Connecting to BMC Remedy ARS

The connection sequence that the gateway uses has two phases: establishing the connection to BMC Remedy ARS and data validation.

Establishing the connection to BMC Remedy ARS

Use the following properties to establish connection to BMC Remedy ARS:

  • Set the Gate.Remedy.Server property to the name of the system where the gateway can interact with BMC Remedy ARS. Always specify this property.
  • The Gate.Remedy.Port defines the port on the BMC Remedy ARS to use for the connection. The value of that property depends on whether the BMC Remedy ARS is using a port mapper. The following table shows how to specify the property.
    Table 1. Setting the Gate.Remedy.Port property

    Port mapper usage

    Value of Gate.Remedy.Port

    Port mapper in use

    Set the value of the property to 0 (the default value).

    Port mapper not in use

    Set the value of the property to the TCP port to which the gateway connects.
  • Set the Gate.Remedy.Username property to the username for the user of the gateway.
  • Set the Gate.Remedy.Password property to the password for the user specified in the Gate.Remedy.Username property.

When the gateway starts, it connects to the specified system and port, if there is no port mapper, and logs in using the supplied user name and password. Authentication contains more information on specifying the user name and password for BMC Remedy ARS.

On gateway startup, if the gateway cannot connect to BMC Remedy ARS for any reason, it shuts down. If the gateway starts up successfully and subsequently loses its connection with BMC Remedy ARS, the gateway goes into store and forward mode.

See Store and forward capability for information on the store and forward feature.

Validating the gateway properties file

When the gateway starts, but before it connects to the BMC Remedy ARS server, it validates the gateway properties file, G_BMC_REMEDY.props, to ensure that each property has the correct syntax. After the gateway successfully connects to the BMC Remedy ARS server, it performs the following operations:

  • Validates the BMC Remedy ARS form used to create tickets as defined in the Gate.Remedy.Form property.
  • Validates the BMC Remedy ARS form used to read ticket updates as defined in the Gate.Remedy.UpdateForm property.
  • Validates the mapping file as defined in the Gate.MapFile property. Specifically, the gateway:
    • Ensures that the mapping file contains at least the status map (StatusMap). If the status map is not present, the gateway shuts down.
    • Checks that every BMC Remedy ARS field residing in all maps is a valid BMC Remedy ARS field name.

Improving the performance of the gateway

To improve the performance of the gateway use the Gate.Remedy.Connections property (defined in the G_BMC_REMEDY.props file). The Gate.Remedy.Connections property takes an integer value that specifies the number of simultaneous connections the gateway makes with BMC Remedy ARS. In general, the more connections specified, the faster the gateway can create requests in BMC Remedy ARS from alerts sent by the ObjectServer.

In the following gateway properties file example, the Gate.Remedy.Connections property is set to the value 6, which means the gateway will make six simultaneous connections with BMC Remedy ARS:

# Property Name:Default
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# Remedy gateway specific properties
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Gate.Remedy.Connections:6
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Note: If specified, the value of the Gate.Remedy.Connections property should be greater than 0 (zero). Also, the underlying hardware architecture must align with the number of connections.