Defining ITNM Observer jobs

The ITNM Observer is installed as part of the core installation procedure. Using the ITNM Observer, you can define jobs that dynamically load data discovered by IBM Tivoli Network Manager for analysis by Netcool Agile Service Manager.

Before you begin

Important: The ITNM Observer supports the on-premise ITNM version 4.2.

Ensure you have the ITNM service details to hand, such as the ITNM domain, host and port number.

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

Tip:

You can create custom tags on IBM Tivoli Network Manager, which the ITNM Observer can integrate into Agile Service Manager tags. For information on creating custom tags in Network Manager, see the Adding name-value pairs to entities using the File finder topic in the IBM Tivoli Network Manager IP Edition documentation.

Having added a custom tag in Network Manager, you can extract the value into an Agile Service Manager tag. The following example uses a regular expression to extract the value of the `Country` custom tag:

customtags=~/[\\{ ]Country=(.+?)[,\\}]/

About this task

The ITNM Observer jobs extract IBM Tivoli Network Manager resources using an Object Query Language JDBC driver. The Observer loads and updates the resources and their relationships within the Netcool Agile Service Manager core topology service.

itnm_observer_common.sh: The config file you use to customize ITNM Observer settings.; The parameters defined here are then used by the itnm_observer_load_start.sh and the itnm_observer_listen_start.sh scripts to trigger the ITNM Observer jobs.

After installation, you define and start the following two jobs. You must edit the parameters in the config file before running these jobs.

Full Topology Upload: A transient (one-off) job that loads all requested topology data.; This job is started by the itnm_observer_load_start.sh script.
For cross-domain connections: Each ITNM domain must read existing cross-domain connections from the topology service, which means that you may need to run two observations of all domains contributing cross-domain connections (that is, run the full load job twice) before all cross-domain edges are created.
Listener: 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 itnm_observer_listen_start.sh script.

Procedure

Edit (at least) the following parameters in the itnm_observer_common.sh config file:
domain

Network Manager domain name

host

Network Manager server

port

Port used to access the Network Manager ncp_config process
Note: The value of port will vary if multiple domains exist. To determine which port number to use for a Network Manager domain, look for the domain-specific ncp_config entry in the $NCHOME/etc/precision/ServiceData.cfg file.

exclude_no_connection

If true, only load entities that have connections including their dependencies are included.

topology_type_edge_type_map

Map of ITNM topology type to Agile Service Manager edge/relationship type {"topologyType":"edgeType"} in JSON string format.

The default value is {"ConvergedTopology":"connectedTo"}.

This parameter accepts the default or custom Agile Service Manager edge types. For custom edge types, register the edge in the topology service swagger under the POST /types/edge API.

The value of topology type can be found in $NCHOME/precision/disco/stitchers/DNCIM/PopulateDNCIMTopologies.stch
Alternatively, run the following OQL statement against the model service to list the available topology type:
```
select ENTITYNAME from ncimCache.entityData where METACLASS='Topology'
```
Tip: Alternatively, you can set the appropriate environment variables. If an environment variable is set, it takes precedence over the config file settings.
To start the ITNM Observer Full Topology Upload job, use the following command:
```
$ASM_HOME/bin/itnm_observer_load_start.sh
```
The Full Topology Upload job loads all requested topology data. This job runs only once.
To start the ITNM Observer Listener job, use the following command:
```
$ASM_HOME/bin/itnm_observer_listen_start.sh
```
The Listener job monitors its source for updates and runs until it is stopped, or until the Observer is stopped.

What to do next

You can also use the following scripts:

itnm_observer_listen_stop.sh: Stops the Listener job
itnm_observer_load_stop.sh: Stops the Full Topology Upload job
itnm_observer_job_list.sh: Lists the current job status
itnm_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.