IBM Cloud - IBM Cloud API Extractor for Classic Infrastructure

Before you configure and run the ETL, complete the pre-configuration tasks. The ETL uses the API key to collect data from your IBM Cloud account. You can create an API key by using the IBM Cloud console or the command-line interface.

(For non-admin users) Create an access group and provide the required access

To create an access group and provide View permissions to the user:

1. Log in to the IBM Cloud console with your account credentials.
2. In the IBM Cloud console header, click Manage and select Access (IAM).
3. Click the Create access group button. 
4. In the Create access group dialog box, enter the Name and Description to create a new access group.
   After the access group is created, the Access tab of the group is displayed. 
5. In the Access tab, click the Assign Access button. 
6. From the list of Services, select the IBM Cloud Monitoring service. 
7. From Resources, select All resources.
8. From Roles and actions, from the Service access, select Reader and from Platform access, select Viewer. 
9. Click Add, and Assign to save the access. 
10. From the left pane, select Users.
11. Click the three-dots menu corresponding to the ETL user and select Assign access > Access groups. 
12. Select the newly created access group, click Add, and then Assign to save the settings. 

Provide classic infrastructure access to the ETL user:

1. Log in to the IBM Cloud console with your account credentials.
2. In the IBM Cloud console header, click Manage and select Access (IAM) > Users.
3. Select the ETL user. 
4. From the Manager user screen, select the Classic Infrastructure tab. 
5. From the Permissions tab > Permission sets drop-down list, select View only permission.
6. From Category, expand Services, and select the Storage Manage service. 
7. Click Apply to save the changes.
8. From the Devices tab, select the virtual machine that you want to view in BMC Helix Continuous Optimization.
9. Select Auto virtual server access to provide the user access to the virtual machines automatically during their creation.

Create an API key using the IBM cloud console

To create an API key for your user identity from the IBM cloud console:

1. Log in to the IBM Cloud console with your account credentials.
   Log in by using the account used for data collection. 
2. In the IBM Cloud console header, click Manage and select Access (IAM).
3. From the left pane, select API keys.

1. Click Create.
   1. In the Name field, specify a name for the API key.
   2. Enter the description.
   3. Click Create.
2. You can view, save, or download the API key. To view the API key, click Show. To copy the API key, click Copy. To use it for later, click Download.
   For security reasons, the API key is available for copy or download only at the time of API key creation. If the API key is lost, you must create a new API key.

Create an API key using the command-line interface

To create an API key for your user identity by using the CLI:

From a command prompt, run the following command:
ibmcloud iam api-key-create NAME [-d DESCRIPTION] [-f, --file FILE]

Specify a name, description, and file for saving your API key.

Example: ibmcloud iam api-key-create testKey -d "Test API key" --file test_key_file

In a firewall or a proxy-enabled environment, the following IBM Cloud services endpoints must be allowed:

• https://iam.cloud.ibm.com
• https://us-south.monitoring.cloud.ibm.com
• https://us-east.monitoring.cloud.ibm.com
• https://eu-gb.monitoring.cloud.ibm.com
• https://jp-tok.monitoring.cloud.ibm.com
• https://eu-de.monitoring.cloud.ibm.com
• https://resource-controller.cloud.ibm.com

You must configure the ETL to connect to the IBM Cloud for data collection. ETL configuration includes specifying the basic and optional advanced properties. While configuring the basic properties is sufficient, you can optionally configure the advanced properties for additional customization.

A. Configuring the basic properties

Some of the basic properties display default values. You can modify these values if required.

To configure the basic properties:

1. Navigate to Administration > ETL & System Tasks, and select ETL tasks.
2. On the ETL tasks page, click Add > Add ETL. The Add ETL page displays the configuration properties. You must configure properties in the following tabs: Run configuration, Entity catalog, and IBM Cloud Connection Parameters.
3. On the Run configuration tab, select IBM Cloud - IBM Cloud API Extractor from the ETL module list. The name of the ETL is displayed in the ETL Task name field. You can edit this field to customize the name.
4. Click the Entity catalog tab, and select one of the following options:
   
   • Shared Entity Catalog: Select if other ETLs access the same entities that are used by the IBM Cloud API ETL.
     • From the Sharing with Entity Catalog list, select the entity catalog name that is shared between ETLs.
   • Private Entity Catalog: Select if this is the only ETL that extracts data from the IBM Cloud resources.

5. Click the IBM Cloud Connection Parameters tab, and configure the following properties:

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6. (Optional) Override the default values of properties in the following tabs:

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   This macro generates standalone content. As a consequence you need to make sure to use a syntax that separates your macro from the content before and after it so that it's on a line by itself. For example in XWiki Syntax 2.0+ this means having 2 newline characters (a.k.a line breaks) separating your macro from the content before and after it.*Schedulers compatible with this ETL: Generic scheduler (the scheduler preconfigured in Helix, also referred as Cloud ETL Engine), Remote ETL Engine.

7. Click Save.
8. The ETL tasks page shows the details of the newly configured IBM Cloud API ETL. 

(Optional) B. Configuring the advanced properties

You can configure the advanced properties to change the way the ETL works or to collect additional metrics.

To configure the advanced properties:

1. On the Add ETL page, click Advanced.

2. Configure the following properties:
   

   Run configuration

   Property	Description
   Run configuration name	Specify the name that you want to assign to this ETL task configuration. The default configuration name is displayed. You can use this name to differentiate between the run configuration settings of ETL tasks.
   Deploy status	Select the deploy status for the ETL task. For example, you can initially select Test and change it to Production after verifying that the ETL run results are as expected.
   Description	A short description of the ETL module.
   Log level	Specify the level of details that you want to include in the ETL log file. Select one of the following options: 1 - Light: Select to add the bare minimum activity logs to the log file. 5 - Medium: Select to add the medium-detailed activity logs to the log file. 10 - Verbose: Select to add detailed activity logs to the log file. Use log level 5 as a general practice. You can select log level 10 for debugging and troubleshooting purposes.

   Collection level

   Property	Description
   Metric profile selection	Select the metric profile that the ETL must use. The ETL collects data for the group of metrics that is defined by the selected metric profile. Use Global metric profile: This is selected by default. All the out-of-the-box ETLs use this profile. Select a custom metric profile: Select the custom profile that you want to use from the Custom metric profile list. This list displays all the custom profiles that you have created. For more information about metric profiles, see Adding-and-managing-metric-profiles.
   Levels up to	Specify the metric level that defines the number of metrics that can be imported into the database. The load on the database increases or decreases depending on the selected metric level.To learn more about metric levels, see Adding-and-managing-metric-profiles.

   IBM Cloud Connection Parameters

   Property

   Description

   Filtering for virtual servers

   Specify whether you want to import all or specific virtual servers. The default selection is None, which indicates that all virtual servers are imported. To import only the specific virtual servers, select Whitelist, and specify the names of virtual servers to be imported. To exclude the specific virtual servers while importing, select Blacklist, and specify the names of virtual servers to be excluded from importing.

   Additional properties

   Property	Description
   List of properties	Specify additional properties for the ETL that act as user inputs during run. You can specify these values now or you can do so later by accessing the "You can manually edit ETL properties from this page" link that is displayed for the ETL in the view mode. Click Add. In the etl.additional.prop.n field, specify an additional property. Click Apply. Repeat this task to add more properties.

   Loader configuration

   Property	Description
   Empty dataset behavior	Specify the action for the loader if it encounters an empty dataset: Warn: Generate a warning about loading an empty dataset. Ignore: Ignore the empty dataset and continue parsing.
   Maximum number of rows for CSV output	A numeric value to limit the size of the output files.
   Remove domain suffix from datasource name (Only for systems)	Select True to remove the domain from the data source name. For example, server.domain.com will be saved as server. The default selection is False.
   Leave domain suffix to system name (Only for systems)	Select True to keep the domain in the system name. For example: server.domain.com will be saved as is. The default selection is False.
   Skip entity creation (Only for ETL tasks sharing lookup with other tasks)	Select True if you do not want this ETL to create an entity and discard data from its data source for entities not found in . It uses one of the other ETLs that share a lookup to create a new entity. The default selection is False.

   Scheduling options

   Property	Description
   Hour mask	Specify a value to run the task only during particular hours within a day. For example, 0 – 23 or 1, 3, 5 – 12.
   Day of week mask	Select the days so that the task can be run only on the selected days of the week. To avoid setting this filter, do not select any option for this field.
   Day of month mask	Specify a value to run the task only on the selected days of a month. For example, 5, 9, 18, 27 – 31.
   Apply mask validation	Select False to temporarily turn off the mask validation without removing any values. The default selection is True.
   Execute after time	Specify a value in the hours:minutes format (for example, 05:00 or 16:00) to wait before the task is run. The task run begins only after the specified time is elapsed.
   Enqueueable	Specify whether you want to ignore the next run command or run it after the current task. Select one of the following options: False: Ignores the next run command when a particular task is already running. This is the default selection. True: Starts the next run command immediately after the current running task is completed.

3. Click Save.
   The ETL tasks page shows the details of the newly configured IBM Cloud API ETL.

After you configure the ETL, you can run it to collect data. You can run the ETL in the following modes:

A. Simulation mode: Only validates connection to the data source, does not collect data. Use this mode when you want to run the ETL for the first time or after you make any changes to the ETL configuration.

B. Production mode: Collects data from the data source.

A. To run the ETL in the simulation mode

To run the ETL in the simulation mode:

1. Navigate to Administration > ETL & System Tasks, and select ETL tasks.
2. On the ETL tasks page, click the ETL. The ETL details are displayed.
   
   
   
3. In the Run configurations table, click Edit  to modify the ETL configuration settings.
4. On the Run configuration tab, ensure that the Execute in simulation mode option is set to Yes, and click Save.
5. Click Run active configuration. A confirmation message about the ETL run job submission is displayed.
6. On the ETL tasks page, check the ETL run status in the Last exit column.
   OK Indicates that the ETL ran without any error. You are ready to run the ETL in the production mode.
7.  If the ETL run status is Warning, Error, or Failed:
   1. On the ETL tasks page, clickin the last column of the ETL name row.
   2. Check the log and reconfigure the ETL if required.
   3. Run the ETL again.
   4. Repeat these steps until the ETL run status changes to OK.

B. To run the ETL in the production mode

You can run the ETL manually when required or schedule it to run at a specified time.

To run the ETL manually

1. On the ETL tasks page, click the ETL. The ETL details are displayed.
2. In the Run configurations table, click Edit  to modify the ETL configuration settings. The Edit run configuration page is displayed.
3. On the Run configuration tab, select No for the Execute in simulation mode option, and click Save.
4. To run the ETL immediately, click Run active configuration. A confirmation message about the ETL run job submission is displayed.
   When the ETL runs, it collects data from the source and transfers it to the BMC Helix Continuous Optimization database.

To schedule the ETL run in the production mode

By default, the ETL is scheduled to run daily. You can customize this schedule by changing the frequency and period of running the ETL.

To configure the ETL run schedule:

1. On the ETL tasks page, click the ETL, and click Edit task. The ETL details are displayed.
   
2. On the Edit task page, do the following, and click Save:
   • Specify a unique name and description for the ETL task.
   • In the Maximum execution time before warning field, specify the duration for which the ETL must run before generating warnings or alerts, if any.
   • Select a predefined or custom frequency for starting the ETL run. The default selection is Predefined.
   • Select the task group to which you want to assign the ETL task.
3. Click Schedule. A message confirming the scheduling job submission is displayed.
   When the ETL runs as scheduled, it collects data from the source and transfers it to the BMC Helix Continuous Optimization database.

Verify that the ETL ran successfully and the IBM Cloud data is refreshed in the Workspace.

To verify whether the ETL ran successfully

1. Click Administration > ETL and System Tasks > ETL tasks.
2. In the Last exec time column corresponding to the ETL name, verify that the current date and time are displayed.
3. In the Last exit column corresponding to the ETL name, verify that the status is OK.
   In case of WARNING or ERROR, click in the last column of the ETL name row to review the log files.

To verify that the IBM Cloud data is refreshed:

1. In the Workspace tab, expand (Domain_name_for IBM Cloud) > Systems > IBM Cloud.
2. In the left pane, verify that the hierarchy displays the new and updated virtual servers that you have provisioned in the IBM cloud.
3. Click a virtual server instance, and click the Metrics tab in the right pane.
4. Check if the Last Activity column in the Configuration metrics and Performance metrics tables displays the current date.

The following image shows sample metrics data. To learn more about these metrics and other related concepts, see Entities-lookup-information-and-metrics-for-IBM-Cloud-API-ETL.