separates events and alerts.

As a tenant administrator, perform the following steps to integrate with Prometheus , verify the integration, and view the collected data in various BMC products.

Before you begin

1. Have the egress IP of your tenant. Request the egress IP from BMC Software if you don't already have it.
2. Ensure that you have a firewall rule to allow traffic from the egress IP to the Prometheus host on the listening port. The default port for Prometheus alerts is 9093 and Prometheus metrics is 9090.

To integrate with Prometheus

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

2. Click the Prometheus  tile.
3. Specify the following details for the source connection:

   1. Specify the Prometheus metrics and alerts host names.
      

      Important

      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 Prometheus_Host_PROD, Prometheus_Host_TEST, and so on.

      
      

   2. Specify the Prometheus HTTP or HTTPS port number depending on the connection protocol. The default port number for Prometheus alerts is 9093 and Prometheus metrics is 9090.

   3. Select the HTTPS option to use an https connection to the Prometheus  host.
      

      Warning

      We recommend that you do not select the Allow Unsigned Certificate option in a production environment.  You might want to select this option to allow unsigned certificates in a test environment. See the Prometheus documentation to learn how to install SSL certificates.

   4. Specify the number of maximum concurrent REST API requests that should be executed during a collection schedule (default value is 5).
   5. Click Proxy and specify whether you want to configure a proxy server.
   6. 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. Clear the options for which you don't want to collect data.

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

   Parameter Name	Data Type
   	Prometheus Metrics	Prometheus Alerts
   Collection Schedule Specify the data collection frequency in minutes.	Applicable BMC recommendation: 5 minutes	Not applicable
   Data Collection Window Specify the historical period (in minutes) from the current time for which the data should be collected from Prometheus.	Applicable BMC recommendation: 5 minutes	Not applicable
   Data Latency Specify the time (in minutes) for which the data time window should be placed  far back on the timeline.	Applicable	Not applicable
   Metric Namespaces Select all or a subset of metric namespaces from the list. This list of applications is updated automatically from Prometheus.	Applicable	Not applicable
   Jobs Select all or a subset of jobs from the list. This list of applications is updated automatically from Prometheus.	Applicable	Not applicable
   Labels Select all or a subset of labels from the list. This list of applications is updated automatically from Prometheus.	Applicable	Not applicable
   State Select all or a subset of labels from the list. This list of applications is updated automatically from Prometheus.	Not applicable	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 event data is being streamed. 
• A moving red arrow () indicates that metric data is being streamed. 

To view events in BMC Helix Operations Management

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

For information about events, see Monitoring and managing events .

To view metrics in BMC Helix Operations Management

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