Integrating with BMC Netreo

BMC Netreo is an enterprise-class network monitoring system where you can see everything across your enterprise with no clients, agents, or probes. BMC Netreo proactively manages IT resources, prevents issues, and automates your monitoring from infrastructure to applications.

The BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations collects incidents from BMC Netreo.

Related topics

Editing-and-deleting-integrations

Monitoring-the-on-premises-gateway-node-for-streaming-interruptions-and-node-health

You can view the collected events in BMC Helix Operations Management and derive the following benefits:

BMC Helix application

Type of data collected or viewed

Benefits

BMC Helix Operations Management

Events (Netreo incidents received as events) 

Use a centralized event view to monitor and manage events, perform event operations, and filter events. Identify actionable events from a large volume of event data by processing events.

For more information, see Monitoring events and reducing event noise.


As a t enant administrator, perform the following steps to configure a connection with BMC Netreo, verify the connection, and view the collected incidents in various BMC Helix applications.

ConnectorSteps.png

Supported versions

BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations supports version 24.3.2 of BMC Netreo for data collection.

Task 1: To plan for the connection

  • Depending on the location of the third-party product (SaaS, on-premises), 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.

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


Task 2: To configure the connection with BMC Netreo

  1. 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 the following URL to access BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations:
      https://<hostName>:<portNumber>/swpui
  2. On the CONNECTORS tab, click add_icon.pngin the SOURCES panel.
  3. Click the Netreo Events Webhook tile.

  4. Specify a unique instance name and then click VALIDATE AND CREATE.

    Best practice
    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 Netreo_Host_PROD, Netreo_Host_TEST, and so on.


  5. Click CREATE COLLECTORS to create the collector stream for the BMC Netreo events.
  6. Configure the distributors for the BMC Netreo events in the Distributors section by specifying the parameters for the data type, as explained in the following table:
    Parameter name
    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 and processing a batch.Default: 3 seconds 
    Base Retry Delay
    Specify the initial time (in seconds) for which to wait before retrying to build and process a batch.
    The waiting time increases in the following sequence: n1, n2, n3, and so on, where n indicates the number of seconds.Default: 2 secondsExample: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 secondsExample: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,... seconds later.
    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 minutesExample: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.
    Attributes To Be Dropped When Updating Events
    Specify the event attributes that you do not want to be updated in BMC Helix Operations Managementwhen events are updated. For example, if you do not want an event's severity, source address, source category, and subcategory to be updated in BMC Helix Operations Management , you need to specify those attributes in a comma-separated format: severity,source_address,source_category,source_subcategory .Important:You can obtain the event attribute names in BMC Helix Operations Management, by exporting any event data in JSON, BAROC, XML, or CSV format . The exported file contains all attributes of the event data, and from there you can identify the attributes to be dropped. 
  1. Click CREATE DISTRIBUTORS to create the required distributor stream for the BMC Netreo events.
  2. Click SAVE STREAM.
    After you save the stream, the connector that you just created is listed on the SOURCES panel.
  3. On the SOURCES panel, click Configure Mediator ConfigureMediator_icon.pngfor the source connection that you created and then expand NETREO EVENTS.
  4. Depending on whether you are using only a SaaS deployment of BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations or BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations on-premises gateway , perform the following steps:
    • If you are using only SaaS deployment of BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations:
      1. Click copy copy_URL.pngto copy the auto-generated BMC Netreo collector URL and save the URL in a temporary file.
        For example, https://hostA/hii/api/mediator/v3/push/5cb5d8df-fbe7?token=API-KEY

      2. Log on to BMC Helix Portal and generate an access key.
        For instructions, see Setting up access keys for programmatic access

      3. Copy the generated access key and save it in a temporary file.
        The key is generated in the format: <accessKey>::<secretKey>::<tenantID>.
        For example, Y4B0OSC49QZ::MnVLk69TNyCE::385261281
      4. Change the format of the access key to <tenantID>::<accessKey>::<secretKey>.
        For example, 385261281::Y4B0OSC49QZ::MnVLk69TNyCE 
      5. In a temporary file, modify the auto-generated BMC Netreo collector URL by replacing API-KEY with the access key that you formatted in the previous step.
        For example, https://host.ab.com/hii/api/mediator/v3/push/ 5cb5d8df-fbe7 ?token=385261281::Y4B0OSC49QZ::MnVLk69TNyCE.
      6. ConfigureBMC Netreo to forward incidents data to BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations.

    • If you are using the BMC Helix Intelligent Integrationson-premises gateway, do the following:  
      1. Click copy copy_URL.pngto copy the auto-generated BMC Netreo collector URL and save the URL in a temporary file.
        For example, https://hostA/hii/api/mediator/v3/push/5cb5d8df-fbe7.
      2. ConfigureBMC Netreo to forward incidents data to BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations.
  5. On the SOURCES panel, move the slider to the right to start the data stream for the connector you created in step 8.
    ImportantFor a data stream, the Run Latency (max/avg), Items (Avg per Run), and Last Run Status columns on the Streams page might show No Runs as the status during the data collection process. After completion of the process, these columns are updated with an appropriate status.


Task 3: To configure BMC Netreo to forward incidents data to BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations

To forward incidents data from BMC Netreo   to BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations , create actions for the host, service, and threshold entity types.

  1. Log on to BMC Netreo as an Admin or SuperAdmin user.
  2. Select Administration > Alerts > Actions.
  3. Click Action Cloud Library. 
    All the actions available in the BMC Netreo action cloud library appear.
  4. Click Download Netreo_Download_icon.png for the following actions to download them:
    • BMC_II_Host
    • BMC_II_Service
    • BMC_II_Threshold
  5. Select Actions Administration > Alerts > Actions.
  6. On the Actions Administration page, click Collapse/Expand to view all the actions.
  7. Configure the actions:
    1. Click Edit Method Netreo_EditMethod_Icon.png for the BMC_II_Host action.

    2. Replace the following line with the webhook URL you saved in a temporary file in step 10:
      https://&lt;XYZ&gt;/hii/api/mediator/v3/push/5cb5d8df-fbe7?token=&lt;API-KEY&gt;
      The sample payload for the BMC_II_Host action looks like the following example:

      https://hostA.abc.com/hii/api/mediator/v3/push/5cb5d8df-fbe7 ?token=385261281::Y4B0OSC49QZ::MnVLk69TNyCE

      [header]
      {
        "Content-Type"  : "application/json"
      }
      [header]

      {
      "incident_id": "{INCIDENTID}",
      "source_entity_uri" : "{INCIDENT_URL}",
      "creation_time": "{INCIDENTTIMET}",
      "status": "{NOTIFICATIONTYPE}",
      "severity": "{HOSTSTATE}",
      "user_severity": "<User Defined>",
      "incident_type": "Host",
      "site" : "{SITENAME}",
      "source_geo_location": "{SITEGEOLAT}, {SITEGEOLONG}",
      "category": "{CATEGORYNAME}",
      "source_strategic_group": "{STRATEGICGROUP}",
      "msg": "{SUBJ}",
      "tags": "[{DEVICE_DOCUMENTATION}]",
      "related_alarms": "{RELATED_OPENALARMS}",

      "uid": "{UID}",
      "source_hostname": "{HOSTNAME}",
      "source_address" : "{HOSTADDRESS}",
      "metric_name":"{HOSTNAME}",
      "metric_value":"{HOSTSTATE}",
      "metric_note": "{HOSTNOTE}",
      "source_statistical_group": "{STATISTICALGROUP}",

      "details" : "On {DATETIME}, device {HOSTNAME} ({HOSTADDRESS}) went host {HOSTSTATE}, at site {SITENAME}. {OUTPUT}"
       
    3. Click Edit Method to save the action.
    4. Repeat steps a to c for the BMC_II_Service and BMC_II_Threshold actions.
    5. Go to step 11 to start the data stream.


Task 4: To verify the connection

From BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations, on the SOURCES panel, confirm that the event stream for the connection you created is running. 

Natreo.png

A moving blue arrow (EventsStream_Icon.png ) indicates that the event stream is running. Event data will be pushed as soon as incidents are available.

To view events in BMC Helix Operations Management

  1. In BMC Helix Operations Management, select Monitoring > Events.
  2. Filter the events by the NetreoIncident class.
    Natreo_Event.png

Incoming events from BMC Netreo 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-suppression-and-closure-for-reducing-event-noise.

For more information about events, see Monitoring and managing events

 

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