2 Installing the Connector

The following sections in this chapter discuss these topics:

• Prerequisites

• Installing the Connector in Enterprise Manager

• Creating a Connector Instance

• Configuring the Connector

• Enabling and Disabling the Connector

• Providing General Settings

• Working with Event Templates

• Uninstalling the Connector

Prerequisites

The IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus REST Event Connector communicates through IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus’ REST API. Before using the IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus REST Event Connector, ensure that you meet the following prerequisites:

• To enable the HTTP Interface on IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus:

  1. Navigate to the ObjectServer Properties and set NRestOS.Enable to true

  2. If using HTTP also set the following properties:

     • NHttpd.EnableHTTP to true
     • NHttpd.ListeningPort to <port>

  3. If using HTTPS also set the following properties:

     • NHttpd.SSLEnable to true
     • NHttpd.SSLListeningPort to <port>
     • NHttpd.SSLCertificate to <certificate label>
     • NHttpd.SSLCertificatePwd to <password>

  Note:

  For more details about enabling the ObjectServer HTTP interface, see Enabling the HTTP interface and OSLC interface in the ObjectServer

• My Oracle Support Preferred Credentials are set. To set the credentials, perform the following steps:

  1. From the Enterprise Manager console Setup menu, select My Oracle Support, then Set Credentials.
  2. Enter the user name and password information, then click Apply.
  3. From the Enterprise Manager console Setup menu, select Extensibility, then Self Update.
  4. From the Self Update page, look for the IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus REST Event Connector in the table list. If it does not appear, go to the next step.
  5. Click Check Updates to schedule a job to collect the metadata for the connector, as shown in following figure.
  
  
  

  Note:

  You can also set up Self-Update in offline mode. See Applying an Update in Offline Mode in the Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control Administrator’s Guide for details.

Installing the Connector in Enterprise Manager

This section provides the procedure required to download and install (apply) the connector. The IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus REST Event Connector is not included out-of-the-box, so you need to download it from the Oracle Enterprise Manager store. All connectors in the Enterprise Manager store are available on the Self Update page for downloading.

To install (apply) the connector:

1. From the Enterprise Manager console Setup menu, select Setup, then select Extensibility, then select Self Update.

2. Click on the Management Connector link in the Type column. The IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus REST Event Connector appears in the list with a status of Available.

3. Click on the appropriate IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus REST Event Connector to select it, and then click Download.

   The Schedule Download window appears, where you can determine when the download should be performed.

4. Click Select to download immediately.

   If you want to schedule the download for a later time, specify the date and time when the download should occur, and click Select. You will need to return and finish the remainder of this procedure after the scheduled download date and time.

5. If necessary, refresh the screen until the status of the connector changes to Downloaded.

6. Click on the IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus REST Event Connector to select it, then click Apply.

   After you respond to the prompt to confirm the operation, a page appears that indicates the request has been submitted.

7. Refresh the screen until the status of the connector changes from Apply Scheduled to Applied.

Creating a Connector Instance

To use the IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus REST Event Connector, you need to create one or more instances of this connector type. A connector instance refers to the configured instance of the connector with specific details, such as Connector Name, Web Service Endpoints, and so forth of the Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus instance. Multiple connector instances for the same connector type are supported, which provides the flexibility to configure multiple Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus instances with Enterprise Manager.

For example, since Enterprise Manager is monitoring production targets and test targets, you can then create two instances of the connector and configure Enterprise Manager so that incidents from production targets create tickets in one connector instance, and incidents from test targets create tickets in the second connector instance.

To create a connector instance:

1. From the Enterprise Manager console, click Setup.
2. Select Extensibility in the pane.
3. Select Management Connectors in the left pane.
4. Select a connector type from the Create Connector drop-down list and click the Go button.

5. Enter the connector name and description on the next screen and click OK.

   The connector instance appears as unconfigured on the Management Connectors page, shown in the following image.

Configuring the Connector

Perform the following steps for basic configuration:

1. As Super Administrator, from the Enterprise Manager console, click Setup.

2. Click Extensibility, then Management Connectors.

   The Management Connectors page appears that lists all created connector instances.

   Note: The status column with a green tick mark indicates that the connector is already configured.

3. Click the Configure button for the IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus REST Event Connector. The General tab of the Configure Management Connector page appears.
4. Provide the required settings. See "Providing General Settings" for details.
5. Click OK.

6. The Management Connectors page reappears. The row for the IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus REST Event Connector should have a check mark in the Status column, as shown in the following figure.

Note:

If you chose HTTPS as the protocol to establish a connection between Netcool/OMNIbus and Enterprise Manager, make sure you have performed the steps specified in Enabling SSL for HTTPS.

Enabling and Disabling the Connector

You can enable or disable a connector instance without needing to reconfigure or remove the connector from the system.

You can enable or disable a connector from the Management Connector page by selecting the connector and clicking either the Enable or Disable button. After a connector is disabled, the icon appears under the Status column. By default, the connector instance is enabled as soon as it is configured.

Note:

Only enabled connectors are available to forward events.

Providing General Settings

The following sections explain how to provide various configuration details for the General tab of the Configure Management Connector page as shown in the following figure.

The IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus REST Event Connector communicates with Netcool/OMNIbus through IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus’ REST API. All of the following fields are mandatory:

• Web Service End Points: URL to use when creating and updating alerts in IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus.

  Modify the URL for both operations based on whether the web service for IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus was set up using HTTP or HTTPS.

  For HTTP:

  • Change the protocol from https to http.
  • Replace [Hostname] in the URL with the host name or IP address of the IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus system.
  • Change the port number from 8443 to 8080.
  • Replace [Hostname] in the URL with the hostname or IP address of the system where the web service for IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus was installed.

  For HTTPS:

  • Replace [Hostname] in the URL with the hostname or IP address of the system where the web service for IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus was installed.

  Note:

  It is possible that the port being used is not the default. On your ObjectServer verify your port number as defined in Prerequisites.

  Example:

  If IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus was installed on a system with a host name of omnibus, the following URLs would be configured for the different protocols:

  For HTTP:

  http://omnibus:8080/objectserver/restapi/alerts/status

  For HTTPS:

  https://omnibus:8443/objectserver/restapi/alerts/status/kf/#EVT_ID#

• Omnibus Username: Username of the user that will access IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus.

• Omnibus Password: Password of the user that will access IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus.

Retry

The Retry section, available on the connector configuration page, enables you to specify whether failed operations need to be retried within a configurable expiration time.

When you enable the Retry option, you can specify whether you want to resend a Create or Update request if the request fails the first time, and specify the time period after which you want to abandon the retry. Enterprise Manager retries every five minutes until the request is successful or the retry interval expires.

By default, the Retry is disabled. This setting applies to all events the Netcool/OMNIbus Connector processes. The retry period interval accepts the number of hours as any integer value; for example, 1 or 2.

Working with Event Templates

When a connector instance is created in Enterprise Manager, all associated templates are available for ticket create/update operations.

The following sections provide information about adding, viewing, removing, and replacing event templates.

Adding Event Templates

You need to add event templates before they are recognized in Enterprise Manager. The connector provides out-of-box templates that are automatically registered when the connector instance is created. If you want to edit these, you can do so directly in Enterprise Manager. However, if you need to use a new template (other than one out-of-box), you need to register the new template using the emctl command. You can then edit the template in Enterprise Manager. See Editing Templates for more information.

To add and register a template:

1. Ensure that you have execute privilege on emctl and the ability to read the event template.
2. For each template, run the following emctl register_template connector command:

$ORACLE_HOME/bin/emctl register_template connector
[-t<template.xml>]
[-repos_pwd <repos password>]
[-cname <connectorName>]
[-iname <internalName>]
[-tname <templateName>]
[-ttype <templateType>]
[-d <description>]

Where:

-t Template(full path)
-repos_pwd   Enterprise Manager Root (SYSMAN) Password
-cname Connector Name
-iname Template Internal Name
-tname Template Name Displayed
-ttype Template Type
       <templateType> 1 - inbound transformation
       <templateType> 2 - outbound transformation
       <templateType> 3 - XML outbound transformation
-d Description

Example 2-1 Template Registration

The following command adds a new outbound template (newTemplate.xsl) for a connector instance with the name Omnibus Connector Instance:

emctl register_template connector
-t <template.xml>
-repos_pwd <repos password>
-cname "Omnibus Connector Instance"
-iname "newTemplate"
-tname "newTemplateOutbound"
-ttype 2
-d "Demo template"

Viewing Template Code

To view template code, do the following:

1. Select the connector instance and go to the Configure Management Connector page.
2. Select the Template tab, as shown in the figure below.
3. Click a template name or click View to view the XSLT code for the template.

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

Removing a Template

To remove a template, do the following:

1. Select the connector instance and go to the Configure Management Connector page.
2. Select the Template tab.
3. Select the template and click Delete.
4. Click Yes to confirm the delete operation.

Note:

If the template you delete has an incident rule associated with it, ticketing will not function for this particular incident rule after the deletion.

Editing Templates

You can edit a template directly using the Enterprise Manager console instead of using the EM CLI command line interface.

1. Select the connector instance and go to the Configure Management Connector page.
2. Select the Template tab.
3. Select the template and click Edit.
4. Edit the Description and Template Contents fields as needed, then click Save.

The event template is automatically registered. Saving the registered template updates it in the repository.

Restoring Templates

After you edit or customize a template, you can restore it to its previous default contents if needed by performing the following steps using the Enterprise Manager console.

Note:

You can also restore out-of-box templates that you have may edited or customized to their default values.

1. Select the connector instance and go to the Configure Management Connector page.
2. Select the Template tab.
3. Select the template and click Restore.
4. Click Yes in the confirmation page that appears in order to restore.

Uninstalling the Connector

To uninstall the connector, you must first delete all defined instances of the connector, then you must delete the connector from the Self Update page.

1. From the Setup menu, select Extensibility, then Management Connectors.
2. Select an instance of the connector you want to delete, then click Delete.
3. On the Confirmation page, click Yes.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until all instances of the connector have been deleted.
5. From the Setup menu, select Extensibility, then Self Update.
6. Click on the Management Connector link in the Type column. A list of updates appears for Management Connectors.
7. Click on the connector you want to delete, select Actions, then select Delete. The Delete Update window appears.
8. Click Delete to delete the connector. A pop-up confirmation window appears.
9. Click OK to confirm and delete the connector.