Configuring offload on VMware

Configure your VMware analytics subsystem to offload API event data to a third-party system.

Procedure

From your project directory, open the analytics-extra-values.yaml file for editing. If this file does not exist, then create it: Analytics extra-values file.
Add the following text to the file, inside the spec section:
```
spec:
...
  external:
    offload:
      enabled: true
      output: |
        <output definition>
```
where <output definition> is the configuration for the chosen output plugin that will send data to the target third-party system.The following example enables offloading to HTTP:
```
spec:
  external:
    offload:
      enabled: true
      output: |
        http {
          url => "https://example.com"
          http_method => "post"
          ssl_verification_mode => "none"
          id => "API Connect analytics event data"
        }
```
In this example, the URL points to an HTTPS endpoint, but verification of the endpoint's server certificate is disabled by setting ssl_verification_mode to "none". If you want your analytics subsystem to verify the endpoint server certificate, then see Configuring offload server certificates on VMware.

The id property is not mandatory, but it is recommended.

For more information about the HTTP output plugin configuration, see the Logstash HTTP plugin documentation.

Optional: Add a filter after the output plugin to modify data before it is sent to the offload target.

The following example filter removes the query_string field:


spec:
  external:
    offload:
      enabled: true
      output: |
        http {
          url => "example.com"
          http_method => "post"
          id => "offload_http"
        }
      filter: |
        ruby {
          remove_field => ["query_string"]
        }

For information about modifying offloaded data, see Customizing data with ingestion filters.

Optional: To configure a second offload target, create a new spec.external.offload2 section and add the configuration for this second target to this section.
If you have three or more offload targets, then you can put multiple configurations in spec.external.offload2. For example:
```
spec:
  external:
   offload:
      enabled: true
      output: |
        http {
          url => "https://target1.com"
          ...
        }
    offload2:
      enabled: true
      output: |
        http {
          url => "https://target2.com"
          ...
        }
      output: |
        http {
          url => "https://target3.com"
          ...
      }
```
Note: Multiple offload targets defined in spec.external.offload2 are run in series. If offload to the first target in offload2 fails, then subsequent offloads are not run. Define your most important offload target first.
Save the analytics-extra-values.yaml file.
Ensure that your extra-values-file property is set to point to your analytics-extra-values.yaml file:
```
apicup subsys set <analytics subsystem> extra-values-file analytics-extra-values.yaml
```
Apply the analytics-extra-values.yaml to your analytics subsystem:
```
apicup subsys install <analytics subsystem>
```
Take a backup of your updated analytics-extra-values.yaml file. For more information about backups, see Backup, restore, and disaster recovery.