Model KPIs using Rational? Application Developer or WebSphere? Integration Developer with the IBM? WebSphere Business Monitor Developers toolkitinstalled. Rational Application Developer andthe IBM WebSphere Business Monitor Developerstoolkit are included as part of the IBM Intelligent Operations Center.

1. Understand the CAP alert to be received by the IBM Intelligent Operations Center.
2. Understand the purpose of the KPI. Will the KPI generatean action if a limit is reached or exceeded??Will the KPI be usedto calculate historical or statistical data?
3. Determine the name for the monitoring context. The IBM Intelligent Operations Center naming conventionis to use the CAP event type as the name. The samples provided by IBM Intelligent Operations Center create separatemonitoring context for each CAP alert message sent to the IBM WebSphere Business Monitor.
4. In the Rational Application Developer withthe IBM WebSphere Business Monitor Developerstoolkit installed define the inbound event key and set of metricsfor the monitor context. The inbound event defines the CAP alert messagemonitored by the context a key uniquely defining the context instanceand the metrics defining the information extracted from the CAP alertmessage.
5. Specify the CAP schema for the event. The schema must existin the monitoring project. The IBM Intelligent Operations Center provides a copyof the CAP v1.2 schema in the sample icoc_sample_monitor_models modelingproject.
6. Specify the name and ID for each business monitor inboundevent. Event IDs cannot contain spaces or special characters. By defaultthe ID is created from the name with underscores substituted for spaces.All samples provided by the IBM Intelligent Operations Center use default elementIDs.
7. Specify the schema. The schema defines the structure ofthe inbound event to the IBM WebSphere Business Monitor.
8. Define any desired filtering of CAP messages. For examplelimit monitoring to specific event types or severity.
9. Specify the metrics to be extracted from the CAP message.
10. Define a context key to uniquely identify the monitoringcontext instance. Key values are specified by the inbound event whenthe monitoring context is created.
11. Specify whether inbound events should be correlated.
12. Specify the KPI context. A KPI context is acontainer for KPIs and their associated triggers and events. Unlikea monitoring context a KPI context contains no keys or metrics. AKPI context must be created as a container before creating any KPIs.
13. Create the KPI within the previously defined KPI context.
14. Specify the type of KPI: Decimal or Duration.
15. Define the KPI ranges values and color indicators. Most of the sample IBM Intelligent Operations Center KPIsdefine three ranges and associated colors.

    Table 1. Sample KPIrange and color definitions

    Name	Color	RGB
    acceptable	green	e4f2d1
    caution	yellow	fee881
    take action	red	e68b88

16. Define how the KPI value is calculated. KPIvalues are determined in one of two ways. If the value comes froma metric using an aggregation function the KPI is referred to asan aggregation KPI. If the value is calculated based on other KPIsor user-defined XPath functions the KPI is referred to as an expressionKPI.

    In the IBM Intelligent Operations Center samplesthe lowest level KPIs (those without children) are defined as aggregationKPIs. The higher level KPIs (KPIs with children) are defined as expressionKPIs.

    Aggregation KPI values are calculated from metrics populatedwith data sent in CAP alert messages sent to the IBM WebSphere Business Monitor server. An aggregationfunction is then run on this data. Aggregation functions include:

    • average
    • maximum
    • minimum
    • sum
    • number of occurrences
    • standard deviation

    The values are expressed as quantifiable measurements. For exampleaverage crime response time (5 minutes 7 seconds) or average waterlevel (100.5).

    Expression KPI values are calculated from KPIranges and calculations. In the IBM Intelligent Operations Center samples the parentKPIs have calculations causing the KPI to evaluate to a value of 01 or 2 depending on the values of their child KPIs. A value of 0maps to the acceptable range 1 to the caution range and 2 to thetake action range. The samples use calculation expressions to setthe KPI value to the highest urgency of its children.

17. Optional: Specify the time filter for an aggregationKPI. Aggregation KPIs can have optional time filters limitingthe period of time over which the KPI value is calculated. The timeperiod can be a repeating interval (for example the last completedor current period) a rolling interval or a fixed interval. All sample IBM Intelligent Operations Center aggregation KPIshave defined time filters.
18. Optional: Specify a data filter for the KPI. For example if the average crime response time is to be calculatedfor Police Precinct One and no other precincta data filter can be used to remove all other monitoring contexts.
19. Define how the KPI values are updated including triggersevents inbound to the IBM WebSphere Business Monitor serverand outbound events to the IBM Intelligent Operations Center.
20. Test the KPI.
21. Deploy the monitor model application.