Sending events to web-based event management services

By using webhook integration, you can configure the Problem Insights server to send events to web-based event management services, such as IBM® Netcool® Operations Insight and IBM Watson® AIOps Event Manager.

Before you begin

By default, the supported web-based event management systems aggregate into a single event, the events that are sent by the Problem Insights server for the same message ID, sysplex, system, and where available, subsystem, and kpiName. This aggregated event includes the following information:
  • A time stamp that indicates the latest occurrence of the event
  • A counter that indicates the number of individual event occurrences that are now aggregated
  • The information that was submitted with the first occurrence of the event

The URLs that are included in the Problem Insights server events link to analytics evidence for a specified time window. Because of the event aggregation by the web-based event management system, the URL in the aggregated event links, by default, to the first occurrence of the event in the Problem Insights server.

About this task

Important: The configuration for sending events to IBM Netcool Operations Insight or IBM Watson AIOps Event Manager is the same for each of these services. In this procedure, the configuration is described by using the example of IBM Netcool Operations Insight.

You can insert event information into IBM Netcool Operations Insight from any event source that can send the information in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format. You use a webhook URL to set your event source to send event information to IBM Netcool Operations Insight. Then, by using an example incoming request in JSON format, you define the mapping between the event attributes from your event source and the event attributes in IBM Netcool Operations Insight.

Procedure

To prepare IBM Netcool Operations Insight to receive events from the Problem Insights server, complete the following steps.
  1. Create a webhook for defining the mapping between the event attributes from your event source and the event attributes in IBM Netcool Operations Insight.
    For more information, see Creating custom event sources with JSON in the IBM Netcool Operations Insight documentation.
    Important: As part of creating the webhook, you must create an API key, which provides you with a user name and password. This user name and password is populated in the Problem Insights server configuration file.
  2. Define the mapping between the event attributes from the Problem Insights server event payload (the example incoming request) and the event attributes in IBM Netcool Operations Insight.

    Table 1 shows the correlation of these event attributes.

    Example of Problem Insights server event payload
    {
  "summary": "An error occurred when trying to dynamically allocate the page set data set.",
  "shortSummary": "An error occurred when trying to dynamically allocate the page set data set.",
  "time": "2023-05-26 20:23:26",
  "kpiName": "",
  "subsystem": "",
  "url": "https://myhost.myco.com:8085/piFramework/protected/izoa/v1/csqe035e",
  "system": "TVT7008",
  "eventId": "4601",
  "evidence": "CSQE035E",
  "sysplex": "PLEX1",
  "severity": "2"
}
    Table 1. Correlation of event attributes of IBM Netcool Operations Insight with event attributes in the Problem Insights server event payload
    Event attributes in IBM Netcool Operations Insight Event attributes in Problem Insights server event payload
    Severity 
    severity = "1" ? "Critical" : 
severity = "2" ? "Critical" : 
severity = "3" ? "Warning" : 
severity = "4" ? "Information" : 
severity = "5" ? "Indeterminate" : 
severity = "6" ? "Indeterminate" : 
severity = "7" ? "Indeterminate"
    Summary shortSummary
    Resource name sysplex & “.” & system
    Event type evidence
    URL 1 > URL url
    URL 1 > Description “Evidence URL”
    Details 
    {
   “kpiName”: kpiName,
   “resourceType”: sysplex & “.” & system & “.” & subsystem & “.” & kpiName
}
    Timestamp time
  3. In the appropriate IBM Z® Operational Log and Data Analytics configuration file, define the connection parameters for your IBM Netcool Operations Insight instance.
    • On a Linux® system
      In the <ZOA_HOME>/zoa_env.config file, update the following configuration properties, according to the property descriptions in the file:
      • CEM_USER
      • CEM_PASSWORD
      • CEM_URL
    • On z/OS® UNIX System Services
      In the <PI_HOME>/config/event.config file, update the following configuration properties, according to the property descriptions in the file:
      izoa.notification.cem.user
      The user name for the IBM Netcool Operations Insight or IBM Watson AIOps Event Manager service to which the Problem Insights server must connect.
      izoa.notification.cem.password
      The password for the IBM Netcool Operations Insight or IBM Watson AIOps Event Manager user name.
      izoa.notification.cem.url
      The URL for the IBM Netcool Operations Insight or IBM Watson AIOps Event Manager webhook integration.