Defining Ciena Blue Planet Observer jobs

Using the Ciena Blue Planet Observer, you can define jobs that will gather and read all topology data from the Blue Planet MCP instance by REST API and generate a topology.

Before you begin

Important: The Ciena Blue Planet Observer supports MCP 4.0.

The Ciena Blue Planet Observer is installed as part of the core installation procedure.

Ensure you have the Ciena Blue Planet details to hand, such as API username, API password, MCP URL, MCP certificate, truststore file and truststore password.

Remember: Swagger documentation for the observer is available at the following default location: https://<your host>/1.0/cienablueplanet-observer/swagger

About this task

The Ciena Blue Planet Observer has two jobs, the restapi load and websocket listen jobs.
  • When a load job is run, it loads baseline topology data through Blue Planet MCP APIs: Network Elements (constructs), EquipmentHolder, Equipment, TPE (Terminating Point Encapsulation), and FRE (Forwarding Relationship Encapsulation).
  • When a listening job is run, the observer listens to changes in resource's status from the BluePlanet MCP instance through a websocket connection.
Tip: Defining observer jobs using the UI is the same for both on-premise and OCP.
cienablueplanet_observer_common.sh
The configuration file you use to customize Ciena Blue Planet Observer settings.
The parameters defined here are then used by cienablueplanet_observer_load_start.sh and cienablueplanet_observer_listen_start.sh to trigger the Ciena Blue Planet Observer jobs.
Tip: Alternatively, you can set the appropriate environment variables. If an environment variable is set, it takes precedence over the configuration file settings.
You define and start the following two jobs. You must edit the parameters in the configuration file before running these jobs.
Full Topology Upload job
A transient (one-off) job that loads all requested topology data.
This job is started by the cienablueplanet_observer_load_start.sh script.
Listener job
A long-running job that monitors its source for updates and runs until it is explicitly stopped, or until the Observer is stopped.
This job is started by the cienablueplanet_observer_listen_start.sh script.

Procedure

To edit the parameters in the configuration file

  1. Open the cienablueplanet_observer_common.sh configuration file and edit the following Load parameters:
    Table 1. Ciena Blue Planet Observer restapi Load parameters
    Parameter Action Details
    Unique ID Enter a unique name for the job. Required
    Server URL The URL of the MCP server instance Required
    MCP Certificate Certificate name to load into the trust store Optional. If used, must be in the /opt/ibm/netcool/asm/security directory.
    SSL truststore file Exact HTTPS trust store file name Required. The supported format is JKS and the file is relative to $ASM_HOME/security
    SSL truststore password The password to decrypt HTTPS trust store file Required. Must be encrypted.
    SSL Validation Choose whether SSL validation is on or off. Turning SSL validation off will use HTTPS without host verification. Optional
    Connection timeout Sets the connection and read timeout in milliseconds Optional. Must be a value greater than 0 (zero), and the default is 5000 (5 seconds).
    Username MCP API username Required
    Password MCP API password Required. Must be encrypted.
    Data Center The data center the MCP instance is running in Required
    Tenant Name The tenant to use Required
    Job schedule

    Specify when the job should run, and whether it should run at regular intervals.

    By default the job runs immediately, and only once.

    Optionally you can specify a future date and time for the job to run, and then set it to run at regular intervals after that.

    Optional. Transient (one-off) jobs only.

    If you set a job schedule, the run intervals must be at least 90 seconds apart, and if you set them at less than 15 minutes, a warning is displayed, as the frequency can impact system performance.
    Observer job description Enter additional information to describe the job. Optional
    Encryption requirement: Both jobs require the password and the ssl_truststore_password in the configuration file in encrypted form. To encrypt them, run the encrypt_password.sh script in the ASM_HOME/bin directory: 
    ./bin/encrypt_password.sh
    Enter and confirm the passwords. The encryption utility returns passwords in encrypted format.
    SSL requirements: To acquire SSL certificates and build SSL truststores, use the relevant instructions in the following section: Configuring observer job security
  2. Open the cienablueplanet_observer_listen_start.sh script and edit the following Listen parameters:
    Table 2. Ciena Blue Planet Observer Websocket Listen parameters
    Parameter Action Details
    Unique ID Enter a unique name for the job. Required
    Websocket URL The MCP websocket URL to connect to Required
    Websocket Topics Subscriptions The MCP topics to subscribe to Required
    Server URL The URL of the MCP server instance Required
    MCP Certificate Certificate name to load into the trust store Optional. If used, must be in the /opt/ibm/netcool/asm/security directory.
    SSL truststore file Exact HTTPS trust store file name Required. The supported format is JKS and the file is relative to the $ASM_HOME/security directory.
    SSL truststore password The password to decrypt HTTPS trust store file Required. Must be encrypted.
    SSL Validation Choose whether SSL validation is on or off. Turning SSL validation off will use HTTPS without host verification Optional
    Connection timeout Sets the connection and read timeout in milliseconds Optional. Must be a value greater than 0 (zero), and the default is 5000 (5 seconds).
    Username MCP API username Required
    Password MCP API password Required. Must be encrypted.
    Data Center The data center the MCP instance is running in Required
    Tenant Name The tenant to use Required
    Observer job description Enter additional information to describe the job. Optional

To start the Load and Listen jobs

  1. To start the Ciena Blue Planet Observer Full Topology Upload job, use the following command: 
    $ASM_HOME/bin/cienablueplanet_observer_load_start.sh
  2. To start the Ciena Blue Planet Observer listen job, use the following command: 
    $ASM_HOME/bin/cienablueplanet_observer_listen_start.sh

Results

The load job loads all requested topology data, and runs only once. Run this job whenever you need Ciena Blue Planet topology data refreshed.

The Listener job monitors its source for updates and runs until it is explicitly stopped, or until the observer is stopped.

What to do next

You can also use the following scripts:
cienablueplanet_observer_load_stop.sh
Stops the Load job
cienablueplanet_observer_listen_stop.sh
Stops the Listener job
cienablueplanet_observer_job_list.sh
Lists the status of current jobs
cienablueplanet_observer_log_level.sh
Sets the log level
Remember: As an alternative to being configured using the Observer Configuration UI, observer jobs have scripts to start and stop all available jobs, to list the status of a current job, and to set its logging levels. These scripts can be run with -h or --help to display help information, and with -v or --verbose to print out the details of the actions performed by the script, including the full cURL command. For the on-prem version of Agile Service Manager, observer scripts are configured for specific jobs by editing the script configuration files.