Integrating with BMC Netreo via API

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.

Configure a connection with BMC Netreo to collect metrics from BMC Netreo.

BMC Helix application	Type of data collected or viewed	Benefits
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.

Supported versions

BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations supports version 25.2 of BMC Netreo (on-premises) for data collection.

Task 1: To plan for the connection

Review the following prerequisites to help you plan and configure a connection with BMC Netreo.

BMC Netreo prerequisite

Before you start configuring a connection with BMC Netreo via API, prepare the metrics JSLT mapping. BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations receives the metrics from the devices and applies JSLT mapping to transform them into BMC Helix Operations Management understandable metrics (in JSON format).

Click here to see a sample events JSLT mapping. Update the JSLT as per your requirements

[
    {
        "labels": {
            "metricName": .name,
            "hostname": .extras.hostname,
            "entityId": .extras.entityId,
            "entityTypeId": .extras.entityTypeId,
            "device_id": .extras.deviceId,
            "instanceName": .extras.instanceName,
            "entityName": .extras.entityName,
            "hostType": "Server",
            "isKpi": true,
            "unit": .unit,
            "source": "Netreo",
            "external_id": .extras.ciExternalId
        },
        "samples": [
            {
                "value": number(.value),
                "timestamp": number(.originTimestamp)
            }
        ]
    }
]

BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations prerequisites

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 mode, 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 a connection with BMC Netreo via API

On the CONNECTORS tab, click in the SOURCES panel.
Click the Netreo Metrics tile.
Specify a unique instance name.
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 and Netreo_Host_TEST.
Specify the BMC Netreo metrics host name.
Specify the BMC Netreo port number (default value is 443).
Ensure that the HTTPS check box is selected to indicate that you plan to use an https connection to the BMC Netreo host.
Important: 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.
Select the Requires Authentication option and provide the API key only if authentication is enabled in BMC Netreo.
To obtain the API key, perform the following steps:
1. Log in to BMC Netreo.
2. From the Administration menu, select Systems > API Access.
3. From the API Admin page, copy the API key from the API KEY field.
Specify the number of maximum concurrent REST API requests that should be executed during a collection schedule (default value is 5).
Click Proxy and specify whether you want to configure a proxy server.
If yes, specify the host name and port number (default value is 8888).
Click VALIDATE AND CREATE.
Ensure that the metrics datatype is selected.

Configure the collectors for the metrics data types by clicking the metrics data type in the Collectors section and specifying the parameters, as explained in the following table:

Parameter name

Description

Collection Schedule

Select one of the following options to specify the data collection frequency:

Duration: When you select this option, data collection happens constantly. Specify the schedule in minutes, hours, or day.
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. Cron schedule: When you select this option, data collection happens periodically. Specify the schedule by using a cron expression.
A cron expression is a string consisting of five subexpressions (fields) that describe individual details of the schedule. These fields, separated by blank 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.

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, 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.

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.

Group Type

Select the device group type for which you want to collect the metrics data.

BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations supports these device group types:

category: Devices grouped based on the general type and functionality of a device.
site: Devices grouped based on the location of a device.
strategicGroup: Devices grouped based on arbitrary, user-determined criteria.

Group Value

Select the group value from the list for which you want to collect metrics data. Depending upon the group type selected, group values are listed in this field.

Metric Groups

Select the metric group. Metrics are grouped together for easier analysis and monitoring of the performance or behavior of the devices. BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations supports the following groups:

Bandwidth
CPU
Error
Latency
Memory

Depending on the Group Type and Group Value selected, metric groups are listed in this field.

Metric Units

Select the metric units in which the data for the metric groups must be collected. BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations supports the following units:

% (Percentage)
B (Bytes)
Err/s (Errors per second)
procs
Seconds

Data for each metric group are collected in the following units:

Bandwidth: Metrics for Bandwidth are collected in %.
CPU: Metrics for CPU are collected in %, load, procs.
Error: Metrics for Error are collected in Err/s.
Latency: Metrics for Latency are collected in Seconds.
Memory: Metrics for Memory are collected in %, and B.

Important: Make sure to select the correct units for the selected metric groups.

Device Regex

Specify the regular expression for the device name. Metrics are collected for the devices whose names match the regular expression.

This regular expression collects data for all the devices. Do not leave this field blank. Either use the default regular expression or enter a custom regular expression.

Examples:

To collect data for the devices that contain the string mwl in their names, specify the regex as .*mwl.*.
To collect data for the devices whose name starts with the string mwl, specify the regex as ^mwl.*.
To collect data for the devices whose name ends with the string mwl, specify the regex as .*mwl$.

Separate multiple regular expressions by a pipe (|). For example: mwl|.*mwl*.|^mwl.*

Important:

If you are using multiple regular expressions, make sure that the regular expressions are not conflicting.
For example, do not enter, ^mwl.* and ^(?!mwl$).* together. The former expression collects metrics for the devices whose name start with the string mwl, while the latter expression collects data for the devices whose name do not start with the string mwl. The default expression for Device Regex is .*.

Click CREATE COLLECTORS to create the collector stream for the BMC Netreo metrics.

Configure the distributors for the BMC Netreo metrics in the Distributors section by specifying the parameters for the metrics 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 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,... 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 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 stream for the BMC Netreo metrics.
After you save the stream, the connection that you just created is listed on the SOURCES panel.
(Optional) Perform the following steps if you want to use the custom JSLT that you have prepared according to the sample shown in BMC Netreo prerequisite. Otherwise, skip to step 17.
1. On the SOURCES panel, click Configure Mediator for the source connection that you created and then expand BMC NETREO METRICS and navigate to the DISTRIBUTOR CONFIGURATION tab.
2. To view JSON in the edit mode, click Edit JSON.
3. Search for the following line:
  "jsltField": "//NO JSLT",
4. Delete the existing value from the jsltField field; the result should look as follows:
  "jsltField": "",
5. To disable the edit mode for JSON, click Edit JSON.
6. In the JSLT field, enter the customized JSLT.
7. Click SAVE & CLOSE.
On the SOURCES panel, move the slider to the right to start the data stream for the connector you created.

Important
For a data stream, the Run Latency (max/avg), Items (Avg per Run), and Last Run Status columns on the Streams page might show the status as No Runs during the data collection process. After completion of the process, these columns are updated with an appropriate status. For more information about data streams, see Starting-or-stopping-data-streams.

Task 3: To verify the connection

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

A moving red arrow ( ) indicates that the metric stream is running.

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.