3 Configuring the Connector

This chapter explains how to perform tasks directly or indirectly related to configuring the connector, and also discusses the post-configuration task of navigating between the Enterprise Manager and HP ServiceCenter consoles. The following topics are discussed:

Configuring the Connector
Installing and Configuring the HP ServiceCenter 6.1 Web Console
Testing the Connector
Working with Ticket Templates
Navigating Between Enterprise Manager and HP ServiceCenter

Configuring the Connector

To configure the connector:

As Super Administrator, from Enterprise Manager Grid Control, click Setup.

The Overview of Setup page appears.
Click Management Connectors in the left pane.

The Management Connectors page appears. The row for the ticketing connector should appear in this page as shown in Figure 2–1.
Click the Configure icon for the connector that you just registered.

The General tab of the Configure Management Connector page appears (Figure 3-1).

Figure 3-1 Configure Management Connector General Page
Configure the connection settings:
- Web Service End Points
  
  Specify the appropriate server or IP address of the server hosting the ServiceCenter 6.1 Web services. Provide the server address in the format ...
  
  http://<server name or IP address>: 12670/
  
  ... where 12670 is the default installation port. This may vary with your installation.
  
  These end points to CreateTroubleTicket, UpdateTroubleTicket, and GetTroubleTicket Web services are exposed by HP ServiceCenter Help Desk. The CreateTroubleTicket and UpdateTroubleTicket operations are used during manual and automated ticketing.
  
  The GetTroubleTicket operation is only used on this window by testing the Ticket Number retrieval process. For more information about testing the ticket retrieval process, see Section 3.3, "Testing the Connector".
- ServiceCenter Username
  
  Specify the user name for HTTP basic authentication supported by the HP ServiceCenter web services. This user name must have the appropriate privileges/roles in the ServiceCenter to create, update, and query tickets in the HP ServiceCenter. All incident tickets created through the connector are generated with this user account.
- ServiceCenter Password
  
  Specify the password associated with the supplied HP ServiceCenter user.
- Ticket Number
  
  Specify this to verify the Web service end point information. See Section 3.3, "Testing the Connector" for more information.
(Optional) Configure the web console settings.

Web console settings are required if you want the Connector to provide links from Enterprise Manager to the HP ServiceCenter application user interface. These links are the User Interface navigational links from Enterprise Manager to the HP ServiceCenter application user interface.
- Enable web console features
  
  Check to launch the HP ServiceCenter Incident Ticket page within the context from Enterprise Manager. If this is not checked, the HP ServiceCenter Web console cannot be launched in context of the ticket from the Enterprise Manager console.
- Web Server
  
  HP ServiceCenter host name. Provide the system name and port details of the Web server that hosts the HP ServiceCenter Application User Interface (not the details of Web services or the database server).
See Also:
Section 3.2, "Installing and Configuring the HP ServiceCenter 6.1 Web Console"
(Optional) Configure the grace period.

If you configure this option, Enterprise Manager alerts that have generated an incident will update or reopen the incident if an alert is triggered. The alert occurs again within the grace period time specified. This setting applies to all alerts processed by HP ServiceCenter Connector.

See Section 1.5, "Grace Period" for conceptual information about the grace period.
Click OK.

The Management Connectors page reappears. The ticketing connector row should have a checkmark in the Configured column.
In the Configure Management Connector page, go to the Ticket Templates tab (Figure 3–2) and ensure that the ticket templates are successfully loaded.

If you choose HTTPS as the protocol to establish a connection between the HP ServiceCenter and Enterprise Manager, see Appendix A, "Enabling SSL for HTTPS".

Note:

Oracle recommends that you use HTTPS as the protocol for the communication between Enterprise Manager and the HP ServiceCenter Web Service server.

Use HTTP only if a secure connection is not required and the data can be transferred in clear text between the two systems without compromising security.

Installing and Configuring the HP ServiceCenter 6.1 Web Console

The Web console functionality is dependent on the ServiceCenter 6.1 Web Console being configured so that security hashing in the URLs are turned off. The following sections explain how to install, then configure the console.

Installing the HP ServiceCenter 6.1 Web Console

To install the HP ServiceCenter 6.1 Web console, do the following:

Make sure the latest J2SE binaries are installed. HP recommends installing a minimum of Sun 1.4.2 SDK.
Set the JAVA_HOME environment variable to the path where Java JDK was installed.
Download the Apache Tomcat version 4.1.29 binary zip file from tomcat.apache.org. You need to retrieve this from an archive, because the latest version is 4.1.36 and HP recommends version 4.1.29.
Unzip the contents of the zip file to the directory where you want to install Tomcat.
Set the CATALINA_HOME environment variable to the path where Tomcat was installed.
Copy the xalan.jar, xercesImpl.jar and xml-apis.jar files to the %CATALINA_HOME%\common\endorsed directory. These files are in the attached zip file.
Copy the sc.war file to the %CATALINA_HOME%\webapps directory.
Navigate to the %CATALINA_HOME%\bin directory and run startup.bat to start the Tomcat server.
You can connect to the console by navigating in a browser to http://<tomcat host server>:8080/sc/index.do .

Configuring the HP ServiceCenter 6.1 Web Console

Verify the configuration of the web.xml file in the WEB-INF folder of the Tomcat web tier context root by doing the following:

Make sure the sc.host parameter value is changed from local host to the fully-qualified name of the web tier server.
See the Generated Web Tiers URLs section of the help for the ServiceCenter client.
Make sure the sc.querysecurity parameter is set to false as follows:
```
<init-param>
<param-name>sc.querysecurity</param-name>
<param-value>false</param-value>
```
Note:
Based upon how the Enterprise Manager Connector Framework works, the hash information normally required in the URL when sc.querysecurity is set to true cannot be present. This requires that the URL security be turned off.
Your security team needs to evaluate if the risks outweigh the need for the URL to be embedded into the Enterprise Manager alert. Service Manager still requires user authentication when hashing is turned off to access the web console enforcing authorization to the operation requested.

Testing the Connector

To test the connector, do the following:

In the Management Connectors page (Figure 2–1), select the HP ServiceCenter connector and click Configure.
Enter a valid ticket (Incident in ServiceCenter) into the Ticket field and click OK.

This executes the web service operation getTicket call to validate the incident. If Enterprise Manager cannot properly retrieve the incident, it returns an error and returns to the Management Connectors page.

Working with Ticket Templates

The following sections provide information about registering, removing, replacing, and adding ticket templates. Use the Configure Management Connector Ticket Templates page (Figure 3–2) to perform any of the tasks mentioned in the following sections.

Registering Ticket Templates

You need to register ticket templates before they are recognized in Enterprise Manager. For Auto Ticketing, a notification method is created for each registered ticket template, and a ticket is created and updated based on the ticket template associated with the selected notification method. For manual ticketing, registered ticket templates are available for selection.

The files in the base directory are configured specifically for ServiceCenter 6.1 and must not be modified. Only a person trained to modify XSL files for the connector framework should modify the templates. For more information about modifying ticket templates, see Section 4.3, "Customizing Ticket Templates" .

The templates are the out-of-box ticket templates shipped with the connector. By default, all out-of-box ticket templates are registered. The templates assume defaults that may not be applicable to your instance of ServiceCenter, although they are designed to work with a default installation of HP ServiceCenter.

Registering a Template

From the Oracle Management Server (OMS) host command window, run the following emctl command from the $ORACLE_HOME/bin directory for each applicable ticket template:

emctl register_ticket_template connector <ticketTemplate.xml> <server> <port> <database sid> <username> <password> <connectorTypeName> <connectorName> <templateName> <description>

The template in Example 3–1 creates an Incident in ServiceCenter and supports AutoClose.

Example 3-1 register_ticket_template connector

C:\OracleHomes\oms10g\BIN\emctl register_ticket_template connector "C:\OracleHomes\oms10g\sysman\connector\HP_ServiceCenter_Connector\templates\ServiceCenter_Default_Incident_AutoClose.xsl" <Host Server Name> 1521 emrep SYSMAN <password> "HP ServiceCenter Connector" "HP ServiceCenter Connector" "ServiceCenter Default Incident AutoClose" "This template creates an Incident in ServiceCenter and supports autoclose."

emctl Parameters for Ticket Registration

Table 3–1 provides descriptions for each emctl parameter for ticket registration.

Table 3-1 emctl register_ticket_template Parameters

Parameter	Description
`ticketTemplate.xsl`	Fully-qualified name of the ticket template file. The file resides in the Connector home directory. Oracle recommends that you use intuitive names since there may be notification methods created with the same names, and you may have to choose one of them when you use the Auto Ticketing feature. Use xsl as the file extension since the format is XSLT; for example, ServiceCenter_Default_Incident.xsl. If the file is in a different directory, provide the complete path for the file.
`Server`	Host name of the Enterprise Manager repository.
`port`	Listener port of the repository.
`database sid/ Service Name for RAC DB`	Repository database instance ID.
`username`	Specify `SYSMAN.`
`password`	Password for `SYSMAN.`
`connectorTypeName`	Connector type name. For example, "`HP ServiceCenter Connector".` The double quotes (" ") are mandatory.
`connectorName`	Connector name. This should be the same as the connector type name. For example, "`HP ServiceCenter Connector".` The double quotes (" ") are mandatory.
`templateName`	Intuitive name for the ticket template to be displayed in Enterprise Manager. It is recommended that this name be the same as the file name, replacing the underscore in the file name with spaces.
`description`	Short description for the ticket template. This description is also displayed in Enterprise Manager.

Verifying Registration

To verify that the templates are registered properly, navigate to the Ticket Templates tab on the Configure Management Connector: HP ServiceCenter Connector page. The registered templates must be visible in the list as shown in Figure 3–2.

Figure 3-2 Configure Management Connector Ticket Templates Page

Viewing Template Code

Click a template name to view the code for the template.

The ticket templates are in XSLT format. A basic knowledge of XSLT is required to understand the code.

Removing Templates

To remove a template, perform the following steps:

Important:

If the template you delete has a notification rule associated with it, the notification fails.

Select the template and click Remove.
At the prompt, confirm the removal.
Before you exit the page, click OK for the deletion to occur.

Note:
Unless you click OK before you exit, the template is not deleted. Next time you go to the Ticket Template page, the templates reappear.

Although the ticket template is removed from the Enterprise Manager repository, it is still available in OMS in the Connector home directory. You can re-register the ticket template later if required.

Replacing Templates

To replace an existing ticket template, do the following in the sequence indicated:

Delete the ticket template.
Register the new template using emctl.

Adding New Templates

To add templates, you should define new templates and register them using emctl.

Avoiding Notification Failures

Notification is blocked for processing if the notification device is down because of problems. For instance, notification is blocked if the ServiceCenter server is down, the ServiceCenter configuration on Enterprise Manager is incorrect, or the ticket is removed in ServiceCenter.

The ticketing connector attempts to contact the service desk several times in a predefined interval. After that, it skips the current ticketing notification.

Navigating Between Enterprise Manager and HP ServiceCenter

After you have configured the connector, you will want to access alerts from the Enterprise Manager and HP ServiceCenter consoles. The following sections explain how to switch from one console to the other.

Navigating from Enterprise Manager to HP ServiceCenter

In the Enterprise Manager console, click the alert message to go to the metric details page for the alert.
In the Alert History table, locate the ticket ID link in the Last Comment column shown in Figure 3-3.

Figure 3-3 Alert details in Enterprise Manager Console
If not found, click the icon in the Details column to get more information about the alert.
On the page that appears, locate the ticket ID in the Alert Details table.
Click the ticket ID link. You are forwarded to the HP ServiceCenter Web console login page.
Provide valid HP ServiceCenter account details.

The ticket page associated with this alert is displayed.

Note:

If you do not use the HP ServiceCenter Web console, uncheck the "Enable web console features" option discussed in Section 3.1, "Configuring the Connector" so that the ticket ID is shown in plain text. Otherwise, it is displayed as a link that does not work.

Navigating from HP ServiceCenter to Enterprise Manager

From a ticket page, click the link in the Description field to the Alert Details page in the ticket message body (Figure 3-4). This forwards you to the Enterprise Manager console login page. After you provide the Enterprise Manager user name and password, you are forwarded to the alert related to this ticket.

Note:

The Enterprise Manager user whose name you specify should at least have View privileges on the target on which the alert was raised.
On the HP ServiceCenter console, if the URL appears as text, you need to cut and paste the URL into the browser.

Figure 3-4 Alert Details in HP ServiceCenter Console