Configuring Azure Observer jobs

Using the Azure Observer, you can define a full load job that will read data from Azure cloud services through its REST APIs and generate a topology.

Before you begin

Important: The Azure Observer supports the cloud/SaaS Azure version.

Ensure you have the Azure details to hand, such as the Tenant ID, Client ID, and client password before running the observer job.

Tip: To configure access to Azure resources, see the following information: Create an Azure Active Directory application and service principal that can access resources

The observer is installed as part of the core installation procedure.

About this task

The Azure Observer retrieves topology data from Azure cloud services via REST APIs exposed by the Azure API server. In addition to the standard resources, the following resources are now also supported::
  • Load Balancers
  • Virtual Machine Scale Set
  • Virtual Network Gateway (including VPN Gateway and Express Route Gateway)
  • ExpressRoute
You define and start the following job. You must edit the parameters in the configuration file before running this job.
Full Topology Upload job
By default, these jobs are one-off, transient jobs that carry out a full upload of all requested topology data when they are triggered.
You can also run these jobs (again) manually from the Observer UI, or schedule them to run at set times when you configure them.

Procedure

  1. On the Observer jobs page, perform one of the following actions:
    To edit an existing job
    Open the List of options overflow menu next to the job and click View & edit.
    To create a new job
    Click Add a new job + and select the Azure Observer tile.
  2. Enter or edit the following parameters, then click Save to save your job and begin retrieving information.
    Table 1. Azure Observer Load job parameters
    Parameter Action Details
    Unique ID Enter a unique name for the job Required
    Data center Enter the data center of the Azure service Required
    Tenant ID Specify the Azure account tenant ID Required
    Client ID Specify the client ID to access the registered app Required
    Client password Enter the client password to access the registered app Required. Use plain text.
    Subscriptions to be discovered Specify the subscription Ids to be discovered in comma-separated lists. To discover all subscriptions, use '*'. Optional
    Proxy host Specify the proxy host Optional
    Proxy port Specify the proxy port. The default is 8080. Optional
    Connection timeout (milliseconds) Define the Azure connection timeout in milliseconds. The default value is 5000. Optional
    Read timeout (milliseconds) Specify the read timeout in milliseconds. The default value is 5000. Optional
    Proxy Username Specify the proxy username. Optional
    Trust all certificates by bypassing certificate verification Set to true to allow connection to target environment without verification. Optional. The default is 'false'.
    Proxy Password Specify the proxy password. Optional
    Proxy Secure Specify whether the proxy server is secure. Optional
    Access scope

    Enter text to provide a scope for the resources.

    Access scope can help map alerts to resources when resources in different scopes share parameters, such as matchTokens.

    		 Optional.
    Tip: You can define access scope for locations, project names, namespaces, and so on.
    Generate debug support file
    Set the optional Generate debug support file parameter to True to capture the output of the next scheduled job run as a file. This file is stored with an observer's log files and can be used to debug observer issues, for example at the request of your designated Support team, or while using a test environment. For one-off jobs (that is, Load jobs), this parameter reverts to False after the next completed run. To examine the output produced, you can load the generated debug file using the File Observer. The file is saved to the following locations:
    On-premises
    $ASM_HOME/logs/<obs>-observer/
    On OpenShift Container Platform
    /var/log/itsm/<obs>-observer
    		 Optional
    Observer job description Enter additional information to describe the job. Optional
    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. If you set them at less than 15 minutes, a warning is displayed, as the frequency can impact system performance.