Release notes

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IBM® Netcool® Operations Insight® version 1.6.6 is available. Compatibility, installation, and other getting-started issues are addressed in these release notes.

Contents

Inclusive language

While IBM values the use of inclusive language, terms that are outside of IBM's direct influence are sometimes required for the sake of maintaining user understanding. As other industry leaders join IBM in embracing the use of inclusive language, IBM will continue to update the documentation to reflect those changes.

Description

Netcool Operations Insight combines real-time event consolidation and correlation capabilities of Netcool Operations Insight with Event Search and Event Analytics. It further delivers seasonality analysis to help detect regularly occurring issues. Netcool Operations Insight also enables real-time enrichment and correlation to enable agile responses to alerts raised across disparate systems, including application topology.

Compatibility

Netcool Operations Insight includes the product and component versions that are listed in the following topics:

System requirements

For information about hardware and software compatibility of each component, and detailed system requirements, see the IBM Software Product Compatibility Reports website:

http://www-969.ibm.com/software/reports/compatibility/clarity/index.htmlexternal link

Tip: When you create a report, search for Netcool Operations Insight and select your version (for example, version 1.6.6). In the report, more useful information is available through hover help and more links.
For example, to check the compatibility with an operating system for each component, go to the Operating Systems tab, find the row for your operating system, and hover over the icon in the Components column. For more detailed information about restrictions, click the View link in the Details column.

New product features and functions in version 1.6.6

Netcool Operations Insight on OpenShift 1.6.6 provides event management capabilities in IBM Cloud Pak® for Watson AIOps 3.5.1.

New features in version 1.6.6
The following features and functions are available in the Netcool Operations Insight 1.6.6 product:
Plug-in for airgap installation: ibm-pak
You can install IBM Netcool Operations Insight on Red Hat® OpenShift in your cluster by using the oc ibm-pak plug-in with a bastion host, portable compute device, or a portable storage device. For more information, see Offline and Hybrid offline. The oc ibm-pak plug-in installation replaces air-gapped installation methods that use cloudctl, which are deprecated in this release.
Fixed time windows
Configuring the quiet period and setting fixed time windows are supported in this release. For more information, see ../config/task/cfg-configuring-fixedwindow_CNEA.html#task_fixed_window.
Policy names
Policy names are listed in the alert details side panel for temporal grouping or temporal pattern policies. For more information, see Displaying alert details.
Customizing policies
You can customize Temporal Pattern and Seasonal policies. For more information, see Editing policies.
IBM Tivoli® Netcool/Impact project for probable cause
The Netcool/Impact project, EventManagementAnalytics, has policies and services to customize probable cause analytics. For more information, see Customizing probable cause and Setting the node field based on probable cause.

If your Netcool/Impact EventManagementAnalytics project for probable cause is missing after an upgrade, see Netcool/Impact EventManagementAnalytics project for probable cause is missing external icon.

TLS proxy
An alternative method for connecting an IDUC client to the cloud-based ObjectServer services through the secure TLS tunnel provided by the TLS proxy is available. This functionality is available as an unsupported technology preview, for nonproduction deployments only. For more information, see Installing, configuring, and completing common usage scenarios for a TLS proxy.
Integration with AI Manager
A Netcool connector is available to integrate AI Manager and Event Manager in production deployments. However, this deployment scenario is not recommended. For more information, see Creating Netcool/OMNIbus connections. The Netcool connector replaces the Event Manager Gateway integration method; available in the previous release. For more information, see Installing AI Manager and Event Manager in the version 1.6.5 documentation.
Geo-redundancy for Metric Anomaly Detection
Setting up disaster recovery for Metric Anomaly Detection is available as an unsupported technology preview, for nonproduction deployments only. For more information, see Setting up disaster recovery for Metric Anomaly Detection.
Runbook Automation
  • Automation editor supports saving as a new automation version ("publish") or as a draft version (for in-progress changes that are still unreleased and not applicable for production).
  • Test automation supports running and testing each published version and the current draft version.
  • Referenced automations in runbooks point to the latest published version of the automation.
  • New Activities tabs added:
    • Runbook executions are now runbook activities. The main navigation tab is now a subtab in the runbooks Library.
    • A new Automation activities table shows all previously executed and all currently running automation instances.
  • Automation preview dialog replaced with a side panel that is displayed when an automation is selected in the overview table.
  • Runbook Automation API extended for managing automations and automation instances.
  • Support for "Ansible® Tower" will end at its end of service date. See the Red Hat documentation for details about Ansible Tower end of service.
  • "Ansible Automation Platform Controller" is now supported. The automation type has been renamed from "Ansible Tower" to "Ansible". The set of features available when connecting to an "Ansible Automation Platform Controller" installation are identical to the features that were available when connecting to an "Ansible Tower" installation. Contact Red Hat support if you need assistance when migrating your job templates and workflow job templates from an Ansible Tower installation to an Ansible Automation Platform Controller installation.
  • Previously deprecated support for BigFix has been removed.
  • Miscellaneous UI improvements and fixes.
Sizing updates
Custom sizes are provided, but are not currently supported at install time. If you have requirements for a custom sizing install, contact your local support team. For more information, see the following topics:
Topology updates

Several topology updates are included with Netcool Operations Insight on OpenShift. For more information, see the What's new external icon topic in the IBM Agile Service Manager documentation.

SevOne® Observer

Using the SevOne Observer functionality, you can load monitored servers and their relationships, and then visualize this data as a topology view. For more information, see the Configuring SevOne Observer jobs external icon topic in the IBM Agile Service Manager documentation.

Troubleshooting

For more information, see the following sections:

Support

IBM Electronic Support offers a portfolio of online support tools and resources that provides comprehensive technical information to diagnose and resolve problems and maintain your IBM products. IBM has many smart online tools and proactive features that can help you prevent problems from occurring in the first place, or quickly and easily troubleshoot problems when they occur. For more information, see:

https://www.ibm.com/support/home/external link