HP (Hewlett-Packard) OpenView Vantagepoint User Manual

Download

HP OpenView VantagePoint Operations

for UNIX Developer’s Toolkit

Application Integration Guide

Edition 5

Manufacturing Part Number: B7492-90003

Version A.07.00

January 2002

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1. An Introduction to Integrating Partner Applications with VPO

Why Integrate with VPO? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

HP OpenView Partnerships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

A Word about Licenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Integrating Partner Solutions with VPO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

VPO Conceptual Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

The HP OpenView Product Family and VPO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

VPO Concept and Key Features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

VPO Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Problem Management with VPO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Collecting Management Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Logﬁles and SNMP Traps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Agent Message API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Threshold Monitors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Legacy Link Interface API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Processing and Consolidating Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Presenting the Information to the User. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

IP Map Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Managed Nodes Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Message Groups Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Application Desktop Window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Message Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Acting on the Information Provided. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Customizing VPO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

The VPO Java-based Operator User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Integration Beneﬁts to Partners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

VPO as an INSM Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Speciﬁc Beneﬁts for Integrators in the NIM, NSM, and INSM Markets . . . . . . . . . 51

NIM Market Segment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

NSM Market Segment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

INSM Market Segment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Service Management Market Segment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Integration Facilities Provided by VPO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Integrating Events Using Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Threshold Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Working with Message Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Adding Instructions, Annotations, and Actions to a Message Template . . . . . . . . 59

Integrating Events using Trouble Ticket and Notiﬁcation Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Contents

Integrating Applications into the Application Bank. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Integrating via APIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

NNM Integration Through the VPO GUI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Integrating via NNM Functionality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

2. Integrating Solutions with VPO

Deciding Which Integration Capabilities to Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Deﬁning an Integration Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Adapting an Existing VPO Integration for VPO A.07.00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Leveraging From an Integration into NNM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

SNMP Event Conﬁguration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Powerful GUI Application Integration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Monitoring Facilities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Alternative Message Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

User Role Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Advantages of an INSM Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Starting from Scratch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Obtaining Coexistence of NNM and VPO Integrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Strategy 1: Use Transformed NNM Integration in VPO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Strategy 2: Develop a Separate VPO Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Summary of the Integration Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

The Role of Conﬁguration Data in an Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

3. Using the Integration Capabilities of the VPO Motif-based GUI

In This Chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Event Integration Through Messages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Conﬁguring Messages in the Message Source Templates Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Deﬁning Templates for Logﬁle Encapsulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Using the Logﬁle Monitoring Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Deﬁning Templates for SNMP Trap Interception. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Deﬁning Templates for MPE/iX Console Message Interception. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Deﬁning Templates for Messages Sent to the

VPO Message Interface opcmsg(1|3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Deﬁning Templates for Threshold Monitors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Overview of VPO Monitoring Capabilities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Monitoring MIB Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Using Threshold Monitoring to Generate Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Message Generation Policies and Message Filtering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Contents

Types of VPO Monitor Available . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Integrating Monitors into VPO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Sending Values Over the VPO Monitoring API or Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

MIB Data Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Setting Advanced Options for a Message Source Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Output to Agent and Server Message Stream Interface (MSI) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Setting Message Correlation Options for a Message Source Template . . . . . . . . . . 118

Suppression of Duplicate Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

Setting Options for a Message Source Template. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

Adding Instructions to a Message Source Template. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Setting Message and Suppress Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Setting Conditions for Incoming Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Setting Custom Message Attributes for a Message Condition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Setting Conditions for Incoming SNMP Traps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Using SNMP Trap Templates Converted from NNM SNMP Trap

Conﬁguration Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

Converting NNM SNMP Trap Conﬁguration Files to

VPO Trap Templates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Hints and Tips for Event Integration from Message Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Adding Instructions, Annotations, Automatic- and

Operator-initiated Actions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

Adding Instructions for Solving Known Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

Adding Actions and Annotations to a Message. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

External Notiﬁcation and Trouble-ticket Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

Deﬁning Notiﬁcation Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

Deﬁning Trouble Ticket Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

Manually Forwarding to Trouble Ticket or Notiﬁcation Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

Integrating External Applications into the VPO GUI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

GUI Integration Points and Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

Advantages Gained by Integrating VPO Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Integrating VPO Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Integrating HP OpenView Windows Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

HP OpenView Applications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

HP OpenView Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

Integrating Applications into the Application Desktop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

Adding VPO Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

Adding OpenView Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Adding an OpenView Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

Using NNM-integrated Applications With VPO. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Contents

NNM Applications in VPO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Structure of NNM Applications in VPO. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Integrating Additional NNM Applications into VPO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

4. Using the VPO Application Programming Interfaces

In This Chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

Overview of the VPO APIs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

The VPO Interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Overview of the Server Message-Stream Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Access to the Server Message-stream Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

VPO’s Serial MSI Conﬁguration File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Modifying Message IDs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

Serial MSI Conﬁguration: Example Scenario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Overview of the Agent Message Stream Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Overview of the Legacy Link Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Structure of the Legacy Link Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

Overview of the Message Event Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

Access to Message Events. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Overview of the Application Response Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

Access to Action Responses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

Read and Write Access to the VPO Message Stream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

The VPO Operator APIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

The VPO Interfaces and the VPO Operator API —

A Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

The VPO Conﬁguration APIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Summary of VPO API Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Functions of the VPO Data API. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Functions to Manipulate VPO Data Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Functions of the VPO Iterator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

The VPO Data Structures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Functions of the VPO Service APIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Functions to Access the VPO Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Functions to Access the Registration Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Functions of the Server Message API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

Functions to Manipulate Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

Functions of the Agent Message API. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

Functions to Send/Acknowledge Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

Functions of the Agent Monitor API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

Contents

Functions to Send Monitor Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

Functions of the Connection API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Functions to Connect to the Management Server. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Functions of the Application Conﬁguration API. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

Functions to Conﬁgure VPO Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

Functions of the Application Group Conﬁguration API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Functions to Conﬁgure VPO Application Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Functions of the Message Group Conﬁguration API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Functions to Conﬁgure VPO Message Groups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Functions of the Message Regroup Condition Conﬁguration API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Function to Conﬁgure VPO Message Regroup Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Functions of the Node Conﬁguration API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

Function to Conﬁgure VPO Managed Nodes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

Function to Conﬁgure VPO Node Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

Functions of the Node Hierarchy Conﬁguration API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

Functions to Conﬁgure VPO Node Hierarchies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

Functions of the Template Conﬁguration API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

Function to Conﬁgure VPO Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

Functions to Conﬁgure VPO Template Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

Functions of the User Proﬁle Conﬁguration API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

Functions to Conﬁgure VPO User Proﬁles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

Functions of the User Conﬁguration API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

Functions to Conﬁgure VPO Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

Functions of the Distribution API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Functions to Distribute Conﬁguration to Managed Nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Functions of the Server Synchronization API. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

Functions to Modify and Update Conﬁguration Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

5. Integrating with VantagePoint Navigator

In This Chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

The VantagePoint Navigator Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

The XML Data Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

The C++ APIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

The Query Interface for Service Status and Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

The Registration Interface for Service Status Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

The Registration Conditions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

Contents

6. Integration Facilities of the HP OpenView NNM Core Platform

In This Chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

The OpenView Windows API. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

Maps, Submaps, and Symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

ClusterView: An Example of an Integrated Map Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

HP OpenView Data: Objects and Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236

The OpenView SNMP API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

SNMP Communications API and Related Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Available C-API Functions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Related Commands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

SNMP Conﬁguration API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

Topology Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

7. Creating and Distributing an Integration Package

In This Chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254

Structure of VPO Conﬁguration Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

Downloading Conﬁguration Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

Preparing to Download: Adding Executables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

Warnings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264

Uploading Conﬁguration Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

Example 1: Uploading in Add Mode (Default) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266

Example 2: Uploading in Replace Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Example 3: Uploading and Replacing Information at a Subentity Level . . . . . . . . 267

A. Syntax Used in VPO Conﬁguration Files

In This Chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

Notation Used. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

General VPO Syntax Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274

Conﬁguration Files for Templates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

Template Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282

Example of a VPO Logﬁle Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282

Example of a VPO Message Source Speciﬁcation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Example of an SNMP Trap Template File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

Conﬁguration Files for Monitors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286

Example of a VPO Monitor Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

Syntax for Message Pattern Matching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

Pattern Matching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296

Separator Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

Case Insensitive Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

Pattern Matching Examples. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

Conﬁguration Files for Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

Example of a VPO Application Conﬁguration File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

Syntax and Length of VPO Object Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

B. Notiﬁcation Services and Trouble Ticket Systems

In This Chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

Parameters for Notiﬁcation and Trouble Ticket Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

Example of a Trouble Ticket Parameter List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

C. Symbols for Application Integration

Available Symbols for Application Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

D. About VPO Man Pages

In this Appendix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

Accessing and Printing Man Pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

To Access a VPO Man Page from the Command Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

To Print a Man Page from the Command Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

To Access the Man Pages in HTML Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

Man Pages in VPO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314

Man Pages for VPO APIs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Man Pages for HP OpenView VantagePoint Navigator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

Man Pages for the VPO Developer’s Kit APIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

Contents

Printing History

The manual printing date and part number indicate its current edition. The printing date will change when a new edition is printed. Minor changes may be made at reprint without changing the printing date. the manual part number will change when extensive changes are made.

Manual updates may be issued between editions to correct errors or document product changes. To ensure that you receive the updated or new editions, you should subscribe to the appropriate product support service. See your HP sales representative for details.

First Edition: October 1996

Second Edition: August 1997

Third Edition: February 1999

Fourth Edition: June 2000

Fifth Edition: January 2002

Conventions

The following typographical conventions are used in this manual.

Table 1 Typographical Conventions

Font Meaning Example

Italic Book or manual titles, and man page

names

Emphasis You must follow these steps.

Variable that you must supply when entering a command

Parameters to a function The oper_name parameter returns

Bold New terms The monitor agent observes...

Computer Text and other items on the

computer screen

Command names Use the grep command ...

Function names Use the opc_connect() function

File and directory names /opt/OV/bin/OpC/

Process names Check to see if opcmona is running.

Refer to the VPO Administrator’s Reference Volume I and the opc(1M) manpage for more information.

At the prompt, enter rlogin username.

an integer response.

The following system message appears:

Are you sure you want to remove current group?

to connect ...

Window/dialog box names In the Add Logfile window ...

Menu name followed by a colon (:) means that you select the menu, then the item. When the item is followed by an arrow (->), a cascading menu follows.

Select Actions: Filtering -> All Active Messages from the menu bar.

Table 1 Typographical Conventions

Font Meaning Example

Computer

Text that you enter At the prompt, enter ls -l

Bold

Keycap Keyboard keys Press Return.

[Button] Buttons in the user interface Click [OK].

VPO Documentation Map

HP OpenView VantagePoint Operations (VPO) provides a set of manuals and online help that help you use the product and understand the concepts underlying the product. This section describes what information is available and where you can ﬁnd it.

NOTE HP OpenView VantagePoint Operations (VPO) has been renamed to HP

OpenView Operations (OVO) for UNIX. The name change has not yet been fully implemented across the VPO software and documentation. As a result, you will encounter references to the former product name.

Electronic Versions of the Manuals

All manuals are available as Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) ﬁles in the documentation directory on the VPO product CD-ROM.

With the exception of the VPO Software Release Notes, all manuals are also available in the following VPO web server directory:

http://<management_server>:8880/ITO_DOC/<lang>/manuals/*.pdf

In this URL, <management_server> is the fully qualiﬁed hostname of your management server, and <lang> stands for your system language, for example C for English and japanese for Japanese environments.

Alternatively, you can download the manuals from the following website:

http://ovweb.external.hp.com/lpe/doc_serv

VPO Manuals

This section provides an overview of the VPO manuals and their contents.

Table 2 VPO Manuals

Manual Description Media

VPO Installation Guide for the Management Server

VPO Concepts Guide

VPO Administrator’s Reference Volume I

VPO Administrator’s Reference Volume II

VPO Reporting and Database Schema

Designed for administrators who install VPO software on the management server and perform initial conﬁguration.

This manual describes:

• Software and hardware requirements

• Software installation and de-installation instructions

• Conﬁguration defaults

Provides you with an understanding of VPO on two levels. As an operator, you learn about the basic structure of VPO. As an administrator, you gain insight into the setup and conﬁguration of VPO in your own environment.

Designed for administrator’s who install VPO on the managed nodes and are responsible for VPO administration and troubleshooting. Contains conceptual and general information about the VPO managed nodes.

Provides platform-speciﬁc information about each managed node platform.

Provides a detailed description of the VPO database tables, as well as examples for generating reports from the VPO database.

Hardcopy

PDF

Hardcopy

PDF

PDF only

VPO Entity Relationship Diagrams

HP OpenView VPO Java GUI Operator’s Guide

Provides you with an overview of the relationships between the tables and the VPO database.

Provides you with a detailed description of the VPO Java-based operator GUI and VantagePoint Navigator. This manual contains detailed information about general VPO and VantagePoint Navigator concepts and tasks for VPO operators, as well as reference and troubleshooting information.

PDF only

Table 2 VPO Manuals

Manual Description Media

VPO Software Release Notes Describes new features and helps you:

• Compare features of the current software with

features of previous versions.

• Determine system and software compatibility.

• Solve known problems.

VPO Supplementary Guide to MPE/iX Templates

Managing Your Network with HP OpenView Network Node Manager

VP Navigator Concepts and Conﬁguration Guide

Describes the message source templates that are available for MPE/iX managed nodes. This guide is not available for VPO on Solaris.

Designed for administrators and operators. This manual describes the basic functionality of HP OpenView Network Node Manager, which is an embedded part of VPO.

Provides information for administrators who are responsible for installing, conﬁguring, maintaining, and troubleshooting the HP OpenView VantagePoint Navigator. This manual also contains a high-level overview of the concepts behind service management.

PDF only

Hardcopy

PDF

Hardcopy

PDF

Additional VPO-related Products

This section provides an overview of the VPO-related manuals and their contents.

Table 3 Additional VPO-related Manuals

Manual Description Media

HP OpenView VantagePoint Operations for UNIX Developer’s Toolkit

If you purchase the HP OpenView VantagePoint Operations for UNIX Developer’s Toolkit, you receive the full VPO documentation set, as well as the following manuals:

VPO Application Integration Guide

VPO Developer’s Reference

HP OpenView VantagePoint Advanced Security (VPAS)

If you purchase HP OpenView VantagePoint Advanced Security (VPAS), you receive the following additional documentation.

VPAS Installation and Concepts Guide

HP OpenView VantagePoint Operations Integration for Sun Management Center

If you purchase HP OpenView VantagePoint Operations for UNIX Integration for Sun Management Center, you receive the following additional documentation.

VPO Integration for Sun Management Center User’s Guide

Suggests several ways external applications can be integrated into VPO.

Provides an overview of all available application programming interfaces (APIs).

Provides information for administrators who are responsible for installing, conﬁguring, maintaining, and troubleshooting VPAS.

Provides information for administrators who are responsible for installing, conﬁguring, maintaining, and troubleshooting the VPO Sun Management Center integration.

Hardcopy

PDF

Hardcopy

PDF

Hardcopy

PDF

PDF only

Table 3 Additional VPO-related Manuals

Manual Description Media

HP OpenView Event Correlation Designer for NNM and VPO

If you purchase HP OpenView Event Correlation Designer for NNM and VPO, you receive the following additional documentation.

HP OpenView ECS Conﬁguring Circuits for

NNM and VPO

Explains how to use the ECS Designer product in the NNM and VPO environments.

VPO Online Information

The following information is available online.

Table 4 VPO Online Information

Online Information Description

HP OpenView VantagePoint Operations Administrator’s Guide to Online Information

HP OpenView VantagePoint Operations Operator’s Guide to Online Information

HP OpenView VantagePoint Operations Java GUI Online Information

Context-sensitive help system contains detailed help for each window of the VPO administrator GUI, as well as step-by-step instructions for performing administrative tasks.

Context-sensitive help system contains detailed help for each window of the VPO operator Motif GUI, as well as step-by-step instructions for operator tasks.

HTML-based help system for the VPO Java-based operator GUI and VantagePoint Navigator. This help system contains detailed information about general VPO and VantagePoint Navigator concepts and tasks for VPO operators, as well as reference and troubleshooting information.

Hardcopy

PDF

HP OpenView VantagePoint Operations Man Pages

Manual pages available online for VPO. These manual pages are also available in HTML format.

To access these pages, go to the following location (URL) with your web browser:

http://<management_server>:8880/ITO_MAN

In this URL, the variable <management_server> is the fully qualiﬁed hostname of your management server.

About VPO Online Help

This preface describes online documentation for the HP OpenView VantagePoint Operations (VPO) Motif and Java-based operator graphical user interfaces (GUIs).

Online Help for the Motif GUI

Online information for HP OpenView VantagePoint Operations (VPO) Motif graphical user interface (GUI) consists of two separate volumes, one for operators and one for administrators. In the operator’s volume, you will ﬁnd the HP OpenView VPO Quick Start describing the main operator windows.

Types of Online Help

The operator and administrator volumes include the following types of online help:

❏ Task Information

Information you need to perform tasks, whether you are an operator or an administrator.

❏ Icon Information

Popup menus and reference information about VPO icons. You access this information with a right-click of your mouse button.

❏ Error Information

Information about errors displayed in the VPO Error Information window. You can access context-sensitive help when an error occurs. Or you can use the number provided in an error message to perform a keyword search within the help system.

❏ Search Utility

Index search utility that takes you directly to topics by name.

❏ Glossary

Glossary of VPO terminology.

❏ Help Instructions

Instructions about the online help system itself for new users.

❏ Printing Facility

Printing facility, which enables you to print any or all topics in the help system. (An HP LaserJet printer is required to print graphics.)

To Access Online Help

You can access the help system in any of the following ways:

❏ F1 Key

Press F1 while the cursor is in any active text ﬁeld or on any active button.

❏ Help Button

Click [Help] in the bottom of any window.

❏ Help Menu

Open the drop-down Help menu from the menu bar.

❏ Right Mouse Click

Click a symbol, then right-click the mouse button to access the Help menu.

You can then select task lists, which are arranged by activity, or window and ﬁeld lists. You can access any topic in the help volume from every help screen. Hyperlinks provide related information on other help topics.

You can also access context-sensitive help in the Message Browser and Message Source Templates window. After selecting Help: On Context from the menu, the cursor changes into a question mark, which you can then position over the area about which you want help. When you click the mouse button, the appropriate help page is displayed in its help window.

Online Help for the Java-based GUI

The online help for the HP OpenView Vantage Point Operations (VPO) Java-based graphical user interface (GUI) helps operators to become familiar with and use the VPO product.

Types of Online Help

The online help for the VPO Java-based GUI includes the following information:

❏ Tasks

Step-by-step instructions.

❏ Concepts

Introduction to the key concepts and features.

❏ References

Detailed information about the product.

❏ Troubleshooting

Solutions to common problems you may encounter while using the product.

❏ Index

Alphabetized list of topics to help you ﬁnd the information you need quickly and easily.

To View a Topic

To view any topic, open the appropriate folder in the left frame of the online documentation window, then click on the topic title. Hyperlinks provide access to related help topics.

To Access Online Help

To access the help system, select Help: Contents from the menu bar of the Java GUI. A web browser opens and displays the help contents.

NOTE To access online help, you must ﬁrst conﬁgure VPO to use your preferred

browser. See the VPO Installation Guide for the Management Server for more information.

1 An Introduction to Integrating

Partner Applications with VPO

Chapter 1 27

An Introduction to Integrating Partner Applications with VPO

Why Integrate with VPO?

A successful system management solution must satisfy a customer’s requirements for uniﬁed management across all platforms and all applications in a distributed environment. These requirements can seldom be satisﬁed by a single vendor, making partnerships essential to extend the functions and scope of a system management solution. With the HP OpenView VantagePoint Operations Developer’s Toolkit you have a powerful tool at your disposal to integrate your network solutions into HP OpenView VantagePoint Operations. By employing the standard integration capabilities of VPO, and the extended capabilities of the VPO Developer’s Toolkit, you can create a solution that addresses a wider range of requirements, and that the customer perceives as a single, uniﬁed product.

The standard HP OpenView VantagePoint Operations (VPO) product provides operations and problem management for multivendor distributed systems, and combines:

❏ Management of databases, applications, and networks;

❏ Detection of events occurring on managed nodes or SNMP devices;

❏ Filtering mechanisms to separate relevant events from irrelevant

events;

❏ Generation of meaningful messages that include automatic and

operator-initiated actions, and instructions for operators;

❏ Sophisticated Motif-based GUIs for operators and administrators, as

well as a Java-based operator GUI.

For more information about the standard integration capabilities of VPO, see Chapter 3, “Using the Integration Capabilities of the VPO Motif-based GUI,” on page 87.

Chapter 128

An Introduction to Integrating Partner Applications with VPO

Why Integrate with VPO?

In addition to the standard functionality of VPO, the Developer’s Toolkit provides a powerful C-library of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), including:

❏ Operator APIs to operate on VPO messages, message events, and

applications responses, for example to own or disown a message.

Interface API to access VPO by opening an instance to the following interfaces:

• Server Message Stream Interface

• Agent Message Stream Interface

• Legacy Link Interface

• Application Response Interface

• Message Event Interface

❏ Conﬁguration APIs to conﬁgure VPO data directly in the database.

The functions allow you, for example, to conﬁgure new VPO templates or managed nodes, or to modify existing applications or users. In addition, functions are available to control access to VPO data, and to distribute conﬁguration changes to the managed nodes.

For more information about the VPO User APIs, see Chapter 4, “Using the VPO Application Programming Interfaces,” on page 163.

The OpenView Windows API and SNMP API of Network Node Manager are also available for use in generating an integrated solution. For information on these APIs, see Chapter 6, “Integration Facilities of the HP OpenView NNM Core Platform,” on page 227.

Chapter 1 29

An Introduction to Integrating Partner Applications with VPO

Why Integrate with VPO?

These features make VPO ideally suited as an integration framework for other applications or solutions which address the system and network management market. Integration with VPO is especially attractive to partners who provide solutions in the following areas:

❏ Other system management functional areas, such as backup,

spooling, job scheduling, security, or accounting.

❏ Problem management for speciﬁc applications, for example, database

systems.

❏ Problem management for platforms on which VPO intelligent agents

are not available.

❏ Enhanced problem handling, such as event correlation, helpdesk

systems, and trouble-ticket systems.

❏ Service management to monitor business-relevant services.

Chapter 130

An Introduction to Integrating Partner Applications with VPO

Why Integrate with VPO?

HP OpenView Partnerships

The major beneﬁt resulting from an integration with VPO is the increased customer value of the integrated solution. VPO is the industrial standard for problem management and supports a wide range of platforms which have either been developed internally, or by partners. When you integrate a solution with VPO, it becomes part of a comprehensive management solution which meets customers’ requirements for a uniﬁed system management approach. This increases the value your solution provides to customers, making it attractive to market segments that it couldn’t previously address. A partner program has been established by Hewlett-Packard to support your integration efforts.

Integrations created by solution partners can be validated and certiﬁed by Hewlett-Packard to achieve the status of HP OpenView Premier Partner. Validation ensures that the integration is well-behaved and does not conﬂict with other integrated solutions. As an HP OpenView Premier Partner, your solution is recommended by HP sales channels, you can leverage from the well-established HP OpenView brand name, and you receive immediate market exposure for your solution through HP market awareness and selling tools.

For more information about the HP OpenView partner programs, see our web site at http://www.openview.hp.com, and select partners.

HP OpenView Developer Assist

HP OpenView Developer Assist support that increases the speed, ease, and cost effectiveness of integrating with VPO. For additional documentation and ordering information, see our web site at

http://www.openview.hp.com, select partners, developers’ and third-party applications, and developer support services.

A Word about Licenses

The Development Kit license contains a limited VPO management server license with ﬁve nodes and one user. NNM can manage a maximum of 25 objects with this license.

Chapter 1 31

An Introduction to Integrating Partner Applications with VPO

Integrating Partner Solutions with VPO

The ultimate goal of any integration must be to create an integration package that enables VPO and the partner solution to work so closely

together that they are perceived by the customer as one powerful, integrated solution.

Figure 1-1 shows an overview of the integration process. It starts by analyzing the VPO functionality and integration capabilities available, and the characteristics of the partner solution. You can then design and implement an integration strategy based on this analysis. As a result of this activity an additional product part is created, referred to as the integration package. An integration package may consist solely of conﬁguration ﬁles, or it may include new code for additional processes.

Figure 1-1 Integration with HP OpenView VantagePoint Operations

VPO Provides

Integration

Capabilities

Define Integration

Strategy

Implement

Integration

Package

Partner

Solution

Desired Result

Integrated Solution

VPO Integration

Package

Users Perceive

as Uniform

Partner

Solution

Chapter 132

An Introduction to Integrating Partner Applications with VPO

Integrating Partner Solutions with VPO

We use the term tight integration if the capabilities offered by VPO are fully exploited to maximize the uniformity of the integrated solution. For example, consider integrating a business solution with VPO. To achieve tight integration status, VPO capabilities should be employed to ensure that the application is constantly monitored so that VPO operators are immediately notiﬁed of problems related to the application. Whenever possible, corrective automatic and operator-initiated actions should be provided, and instruction text should help operators to solve any problems. All mechanisms underlying VPO functionality are highly conﬁgurable to enable a high degree of customization, and to provide unique opportunities for the tight integration of partner solutions.

VPO also provides many capabilities to help the integration process and to allow different integration strategies to be tailored to the type of solution, including:

❏ Event integration using messages.

• Message generation is based on numerous message sources, including logﬁles, SNMP traps, threshold monitor values, MPE/iX console messages, calls to opcmsg(1|3), Event Correlation Services (ECS), etc.

• Instructions for operators, and automatic- and operator-initiated actions can be associated with messages.

• Messages can be ﬂagged to be forwarded to trouble-ticket and notiﬁcation services.

❏ Powerful and versatile threshold monitoring and graphing

capabilities.

❏ Predeﬁned interfaces to trouble-ticket and notiﬁcation systems.

❏ Integration of tools for operators and administrators in the VPO

application desktop, menu bar, submenus, or toolbar.

❏ APIs and command line interfaces to the agents and to the

management server.

❏ Access to NNM maps, submaps, symbols and the SNMP event system

from either ASCII ﬁles or programs.

To make integration as straightforward as possible, most deﬁnitions can be done by way of the VPO GUIs. Tools to download conﬁguration data required for the integration, and then upload it at the customer’s site are also available.

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VPO Conceptual Overview

This section introduces the key concepts behind the operation of VPO, to help clarify more detailed discussions of the VPO integration capabilities in later chapters.

The HP OpenView Product Family and VPO

HP OpenView is a family of integrated network and system management solutions for managing the complete information technology enterprise, including networks, distributed systems, applications, databases, and services. VPO is one of the key components of the HP OpenView Solution Framework that has become a leading Integrated Network and System Management (INSM) solution.

VPO Concept and Key Features

The most important tasks of operations management are to monitor the use of all systems and contributing resources, and to keep them under surveillance and operational control. Operations management is the central integration point for any INSM solution and includes the detection and reporting of problems, and the actions required to recover from these problems.

IT staff can use VPO to control the following elements and resources:

❏ Servers and clients

❏ Networks

❏ Operating systems

❏ Middleware

❏ Applications

❏ Databases

❏ Business services (with HP OpenView VantagePoint Navigator)

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VPO Conceptual Overview

To achieve efﬁcient operation and problem management, information must be gathered from the controlled elements and resources. VPO Agents are installed on managed nodes throughout the management domain which gather status information, messages, and monitoring values from a range of sources. SNMP agents, hosted on any system or IP device, are also fully supported by VPO. Message ﬁlters and thresholds are used to ensure that only the relevant information is sent to the management server and presented to the responsible VPO operators.

After collecting data, VPO combines all events received from the managed environment into a single procedural ﬂow, or message stream. In addition to conditional event ﬁltering and the suppression of unwanted messages, the HP OpenView Event Correlation Services (ECS) can tap the message stream on both the management server and the intelligent agents to reduce the volume of messages reaching the VPO Message Browser. This guarantees the maximum possible efﬁciency in local and central event analysis and handling. VPO provides multiple mechanisms, such as automatic actions, predeﬁned operator-initiated actions, or problem-speciﬁc help text and instructions, to help the operator resolve critical conditions. The agent can even initiate and execute corrective actions without any involvement from the management server.

Besides conﬁguration data, all status information gathered, including records that document completed actions, are stored in a central SQL database. The database offers an excellent starting point for future audits and analyses, and provides a central conﬁguration of remote VPO domains.

You can easily adapt VPO to ﬁt into existing IT infrastructures and adjust the managed environment at any time. The fully-customizable environment ensures a match of different skills, tasks, and responsibilities, and provides opportunities for task delegation. This enables multiple VPO operators to work together simultaneously in the same computing environment, without a duplication of effort.

In the area of network management, VPO provides powerful features for the discovery and mapping of networks which enable VPO operators to view the complete managed environment in the following ways:

❏ a logical (system) view

❏ a topological (network) view

❏ a service view (with the HP OpenView VantagePoint Navigator)

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VPO Conceptual Overview

The implementation of VPO can be scaled from the management of smaller workgroups, running business critical applications, to the management of world-wide distributed computing environments with thousands of systems. VPO also supports competitive management approaches, for example, follow-the sun.

Open APIs and external interfaces enable the seamless integration of products such as database management modules, and customized application integration packages. Other IT infrastructure components, for example, trouble-ticket systems, pagers, and help desks are available on both the management server and agents.

To summarize, VPO is a core INSM component that can improve the effectiveness and productivity of any IT organization by increasing the availability of computing resources and reducing the time required to resolve problems.

VPO Implementation

VPO is a distributed client-server software solution and its architecture adheres to the manager/agent concept. Within a computing environment managed by VPO one, or several, suitable systems are selected as central management servers. The management servers receive and present management information, initiate actions and activate the agents, among other tasks. Other computer systems in the environment, connected by either LAN or WAN to the management servers, can be made managed nodes, running the VPO agent software. The VPO agent on the managed node collects and processes management information, forwards pertinent information to the appropriate management server(s), and starts local actions.

VPO can also monitor intelligent network devices such as bridges, hubs and printers which can submit SNMP traps if a fault or other event occurs.

Communication between the VPO management server and the managed nodes is based on DCE remote procedure calls (RPC) which enables bidirectional communication. In comparison with pure SNMP-based communication, the use of RPC allows true management-by-exception. This means that instead of the management server polling its managed nodes at regular intervals to obtain status information, it is contacted by the VPO intelligent agent only when a problem is detected. This minimizes the network trafﬁc and increases the performance of the management server.

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Problem Management with VPO

Regardless of the message source, VPO gathers the elements of daily operations and problem management by employing the following procedures:

❏ Collecting

Gathering information about the status of the computing environment.

❏ Processing

Selecting important or critical status information and making it available on the central system in a consolidated fashion.

❏ Presenting

Overview; highlighting of problems; deﬁnition of a problem resolution strategy.

❏ Acting

Performing planned activities and corrective actions, storing information and action logs (audit).

These various approaches are described on the following pages.

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VPO Conceptual Overview

Collecting Management Information

VPO provides extensive collection services for management information. The agents gather management information originating from a variety of sources and when an exception is detected, they generate messages from the collected information.

All messages and events are intercepted by the agent at each managed node, ﬁltered and classiﬁed, and then forwarded to the responsible management server. In an environment with multiple servers, the responsible server is determined by the manager-of-manager (MoM) conﬁguration template. SNMP traps can also be intercepted on managed nodes if a trap template has been assigned to the nodes.

Logﬁles and SNMP Traps

Important message sources include application and system logﬁles, and SNMP traps. The VPO logﬁle encapsulator extracts important events from logﬁles, and the event interceptor intercepts SNMP traps broadcast by components of the network. Multiple character sets for logﬁles are supported, and conversion routines (e.g., for binary logﬁles) can be applied to consolidate the message format, improve the problem text, set event attributes, etc. System messages normally displayed on an MPE/iX system console are an additional source of VPO messages.

Agent Message API

Management information, generated by applications or customer programs or scripts, can even be sent directly to the VPO agent on any managed node by way of the Agent Message API, see Chapter 4, “Using the VPO Application Programming Interfaces,” on page 163.

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Threshold Monitors

The threshold monitoring capability of VPO is also a source of messages.

It enables you to manage nodes more proactively by tracking the development of potential problems. When the predeﬁned threshold for a monitored object is exceeded, a message is generated.

VPO can collect monitoring information for basic system variables by accessing the SNMP Management Information Base (MIB). This service can be extended to any SNMP variable and to user-deﬁned objects provided by your own monitoring applications.

Monitor values from external applications or scripts can be sent directly to the VPO agent on any managed node by the Agent Monitor API, to be locally checked against predeﬁned thresholds, see Chapter 4, “Using the VPO Application Programming Interfaces,” on page 163.

Performance metrics are collected by the embedded performance component that is part of the VPO agents. The performance component collects performance counter and instance data from the operating system.

Legacy Link Interface API

To integrate hardware platforms that are not, or not yet, supported by VPO, the Legacy Link Interface API is provided to receive and pass on management information, see “Overview of the Legacy Link Interface” on page 178.

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VPO Conceptual Overview

Processing and Consolidating Information

VPO offers extensive tools for the management of messages. Messages collected at the managed nodes are automatically forwarded to an appropriate management server.

To minimize network trafﬁc, and to avoid overloading the user with irrelevant messages, ﬁlter conditions can be speciﬁed. All messages, including suppressed ones, can be logged on the originating node for future analysis. Each message can be assigned to a particular severity level (critical, major, minor, warning, normal) to show the relative importance of the event. If no severity class has been assigned, then the message is treated as belonging to class unknown. However, it is recommended to avoid the “unknown” message status because it is useful to know the severity of different events. Messages sent to VPO by way of the opcmsg(1) command are assigned a severity level of normal if no other severity level has been speciﬁed.

Messages which are considered to belong together, for example, if they are related to the same kind of managed objects or to a certain problem domain, can be grouped together into message groups. For example, all messages from a backup or spooler application might be grouped together. VPO provides several default message groups; see the VPO Administrator’s Reference Volume I for a complete list. Message groups can be added, modiﬁed, or deleted in the VPO Message Group Bank. Note that the message groups Misc and OpC have special functions and must not be used for integration; they cannot be deleted.

You can conﬁgure message source templates at the management server and then download them to the managed nodes using the VPO GUI or the command opctmpldwn(1). This process is independent of the location of the managed node. The monitoring of services at the managed nodes helps to reduce the network trafﬁc. VPO also monitors its own processes to guarantee complete and continuous availability of its services.

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VPO Conceptual Overview

Presenting the Information to the User

The typical working environment for a VPO user consists of the following main windows in the Motif-based GUI:

❏ IP Map

❏ Managed Nodes

❏ Message Groups

❏ Message Browser

❏ Application Desktop

The content of these windows depends on the tasks and responsibilities assigned to a particular user; users only see the objects and messages for which they are responsible and can access only those applications needed to perform their allocated tasks.

The entire working environment of VPO can be conﬁgured to match the skills and responsibilities of the individual operator in terms of management information supplied and capabilities granted. The result is a task-oriented working environment. The internal notiﬁcation service of VPO brings critical events to the user’s notice by changing the color of the affected icons. In addition, external notiﬁcation services such as pager, email, warning light, or telephone call initiation can be activated.

The powerful features of VPO are complemented by integrated partner solutions. Examples of tightly integrated solutions are HP OmniBack, and HP OmniStorage.

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IP Map Window VPO includes the full network management features of HP OpenView Network Node Manager. These include network discovery and mapping, and the presentation of critical network events occurring in the managed computing environment.

Figure 1-2 IP Map Window

The IP Map window provides the operator with a topological view of the network. This can be either a view of the entire network or of a speciﬁc submap. Information about the status of the network is essential for the efﬁcient management of complex and distributed computing environments.

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Managed Nodes Window The Managed Nodes window is the logical or system view of the managed environment for which the operator is responsible. Each node (or group of nodes) is represented by an icon. VPO changes the color of these icons to reﬂect the current status of the node according to the messages received into the Message Browser.

Figure 1-3 Managed Nodes Window

VPO Conceptual Overview

You can arrange the nodes in the Managed Nodes window in many different ways. For example, you might group nodes based on their geographical location (countries, cities, buildings, etc.) or based on logical components like routers, systems, mainframes, etc. Different node hierarchies can be deﬁned to ensure that even large computing environments, with thousands of managed objects, can be controlled easily. By clicking on an icon in the Managed Nodes window, operators can locate the managed object that is the source of a message or event.

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VPO Conceptual Overview

Message Groups Window The Message Groups window displays the message groups for which an operator is responsible. Messages are usually grouped by function, location, application, or other logical classiﬁcation.

Figure 1-4 Message Groups Window

VPO changes the color of these icons to reﬂect the current status of the message group according to the active messages in the Message Browser.

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Application Desktop Window The Application Desktop window displays icons for each management application that can be accessed by a particular operator. From this window, an operator can start daily problem management tasks. Some applications can be customized to provide either full or partial functionality.

Figure 1-5 Application Desktop Window

As in other VPO main windows, you can group similar applications into their own sub-windows, for example, when applications address similar tasks, or provide multiple functional entry points.

VPO Conceptual Overview

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VPO Conceptual Overview

Message Browser The Message Browser displays all messages received from the operator’s managed environment, including all nodes for which the operator is responsible, and which belong to message groups assigned to the operator. An operator can access detailed information about messages, ﬁnd instructions to resolve problems, start/stop operator-initiated actions, review the status of automatic actions, modify message attributes, review or write message annotations, and highlight problem locations.

Figure 1-6 Message Browser

The Message Browser is a powerful source of information for system management and problem management tasks. If an operator is not able to solve a problem, the event can be escalated to an expert working at a different VPO site according to conﬁgured escalation rules, for example, based on date/time and message attributes.

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VPO Conceptual Overview

Acting on the Information Provided

VPO offers several mechanisms for responding to events. When an event occurs that requires a non-interactive, corrective action, you can conﬁgure VPO to run the conﬁgured action automatically. These actions can be activated either from the management server and/or directly by the agents. For other signiﬁcant events, VPO can provide event-speciﬁc instructions to guide operators during problem resolution. You can set up operator-initiated actions that are offered to an operator when a particular problem is reported in the operator’s Message Browser.

All other events and management activities are handled within the Application Desktop window. From this window custom scripts, programs and management applications can be started and console windows opened on managed nodes.

The console login is under VPO control and can be conﬁgured to meet speciﬁc operating policies. If the network or remote system is down, a direct connection over a separate line to the physical console port of the managed node can be established. For similar management tasks that have to be performed on multiple managed nodes, VPO also provides a broadcast facility.

VPO allows you to track the steps taken to address a speciﬁc event. A facility to add annotations, and an interface to external trouble-ticket systems are provided. Records documenting the resolution of a problem provide a base for changing and creating message instruction text, deﬁning enhanced problem resolution instructions, and developing more automatic actions.

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VPO Conceptual Overview

Customizing VPO

VPO provides a wide range of elaborate customization capabilities so that it can be easily adapted to manage diverse IT environments. It can be conﬁgured to collect messages and SNMP traps from any source, and to monitor any variable of interest. Once the management information is collected, all follow-on activities can be conﬁgured to suit your IT requirements.

VPO also fully meets the needs of many different users. IT organizations often deﬁne individual management responsibilities for each member of the operating staff. Using the administrator’s GUI you can specify the managed nodes and message groups for which each user is responsible. Only the messages and alerts that are the responsibility of a particular user appear in the Message Browser of that user.

Messages can be buffered if they arrive outside of conﬁgured service hours, or can be suppressed during scheduled outages. In addition, messages can be sent to different management servers depending on time and/or message attributes. For example, you might choose to send all messages to a VPO server in London between 8 AM and 5 PM, and to a VPO server in New York at all other times. You might even choose to send all messages indicating a database problem to your database expert center in Paris. For more information about conﬁguring a VPO environment with multiple management servers, refer to the VPO

Concepts Guide.

In addition to redirecting messages, which is automatically done by the VPO agent, operators can also escalate messages to another user, or to a user on a different management server. Using the message forwarding feature, messages can also be transferred between management servers.

The VPO administrator also controls the management tasks assigned to each user. Only those icons representing applications and control programs that are the responsibility of a particular user are displayed in Application Desktop of that user.

VPO also provides secure operations. Each user has a password to ensure that only authorized people can access VPO. User proﬁles deﬁned by the VPO administrator restrict the activities of each user on the management server and the managed nodes. All actions can be controlled because activities are initiated only from the Application Desktop or Message Browser which are tailored to the responsibilities of the user.

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The VPO Java-based Operator User Interface

In addition to the standard Motif-based operator GUI, VPO also provides a Java-based operator GUI. The Java-based GUI provides nearly the same functionality as the Motif-based GUI—see the VPO Software Release Notes for information about the differences between the two GUIs.

If you are using the Java-based user interface, your working environment looks similar to the one in Figure 1-7. See the online documentation supplied with the Java-based GUI for more information about how to perform tasks in this environment.

Figure 1-7 The Java-based Operator GUI

VPO Conceptual Overview

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Integration Beneﬁts to Partners

VPO is a leading framework for Integrated Network and System Management (INSM) so when integrating with VPO, a partner

solution becomes a component of an INSM solution used to manage a complete IT environment. Integration into VPO increases the customer’s perceived value of a partner solution and makes it attractive to market segments that it might be unable to address on its own.

VPO as an INSM Framework

VPO is the leading INSM framework for problem and operations management. It provides its users (administrator, template administrators, and operators) with a complete view of the IT environment, including:

❏ Low-level network devices such as bridges, routers, hubs and

printers;

❏ Computer systems in a heterogeneous environment;

❏ Software such as operating systems, databases, and applications

(including distributed systems).

As the availability of distributed systems depends on all components of the IT environment working smoothly together, a complete view of the managed IT environment is required before you can analyze the root cause of a problem. VPO can collect problem information from all levels and present it to operators in a consistent way. Operators do not need to switch between different interfaces. Considerable management information can accumulate from a large IT environment that must be ﬁltered and distributed to multiple operators, in order to cope with the complexity of problem management.

VPO is not automatically aware of developing or already existing problems in the managed IT environment. It is the responsibility of the solution partners either to develop ready-to-use VPO conﬁguration packages that provide the specialized knowledge for problem detection and resolution, or to extend partner solutions so that they work smoothly together in the VPO INSM framework.

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Integration Beneﬁts to Partners

Speciﬁc Beneﬁts for Integrators in the NIM, NSM, and INSM Markets

The following discussion is based on the popular classiﬁcation of the IT management market into the following segments:

❏ Network Infrastructure Management (NIM)

❏ Networked System Management (NSM)

❏ Integrated Network and System Management (INSM)

❏ Service Management

NIM Market Segment

Management solutions providing problem management for this segment deal with low-level network devices such as bridges, routers, hubs, printer and network connections of computers. They typically monitor the state of these devices and query or set device parameters by accessing SNMP MIB values. Typically, these solutions can be conﬁgured to receive and act on SNMP traps.

Management solutions addressing this segment are typically integrated into HP OpenView Network Node Manager (NNM). They use the NNM capabilities to access their functionality from a central console. For example, a solution might provide an operator with a view to the backplane of a router. An operator might then observe the trafﬁc passing through the router from the central console. These solutions might integrate into VPO in a similar way as into NNM. This integration would still beneﬁt from features that are standard in VPO. This type of solution can easily be migrated from NNM to a VPO integration so that they become part of an INSM solution.

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NSM Market Segment

Management solutions for this market segment deal with computer systems, databases and applications connected over a network. This includes solutions for print and storage management, for conﬁguration management solutions, or for database and application management solutions.

Solutions for the NSM segment integrate into VPO to prepare a management solution to become part of an INSM solution. These solutions can take full advantage of the VPO-speciﬁc integration capabilities from event integration via messages, to using the various VPO APIs.

To integrate applications or databases for which no satisfactory problem management solutions are available, VPO provides mechanisms that allow the straightforward development of a powerful management solution. Usually it is sufﬁcient to use the integration capabilities that can be conﬁgured in the VPO administrator's GUI and to provide some additional shell scripts.

INSM Market Segment

The following solutions should also consider VPO integration:

❏ Solutions that address both network and system level problems

❏ Solutions that focus on other aspects of problem management, for

example, trouble ticket and helpdesk systems or event correlation engines

❏ Solutions that provide problem management for platforms not

directly supported by VPO.

These solutions may beneﬁt considerably from an integration into VPO, ﬁrst, because they make their solution ready for inclusion in a full INSM solution, and second, because they can access the large amount of problem-related messages that are collected and managed by VPO.

These solutions can take full advantage of the VPO-speciﬁc integration capabilities from event integration via messages to using the various VPO APIs. Especially for trouble ticket and help desk systems and for event correlation engines, VPO provides powerful interfaces (trouble ticket and external notiﬁcation) as well as speciﬁc APIs including the Legacy Link Interface API, Agent Message Stream Interface API, Server Message Stream Interface API, Server Message API.

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Integration Beneﬁts to Partners

Service Management Market Segment

The following solutions should also consider VPO integration:

❏ Service providers

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Integration Facilities Provided by VPO

VPO is designed to provide the maximum ﬂexibility for integrators, so the mechanisms underlying VPO functionality are conﬁgurable to a high degree. This enables you to customize VPO installations to the speciﬁc needs of your customers. In addition, VPO provides powerful and straightforward tools that make the tight integration of partner solutions possible, such as APIs to the management server and managed nodes. See the VPO Software Release Notes for more information about the new features provided with this release of VPO.

Integrating Events Using Messages

VPO intercepts and collects messages generated by diverse components of the network so that it is informed of events occurring throughout the environment. Messages may be generated in the following circumstances:

❏ When a new entry is written to a system or application logﬁle on the

managed nodes.

❏ When an SNMP trap is sent from an SNMP device.

❏ When the threshold monitoring capability of a VPO agent detects

that a monitor threshold has been exceeded.

❏ When functions of the Agent Message API or Agent Monitor API are

called.

❏ When an MPE/iX console message is written to the console of an

MPE/iX agent.

Message generation, regardless of the message source, is controlled by message templates that have a similar structure for all types of message source.

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Integration Facilities Provided by VPO

Threshold Monitoring

The preceding sections described the integration of events of which VPO could read some type of text, for example, text written to a logﬁle or associated with an SNMP trap. In addition, VPO provides a threshold monitoring capability to deal with numeric object properties, for example, resource allocation values such as CPU load, disk space usage, or any other value relevant to the managed objects.

The importance of not generating too many messages has already been stated; this also applies to numeric values. A ﬁrst step towards reducing the number of generated messages is to recalculate the monitored values only at regular time intervals. These time intervals are user-deﬁned and can be different for each monitored value. In general, however, it is not desirable to have a message generated every time the monitored value is recalculated. To prevent this, VPO uses thresholds so that a message is only generated when the monitored value exceeds a threshold.

Note that monitor values are not only obtained by the intelligent agent recalculating the monitor value, they can also be passed to VPO agents directly. The functions of the Agent Monitor API allow other applications to pass monitor values to a VPO intelligent agent.

You can monitor any object property that can be expressed numerically, including:

❏ Application and system values

Compare important application or system-speciﬁc values with their expected “normal” values.

❏ Database values

Use the database SQL language and database administration tools to monitor speciﬁc values, for example, table sizes, number of locks, etc., and compare these values with a predeﬁned set of normal values.

❏ Processes

Use scripts to monitor whether important processes like daemons are running. Check the important process speciﬁc values, for example, the number of running processes.

❏ Files and/or Filesystems

Check the existence and/or the sizes of important ﬁles or ﬁle systems. The script might return the used or available disk space and VPO checks it against predeﬁned upper or lower limits.

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❏ Performance metrics

Use the embedded performance component to collect performance counter and instance data. The platform-generic metrics can be used to answer most questions about a system’s global conﬁguration, CPU, disk, swap, and memory usage. The typical metrics vary by platform but are available on most platforms and are generally useful for drill down and diagnosis on a particular system.

❏ Management Information Base (MIB) variables

An alternative mechanism for polling MIB variables is also provided by VPO, referred to as MIB data collection. In contrast to the threshold monitors, you can conﬁgure this mechanism to store the collected values in a more efﬁcient format. The stored MIB data can be used to analyze trends in monitored variables by graphing the values over time. This type of monitor also supports threshold values, but does not have the sophisticated ﬁltering capabilities of the VPO threshold monitors.

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Working with Message Templates

You can use message templates to ﬁlter and suppress messages, reformat message text, and link actions and instructions with a message. You can deﬁne message templates using the Message Source Templates window that is accessible to both the VPO administrator and the VPO template administrator.

By conﬁguring VPO templates, you can specify which message source is to be used, and how it is employed. You can choose which events detected through the message source are relevant to justify a message to be generated and sent to the management server, or which are irrelevant and can be suppressed. If a message is generated for an event, the template speciﬁes the composition of the message, its attributes, and the instructions, annotations, and actions to be associated with the message.

For more information about conﬁguring message templates, see the VPO

Concepts Guide and the VPO Administrator’s Guide to Online Information.

❏ Basic Template Properties

These include the template name and description, a speciﬁcation of the message source to be used and how to use it. For example, the name of a logﬁle to read, the program used to preprocess the logﬁle, the time interval for checking the logﬁle, etc.

In addition, the basic template properties include the defaults that are used to set the attributes for generated messages if no additional information is speciﬁed, for example, default severity, default message group, etc.

❏ Template Conditions

A list of conditions belongs to each message template. You can choose either suppress matched conditions or suppress

unmatched conditions to ﬁlter out irrelevant events, or choose message conditions to extract relevant events and forward them to

the Message Browser. Both message and suppress conditions can be placed in any order, and they are processed by VPO in the order in which they are listed. The ﬁrst matching condition determines how VPO reacts to an event, so the sequence of conditions in the condition list must be carefully considered.

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A condition consists of a match condition part that determines to which events detected in the message source the condition applies. Among other message attributes, the message text can be used in the match condition. You can specify patterns using regular expressions which the message text must match.

If a condition is a suppress matched condition, it is used to suppress message generation for events that match the condition, whereas if it is a suppress unmatched condition, it is used to suppress message generation for events that do not match the condition. Consequently, for a suppress condition, all you need to specify is the match condition. For a message condition that triggers the generation of a message, you also need to deﬁne the following:

• Attributes of the generated message, for example, what message text to use, the severity level, the service name, etc.

• Custom message attributes of the generated message. These are attributes that you can set to provide your operators with more relevant information about a message.

• Instructions, annotations, automatic and operator-initiated actions to be associated with the message

• Whether the message is to be forwarded to a trouble ticket system or should trigger an external notiﬁcation.

❏ Template Options

At the template level, you can specify which messages to log locally on the managed node. In addition, you also need to decide how to handle entries in the message source that match neither a message condition nor a suppress condition.

❏ Advanced Options

You can set the defaults for advanced options at both the template and message condition level. If different values for the advanced options are set at the message condition level, these will overwrite the template defaults. The advanced options specify whether duplicate or similar messages are to be suppressed and whether to copy or divert messages to processes which use the server or agent message stream interface API.

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Adding Instructions, Annotations, and Actions to a Message Template

The previous section described how you can use conditions to ﬁlter messages so that operators are not overwhelmed by a ﬂood of messages of varying importance. A further function of VPO lets you completely rephrase the text of a message so that it can be easily understood by an operator. This feature can help VPO operators to resolve problems that are already manifest or to proactively avoid problems if a situation that might cause a problem is detected.

For many problem situations additional information is available that might help operators to resolve a problem. For other problems, the action necessary to solve the problem is known in advance. In these cases, you can conﬁgure an automatic action to reduce the workload of the operator. You can also use an operator-initiated action if the solution to a problem requires the operator to do an action. You can even combine all these capabilities to create a powerful problem-solving tool.

For example, consider a scenario in which a ﬁle system problem occurs. You might use an automatic action to get more information about the status of the ﬁle system, then present this information to the operator as an annotation to the message announcing the problem. The operator might then initiate a predeﬁned command, provided as an operator-initiated action, to resolve the problem.

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VPO provides the following mechanisms to support problem resolution and self-attended operation:

❏ Message Instructions

These help an operator to solve the problem at hand. They describe the available automatic and operator-initiated actions, give advice about manual steps for solving the problem, and provide any additional explanation that might be useful to an operator.

You can deﬁne a default instruction text at the template level, and then deﬁne more speciﬁc instructions for each message condition of a template.

❏ Message Annotations

You can associate any text with a message as an annotation. In contrast to message instructions, annotations are intended to be extended as a message is processed. For example, you might provide the output of automatic and operator-initiated actions to the operators as an annotation.

An operator can later add comments about how the problem was solved to share this information with colleagues who might search the message history log if they encounter a similar problem.

❏ Automatic Actions

VPO can invoke actions automatically as a reaction to speciﬁc events. An action can be any shell command line, with parameters if necessary, that does not require human interaction.

Automatic actions can either be performed on the node on which the message was generated (local automatic actions) or on any other node. Local automatic actions do not require communication with the VPO management server and thus are performed even if the network is down or the VPO management server is not available.

You can even specify that successful completion of the automatic action automatically acknowledges the related message, i.e. the message is no longer displayed in the operator’s message browser.

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❏ Operator-initiated Actions

VPO provides a mechanism to offer predeﬁned actions that must be started by an operator.

This is useful if an action requires human interaction, or if an action must be tailored to the detected event, or if human judgement is required. As with automatic actions, on the successful completion of an action, the related message can be acknowledged automatically.

While you can deﬁne instruction text at a template and message condition level, annotations and actions are always associated with message conditions. At this level, you can also deﬁne two other functions that are closely related to actions. You can decide:

❏ Whether a message matching a condition should be forwarded to a

trouble ticket system

❏ Whether a message matching a condition should call an external

notiﬁcation service.

You can deﬁne all these mechanisms using the VPO administrator’s GUI.

Integrating Events using Trouble Ticket and Notiﬁcation Services

VPO includes interfaces to trouble-ticket and notiﬁcation systems which enable communication from the VPO management server to a trouble ticket system or a notiﬁcation system, for example, beepers or e-mail systems. The forwarding of messages to a trouble ticket system or to a notiﬁcation system is deﬁned in the message conditions of templates. This enables you to deﬁne exactly which messages are to be forwarded.

By using a notiﬁcation schedule, you can deﬁne which of the available notiﬁcation systems to use, depending on the day of the week and time.

NOTE VPO does not provide trouble ticket or notiﬁcation services, but it does

support an interface to export event-speciﬁc details to an external trouble ticket service or/and to external notiﬁcation services.

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Integrating Applications into the Application Bank

Any tools that can help operators and administrators in their assigned tasks should be integrated into the VPO Application Bank. This is the utility used to deﬁne the capabilities of operators. The VPO administrator can set up different Application Desktops for each VPO operator. You can group similar applications together into Application Groups to avoid cluttering up the desktop.

An operator can invoke applications simultaneously on several nodes, or assign different parts of an application to different operators depending on their responsibility. The latter feature, however, depends on whether the application provides several entry points.

Most applications can be integrated into the Application Bank. Applications with an X-window user interface appear as usual in an X-window environment, others appear in terminal windows.

To integrate an application, you can also add your own entries into the VPO menu structure. The highest-level menus describe generic functionality; submenus describe more speciﬁc functionality. Menus can be enabled or disabled based on selection rules which specify the type and number of nodes that must be selected in a map window before a menu item becomes active. Inactive menus are automatically grayed-out. Toolbars provide a quick, intuitive means of invoking actions. VPO provides a default set of toolbars for invoking actions such as panning or selecting the root map. When an application is added to a VPO environment, it can add icons into existing toolbars, or create window-speciﬁc toolbars and icons. See “Integrating External Applications into the VPO GUI” on page 144 for more information.

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Integrating via APIs

VPO provides a set of APIs which can be grouped according to their functions as follows:

❏ VPO Operator APIs

This group of APIs enable certain actions to be immediately performed on VPO data. These APIs include:

• VPO Data API

• VPO Interface API

This group of APIs enables external applications to register with VPO to receive information. When the requested information is available, VPO forwards it to the requesting interface. The following interfaces to VPO are available:

— Server Message Stream Interface API

— Agent Message Stream Interface API

— Legacy Link Interface API

— Application Response Interface API

— Message Event Interface API

• Server Message API

• Agent Message API

• Agent Monitor API

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❏ VPO Conﬁguration APVPO

This group of APIs enables applications to connect to the VPO database and conﬁgure VPO object directly in the database without using the GUI. These APIs include:

• Connection API

• Application Conﬁguration API

• Application Group Conﬁguration API

• Message Group Conﬁguration API

• Message Regroup Condition Conﬁguration API

• Node Conﬁguration API

• Node Hierarchy Conﬁguration API

• Template Conﬁguration API

• User Proﬁle Conﬁguration API

• User Conﬁguration API

• Distribution API

• Server Synchronization API

For information about the API functions, see the VPO Developer’s Reference.

The VPO APIs are designed to ease the integration of partner solutions. Examples for the use of these APIs include:

❏ Full integration of legacy systems for which VPO agent software is

not available.

❏ Connection of event correlation engines to process messages from the

internal message stream of the management server or agent.

❏ Implementation of bidirectional communication between trouble

ticket systems and VPO.

Command line functions to acknowledge messages are also available, for example opcackmsg(1M) on the VPO management server and opcmack(1M) on the managed nodes.

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NNM Integration Through the VPO GUI

VPO features a default integration with NNM, providing the operator with the ability to start ovw applications from the VPO GUI. This functionality is available in both the local case, where the NNM system is installed on the VPO management server, and in the remote case, where NNM is installed on a server other than the VPO management server.

NOTE VPO provides different functionality, depending on whether the operator

is working from the Motif UI or the Java UI.

Command line functions for the Java UI are also available, opcctrlovw

(1m), a tool for controlling an associate ovw process, and opcmapnode (1m), which automatically determines which NNM nodes are available

on the domain in order to start an ovw process.

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Integrating via NNM Functionality

The HP OpenView Network Node Manager (NNM) consists of two main parts: HP OpenView Windows (ovw) and the HP OpenView SNMP Event System.

The HP OpenView Windows API supports the creation and manipulation of maps, submaps and symbols, and allows the generation of dialogs for user interaction. It is intended for the development of applications that need to use these features. New symbols can also be registered by ASCII Symbol Registration Files.

The HP OpenView Windows API also supports access to the HP OpenView Windows object database which stores information about network objects. An object is an internal representation of a logical or physical entity or resource that exists somewhere in a computer network. Objects have certain ﬁelds which can be seen as the attributes of an object, for example an object representing a computer in a network will have ﬁelds for the name and the IP address of that node. New ﬁelds can be added to objects by either using the HP OpenView Windows API or Field Registration Files.

The HP OpenView SNMP Event System provides a command and a programmer's interface to SNMP communication functions, an API for SNMP conﬁguration purposes and it stores information about the network topology in a topology database.

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Deciding Which Integration Capabilities to Use

The different integration capabilities provided by VPO are summarized in the previous chapter. This chapter discusses the advantages and disadvantages of different integration capabilities to help you to plan and design an integration package.

It is important to decide whether the integration capabilities to be used are available on the management server or on the managed nodes. It is preferable, whenever possible, to choose integration capabilities on the managed nodes rather than on the management server. Should you choose to access the management server directly, you may encounter the following disadvantages:

❏ Since ﬁltering is done on the management server, any event causes

additional network load which in many cases turns out to be unnecessary, especially if the event is ﬁltered out and no message is generated.

❏ Additional load on the management server might cause performance

problems for the server; it is better to take advantage of the distributed CPU power available on the managed nodes.

❏ The threshold monitoring functions of the agent are not available.

❏ If the management server is unreachable at the time information is

sent, for example, if there is a problem with the network, data may be lost.

❏ The ability of the agent to perform immediate local automatic actions

is not available.

As a general rule, try to exploit the capabilities available on the managed nodes in preference to those available only on the management server.

There is no restriction on the number of templates for a particular message source that can be active at a given time. Templates for each source (logﬁles, SNMP traps, VPO Message API, MPE/iX console, etc) are evaluated in parallel.

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Deciding Which Integration Capabilities to Use

When integrating a partner solution it is recommended that you create a new template for that solution whenever possible. This prevents any possibility of the conditions deﬁned for the new solution conﬂicting with previously deﬁned conditions. In some circumstances, however, this may result in the generation of similar messages from different sources. To prevent the Message Browser from being ﬂooded by similar messages, it is recommended to switch off the Forward Unmatched Messages option under normal working conditions.

A major goal of the certiﬁcation program is to ensure that conﬂicts between message conditions are avoided. This can be achieved, for example, with SNMP traps by always including the enterprise-speciﬁc trap IDs in the match condition. For other message sources the unique application name should be included in any match condition.

These recommendations can be summarized as follows:

1. Try to exploit the functionality of the VPO agent whenever possible.

2. Prefer capabilities handled on the managed nodes to those handled on the management server only.

3. Deﬁne a new template for each integration and/or message source; do not append new conditions to an existing message source template.

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Table 2-1 shows where the different message sources are handled, and lists any limitations:

Table 2-1 Message Source Management

Message Source Managed On

Logﬁle Encapsulation Managed Nodes

API or command line interface to managed nodes: passing a message by way of opcmsg(1|3) or opcagtmsg_send(3)

Threshold Monitoring

This applies to all types of threshold monitors, both for monitors for which values are determined by the VPO agent, and for monitors for which values are passed to the agent by a call to opcmon(1|3) or opcagtmon_send(3)

SNMP Traps Managed Nodes (for

MPE/iX Console Messages Managed Nodes

Calls to functions of management server APIs: Legacy Link Interface API, Server Message Stream Interface API, Server Message API, etc.

Calls to functions of managed node: Agent Message Stream Interface API, Agent Message API

Managed Nodes

HP-UX, Solaris, AIX, Windows NT/2000, and Novell NetWare agent platforms only) or Management Server

(MPE/iX only)

Management Server

Managed Nodes

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Deﬁning an Integration Strategy

This section describes how to select a suitable integration strategy for your solution, based on your integration starting point:

❏ Starting with an existing integration into VPO (aimed at the NSM

market segment).

❏ Starting with an existing integration into HP OpenView Network

Node Manager (NNM) (aimed at the NIM market segment).

❏ Starting from scratch

No previous HP OpenView integration available.

❏ Obtaining coexistence of NNM and VPO

The ﬁnal part of this section provides some hints to integrators who want to integrate into both NNM and VPO (aimed at the INSM market segment).

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Adapting an Existing VPO Integration for VPO A.07.00

NOTE If you need to integrate into VPO a partner solution that was integrated

into a previous (and recent) version of VPO, any integration points introduced with VPO version A.07.00 will not be used. In addition, you may have to recompile the application with the libraries from the latest version of the VPO software, if those libraries have been changed.

The recommendations for adapting an existing VPO integration depend on the evaluation of the integration. Two scenarios can be distinguished:

❏ An existing integration was designed for the VPO version A.06.xx

release and takes full advantage of the integration capabilities offered by this release for a tight integration to be achieved.

❏ An existing VPO integration does not take advantage of the

integration capabilities offered by the VPO version A.06.xx release.

In the second case, in which the integration does not take full advantage of VPO A.06.xx integration features, a complete veriﬁcation of the integration is recommended.

If you can leverage from a tight VPO A.06.xx integration, you might use this integration as a starting point. Before starting, establish whether you can enhance the integration by using features of the latest version of VPO. Refer to the VPO Software Release Notes for more information about the new features of VPO.

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Leveraging From an Integration into NNM

If you currently use NNM, it is worth remembering that, as a VPO network operator, you can work in a way that is similar to the role of the typical NNM operator. VPO provides the preconﬁgured network operators netop and itop to whom the IPMap application, and the Network and SNMP message groups are assigned by default.

All NNM applications, and additional applications that can be used for conﬁguration purposes are assigned to the itop operator, whereas only those NNM applications not used for conﬁguration purposes are assigned to the network operator netop. An operator can invoke NNM applications using the menu items in the NNM menu bar. Alternatively, network operators can invoke the same applications from their personal application desktop.

The nodes from which the VPO network operator receives SNMP traps can be conﬁgured by means of the external nodes symbol which deﬁnes source nodes in addition to the nodes in the Managed Node window.

Applications integrated into NNM that are not part of the standard NNM product can be easily integrated into VPO.

VPO provides all the NNM integration points in addition to its own integration points. You can further enhance an integration by exploiting these additional VPO-speciﬁc integration points, as shown in Figure 2-1.

Figure 2-1 SNMP Event Conﬁguration

NNM Integration Points Integration Points and Capabilities

Migration Process

User Roles Local Monitoring

SNMP Event Conﬁg SNMP Trap Template

Menu / Toolbar Integration Menu / Toolbar / Appl.Desktop

Other NNM Int. Points

(unchanged)

Alternative Message Sources Enhanced SNMP Event Conﬁguration

Duplicate Message Suppression

Instructions, Annotations

Powerful Actions

Application Desktop

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SNMP Event Conﬁguration

SNMP traps are conﬁgured using the SNMP Trap Templates. An SNMP Trap Template is automatically generated by a conversion command that takes the NNM SNMP Event Conﬁguration as input. By using the SNMP Trap Template, the following additional features are available for customers migrating from NNM:

❏ VPO provides automatic and operator-initiated actions which can be

started on demand by authorized operators. Actions can be performed on the management server or on any VPO managed node running the agent software. The status of an action is visible in the VPO message browser (running, failed or successful) and the output of the action can be attached to the message as an annotation.

❏ Instructions can be attached to a VPO message which can either be

statically conﬁgured for each condition or template, or dynamically created using the Instruction Text Interface. For a detailed description, see “Adding Instructions, Annotations, Automatic- and Operator-initiated Actions” on page 136.

❏ Messages are stored in the central database, and both standard and

user-customized reports can be generated.

❏ A Duplicate Message Suppression function supports the following:

• Suppression conﬁguration at a template and/or condition level

• Suppression of identical messages or messages matching the

respective condition

• Duplicate message re-transmission based on time intervals and/or

counter

❏ The Server or Agent Message Stream Interface (MSI) API enables

messages to be diverted or copied to external applications like event correlation systems.

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Powerful GUI Application Integration

In NNM, applications can be integrated into menus or the toolbar by way of Application Registration Files (ARFs). The same mechanism is also available in VPO. See “Integrating External Applications into the VPO GUI” on page 144 for more information.

Figure 2-2 Application Desktop Window

VPO applications can also be integrated using a GUI registration method, and are displayed as icons in the operator's Application Desktop. The integration method for VPO applications has the following advantages over the method for NNM applications using ARF ﬁles:

Integrating Solutions with VPO

Deﬁning an Integration Strategy

❏ Application groups provide structuring of applications;

❏ Applications can be executed remotely under any preconﬁgured user

ID;

❏ Startup of applications can be preconﬁgured by the VPO

administrator.

Consequently, the Application Desktop is the recommended integration facility to integrate applications into VPO. Applications newly added to VPO should always be integrated as VPO applications.

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Monitoring Facilities

The Data Collection and Threshold Monitoring facility of NNM can be used to monitor numeric MIB values. Alternatively, you can conﬁgure monitor templates for VPO managed nodes to use the VPO threshold monitoring facility. This has the following advantages:

❏ With MIB data collection, polling is always done by the management

server which sends a request for data to the managed objects at regular intervals, and receives the monitored value as the response. With the VPO threshold monitors, polling is done by the VPO agent. This means that there is no additional network trafﬁc when polling MIB variables. The only additional network trafﬁc occurs if a problem is detected that causes a message to be sent to the management server. This can be useful for monitoring application MIBs that are located on nodes running the VPO agent.

❏ Even if an object for which a MIB variable is monitored is not running

a VPO agent, the threshold monitor can reduce network load. In this case, it is recommended to use an agent running on a machine located in the vicinity of the monitored object. In this case, any additional network load caused by MIB variable polling is restricted to a segment of the network, reducing overall network load and the workload of the management server.

❏ All features previously mentioned for the SNMP Trap Template also

apply to the Monitor Template.

The MIB Data Collection facility allows the collection of SNMP-related data and it is provided by both NNM and VPO. It is recommended to use the MIB Data Collection facility when:

❏ the agent is not running on the node to be monitored, and there is no

VPO managed node in the immediate vicinity

❏ the monitored values are to be collected and graphed at a later time.

VPO offers additional capabilities to achieve a tighter integration and many additional features in the areas described in the following subsections:

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Alternative Message Sources

SNMP traps are only one of several different message sources for VPO. Logﬁle templates can be used to generate messages on VPO managed nodes in which a powerful pattern-matching mechanism is applied locally to forward relevant messages to the management server.

Network trafﬁc is only necessary when a ﬁltered message is transmitted by way of a reliable remote procedure call (RPC) connection. In comparison, SNMP traps use the unreliable UDP and can be lost if the trap interception process on the management server is not running.

NOTE The VPO agent buffers all messages which it cannot send if the

management server is not accessible for any reason.

User Role Concept

The user role concept of VPO means that new operators can be conﬁgured with individually assigned message groups, applications, and managed nodes. Operators, therefore, have a customized view of their managed environment and see only the information from systems, devices and objects for which they are responsible.

A message can be owned by an operator, allowing only that operator to perform actions, or to escalate or acknowledge the message.

Advantages of an INSM Solution

VPO provides:

❏ Reﬂection of node status in IP Map windows

❏ Central conﬁguration of distributed collection stations for topology

detection

❏ HP OpenView VantagePoint Navigator integration on the

management server

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Starting from Scratch

To integrate a partner solution that is not currently integrated into either NNM or VPO, ﬁrst make sure that you have a complete understanding of the way in which operators use the GUIs, and the underlying concepts of the two OpenView products. Based on this knowledge, you can start to deﬁne the functional speciﬁcation of the integrated solution. You will need to decide what operators will see of the partner solution and how they are to access the additional functionality.

After deﬁning what you want to show to operators (for example, which messages and actions) it is usually quite straightforward to decide on the capabilities to implement this functionality. As a general guideline, capabilities that are conﬁgured by way of the administrator's GUI are the preferred choice.

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Deﬁning an Integration Strategy

Obtaining Coexistence of NNM and VPO Integrations

If you plan to integrate your product into both NNM and VPO, you can choose between the following two strategies:

1. Develop an integration package for NNM and transform this into an VPO integration package.

The VPO integration package resulting from this approach is not improved.

2. Develop an integration package for NNM and develop a separate integration package for VPO.

It is always possible to develop the NNM integration package ﬁrst, transform this to a VPO integration package, and then use the result as a starting point for an independent VPO integration package.

Figure 2-3 on page 80 illustrates the two strategies. Using strategy 1 only the NNM migration package needs to be maintained; the corresponding VPO integration package is always generated from the NNM integration package. You will need to use strategy 2 if you want to achieve a tight VPO integration that takes full advantage of the VPO features, you will need to use strategy 2. A tight integration provides maximum beneﬁt to customers and is a prerequisite for achieving VPO certiﬁcation.

Figure 2-3 on page 80 also shows that there are no other strategies available, as soon as you start to modify the VPO integration resulting from the migration process, you are using strategy 2. Consequently, the modiﬁed VPO integration can no longer be generated from the NNM integration and needs to be maintained separately. It is not possible to design a VPO integration ﬁrst and to leverage from this for an NNM integration.

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Figure 2-3 Comparison of Integration Strategies

NNM

Integra-

tion

NNM

Integra-

tion

Migrate

Maintain/Update Maintain/Update

Migrate

Maintain/Update

VPO

Integra-

tion

VPO

Integra-

tion

Strategy 1:

Develop an integration package for NNM and transform this into a VPO integration package.

The VantagePoint Operations integration resulting from the migration process is not enhanced or improved.

NNM

Integra-

tion

NNM

Integra-

tion

Maintain/Update

Migrate

Start

Point

Enhance

Maintain/Update

Full

VPO

Integration

Full

VPO

Integration

Rethink/

Strategy 2:

Developan integrationpackage for NNMand develop a separate integration package for VPO.

As a starting point for the separate VPO integration package, the result of migrating a NNM integration might be used.

The following subsections summarize the advantages and disadvantages of the two strategies.

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Deﬁning an Integration Strategy

Strategy 1: Use Transformed NNM Integration in VPO

This strategy has the following advantages:

❏ Requires little integration effort

You don’t need all the advanced features of VPO, and you don’t need to identify new integration capabilities.

❏ The VPO integration will work in the same way as the NNM

integration.

This means an easy switchover for operators that used NNM and will continue with VPO.

❏ Easy to maintain

You need only maintain the NNM integration package.

The VPO integration package is always generated from an NNM integration package, using the recommended migration process.

This strategy has the following disadvantages:

❏ You do not achieve a tight VPO integration as VPO integration points

and features are not exploited.

❏ It is unlikely that this type of integration will satisfy the

requirements for VPO certiﬁcation because of the large amount of unused VPO functionality.

Strategy 2: Develop a Separate VPO Integration

This strategy has the following advantages:

❏ Use VPO features to increase the customer beneﬁt of your

integration, for example, by providing detailed instructions to operators. For more information, see “Leveraging From an Integration into NNM” on page 73.

❏ Tight VPO integration can be achieved. This is also a prerequisite for

VPO certiﬁcation of your integration.

This strategy has the following disadvantages:

❏ The resulting VPO integration package must be maintained as a

separate package

❏ Increased integration effort and planning required

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Summary of the Integration Process

The outcome of any integration is an integration package that contains VPO conﬁguration information. Depending on the product you are integrating, you may need to modify the software of the partner solution or even implement additional processes, for example, when using the VPO APIs. In this case, the integration package would contain other items in addition to the VPO conﬁguration information.

You may ﬁnd it useful to answer the following questions as a rough guide to deﬁning an integration strategy:

❏ What will an operator using VPO see of the partner solution?

❏ Which messages and applications will be available?

❏ Will there be any new message groups?

❏ Can you include automatic and operator-initiated actions?

❏ For which types of message can you provide instructions?

❏ Are there any numeric values that can be monitored by VPO?

❏ Does the partner solution include applications or tools that can be

offered to VPO operators in the application desktop?

The integration process takes the following steps:

1. Select the integration capabilities you need to implement the required functionality.

You may need to use more than one of the VPO integration capabilities to implement a certain functionality.

The result of this step is a design plan for the integration.

2. Deﬁne the required conﬁguration information using the VPO administrator’s GUI. This includes:

• Templates for the selected message sources: logﬁles, SNMP traps,

MPE/iX console messages, and calls to the VPO APIs. You will also need to deﬁne message and suppress conditions.

• Instructions for operators, automatic actions, and

operator-initiated actions to be coupled with messages.

• Threshold monitors

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• Interfaces to trouble-ticket and notiﬁcation systems

• Tools for operators and administrators that are to be integrated

into the VPO Application Desktop

• Platforms that will be supported

3. If required, modify the partner solution software or implement additional processes.

You can implement additional processes using programming languages or shell scripts, depending on whether you will use the VPO APIs or the command line interfaces.

NOTE APIs and command line interfaces are available for the agents and

the management server.

4. Create the conﬁguration information ﬁleset by selectively downloading the required conﬁguration information in the VPO administrator’s GUI.

5. Add other required ﬁles to the conﬁguration information to create the integration package.

Other required ﬁles can be the necessary executables (scripts, commands, actions) and HP OpenView application registration ﬁles (ARFs).

6. Bundle the integration package with the partner solution product as a separate ﬁleset or as a separate product.

Add installation instructions to the partner solution documentation or, if the integration package is a product of its own, create a separate installation guide.

The installation information must include information to enable customers to customize the integrated solution to meet their needs.

7. Install or restore the integration package at the customer’s sites by uploading the conﬁguration information.

8. Show the customer how to use the VPO administrator’s GUI to do the ﬁnal customization, and to assign and distribute new or changed templates to the managed nodes.

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The Role of Conﬁguration Data in an Integration

Figure 1-1 on page 32 shows an overview of the integration process in which it distinguishes between deﬁning an integration strategy and implementing an integration. The ﬁgure shows that the result of an integration process is an integration package which enables the partner solution and VPO to work together smoothly.

An integration package always contains VPO conﬁguration information, which includes deﬁnitions for some, or all, of the following object classes:

❏ Applications and application groups ❏ Instruction text interfaces ❏ Managed nodes ❏ Message groups ❏ Node defaults ❏ Node groups ❏ Node Hierarchies ❏ Notiﬁcation services ❏ Templates and template groups ❏ User and user proﬁles ❏ Action, command, and monitor executables ❏ Administrator conﬁguration ❏ Database maintenance (conﬁguration of VPO internal database) ❏ Escalation manager conﬁguration ❏ Event correlation libraries ❏ Event correlation modules ❏ Management server conﬁguration ❏ Message forwarding conﬁguration ❏ Regroup conditions ❏ Responsible manager conﬁguration ❏ Trouble ticket conﬁguration

Conﬁguration data in the local database determines the operational behavior of VPO. Consequently, the conﬁguration data required by VPO to interact with a partner solution must be incorporated into the VPO internal database using the conﬁguration download and upload utilities of VPO.

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The Role of Conﬁguration Data in an Integration

To download conﬁguration data from VPO you can either select Actions:Server->Download Configuration... from the menu of the administrator’s GUI or use the conﬁguration download command opccfgdwn(1M) at the command line. Both methods download conﬁguration information into a tree structure of ﬂat ﬁles. You can later upload conﬁguration information into the VPO internal database using the opccfgupld(1M) command.

Note that service data of the HP OpenView VantagePoint Navigator is kept in a separate ﬁle and can currently not be downloaded or uploaded.

These conﬁguration utilities enable a partner to deﬁne a conﬁguration using the VPO GUI and then to download the conﬁguration to a ﬁle. The resulting ﬁle can then be shipped and installed with the partner software, or provided as a separate product that can be uploaded into the customer’s VPO installation. From the customer’s perspective, an “out-of-the-box” integration of the partner solution and VPO is provided.

Figure 2-4 on page 86 summarizes how the VPO conﬁguration download and upload capabilities are used to deﬁne a conﬁguration and then to distribute it to customers.

Figure 2-4 shows the following steps:

Step 1: Deﬁne the VPO conﬁguration.

Step 2: Download the VPO conﬁguration to the ﬂat ﬁles using

the GUI or opccfgdwn(1M) command.

Step 3: Package the conﬁguration with the product and ship to

the customer.

Step 4: Install the product, including the VPO conﬁguration.

Step 5: Upload the VPO conﬁguration from the ﬂat ﬁles

Step 6: Use the new, uploaded conﬁguration.

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Figure 2-4 Handling VPO Conﬁguration Information

VPO Administrator’s

GUI

VPO Administrator’s

GUI

VPO

Management

Server

Internal

Database

Integration Project

Flat Files

VPO

Management

Server

Internal

Database

Integration Engineer

Configuration

Flat Files

VPO Operator

3. 4.

Configuration

Customer’s Site

Although conﬁguration ﬁles are not encrypted, it is strongly discouraged to edit them as this can lead to problems when uploading the conﬁguration. The conﬁguration should always be deﬁned using the administrator’s GUI.

The uploading and downloading capabilities, and the structure of the conﬁguration ﬁle tree are described in more detail in Chapter 7, “Creating and Distributing an Integration Package,” on page 253.

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3 Using the Integration

Capabilities of the VPO Motif-based GUI

Chapter 3 87

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In This Chapter

This section describes how to use features of the VPO administrator’s GUI to integrate applications into VPO.

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Event Integration Through Messages

This section describes in more detail the various methods provided by the VPO GUI that can be used to generate an integration package.

Conﬁguring Messages in the Message Source Templates Window

Any problem that causes the partner solution to generate an error message, should also trigger a VPO message. When correctly conﬁgured, message templates guarantee that VPO operators are always informed about problems when they occur in the partner solution.

The templates for all message sources, including threshold monitors, are listed in the Message Source Templates window. The windows used to create, or modify templates for the various sources can all be accessed from this window, as shown in Figure 3-1. The Add/Modify <Template> windows differ slightly for each source, but the concepts involved in deﬁning templates are similar.

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Figure 3-1 Accessing the Template Conﬁguration Windows

Add/Modify

VPO Administrator’s GUI

Choose: [Window: Message Source Templates]

Administrators’ GUI

Message Source

Template

Templates

Logﬁle

Add/Modify

opcmsg Messages

Add/Modify

Threshold Monitors

Add/Modify

SNMP Traps

Add/Modify MPE/iX

Console Messages

Add/Modify

Event Correlation

Add/Modify

Scheduled Actions

Add/Modify

Template Groups

Message and

Suppress Conditions

Global

Advanced Options

for all conditions

Global Message

CorrelationOptions

for all conditions

SNMP Trap

Condition No.

Advanced Options

for a condition

Custom Message

Attributes for a condition

Instructions

Message Correlation

Options for a condition

Condition Test

Options

Regroup Conditions

Regroup

Conditions No.

To open the Message Source Templates window, you can:

❏ Login as VPO administrator

Select Windows: Message Source Templates from the VPO administrator’s GUI.

❏ Login as the VPO template administrator

Condition Test

Results

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Figure 3-2 Message Source Templates Window

Event Integration Through Messages

The following sections describe the VPO message sources and the ways in which they can be used to integrate with VPO. For more detailed information about the message sources, refer to the VPO Administrator’s Guide to Online Information and the VPO Concepts Guide.

For a description of event correlation services and scheduled actions shown in Figure 3-1 on page 90, refer to the VPO Administrator’s Guide to Online Information.

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Deﬁning Templates for Logﬁle Encapsulation

If an application writes events into a logﬁle, the VPO logﬁle encapsulator can interpret these events and incorporate them in the

VPO Message Browser.

A VPO logﬁle template speciﬁes the events that are of interest to VPO, for example:

❏ the ﬁle to be analyzed and the polling interval

❏ the defaults to be applied to the generated messages (severity,

message group, etc.)

❏ a set of options

❏ a set of conditions

A condition either speciﬁes which events should generate messages to be forwarded to the management server (message conditions) or which events should be suppressed (suppress conditions).

NOTE Do not mistake the Monitoring Options part of the Add/Modify

Logfile window, for the threshold monitoring facility of VPO which is

described in the section “Deﬁning Templates for Threshold Monitors” on page 100.

The template defaults are applied in the following cases:

❏ When deﬁning a new condition for a given template.

❏ When a message is generated that does not match either a message

condition or a suppress condition, this is referred to as an unmatched message. When deﬁning the template, the options let you choose whether unmatched messages are ignored or forwarded to the VPO management server.

You can always change the defaults for the entire template or for individual conditions as required.

To deﬁne a logﬁle template, click on the [Add Logfile] button in the Message Source Templates window. The Add Logfile window shown in Figure 3-3 enables you to specify the logﬁle to be encapsulated, the monitoring options for the logﬁle, and the defaults for the generated message.

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Figure 3-3 Add/Modify Logﬁle Window

Event Integration Through Messages

For information about the ﬁelds in the Add/Modify Logfile window, see the VPO Administrator’s Guide to Online Information.

For information about setting Advanced Options for a message source, or using the VPO Instructions Interface see:

❏ “Setting Advanced Options for a Message Source Template” on page

116;

❏ “Setting Message Correlation Options for a Message Source

Template” on page 118.

❏ “Adding Instructions, Annotations, Automatic- and Operator-initiated

Actions” on page 136.

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Using the Logﬁle Monitoring Options

This section describes how to use the encapsulator options for different types of logﬁle. The options Close After Read and Message On No Logfile must be considered in each individual situation.

The options File to be Read and Command to be Executed enable VPO to observe any type of ﬁle, including entire directories or binary ﬁles. The logﬁle encapsulator detects the modiﬁcation of the ﬁle and runs the speciﬁed program which converts the required information into a readable form for the encapsulator.

❏ Binary logﬁles

For a binary logﬁle, you need a program to convert the binary data into readable ASCII text. When the application generates binary ﬁles, the following options are recommended:

• Enter the program required to convert the binary ﬁle into the

File to be executed ﬁeld.

• Enter the name of the ﬁle containing the converted, readable text

into the File to be read ﬁeld.

• Select the Read from begin (Always) option if the File to be

read will be completely overwritten.

❏ Logﬁles without a constant name, for example,

logﬁle<number> or logﬁle<date>

The logﬁle encapsulator lets you observe directories that are modiﬁed simultaneously if one of the ﬁles contained in the directory changes. You need to use a subprogram or script that must discover the modiﬁed ﬁles and extract the new information into another ﬁle to be read by the encapsulator as “File to be read”. For logﬁles with a changing name, the following options are recommended:

• Enter the program required to discover the modiﬁed ﬁles into the

File to be executed ﬁeld.

• Enter the name of the ﬁle containing the new information into the

File to be read ﬁeld.

• Select the Read from begin (Always) option if the File to be

read will be completely overwritten.

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❏ Logﬁles that decrease in size

You may ﬁnd that some logﬁles may get smaller if they are completely overwritten by the writing process. It is not possible to recognize new information as the encapsulator stores only the ﬁle status, and not the status of its contents. To read this type of logﬁle, select the “Read from begin (Always)” option.

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Deﬁning Templates for SNMP Trap Interception

If an application generates SNMP traps, VPO can intercept them and incorporate them into the Message Browser.

Figure 3-4 shows the window for adding an SNMP trap template.

Figure 3-4 Add/Modify SNMP Trap Window

For information about the ﬁelds in the Add/Modify SNMP Trap window, see the VPO Administrator’s Guide to Online Information.

For information about setting Advanced Options for a message source, or using the Instructions Interface see:

❏ “Setting Advanced Options for a Message Source Template” on page

116;

❏ “Setting Message Correlation Options for a Message Source

Template” on page 118.

❏ “Adding Instructions, Annotations, Automatic- and Operator-initiated

Actions” on page 136.

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Deﬁning Templates for MPE/iX Console Message Interception

VPO can intercept all MPE/iX console messages, and it uses the default categorization and grouping deﬁned in the templates provided with the VPO software.

Figure 3-5 Add/Modify MPE/iX Console Messages Window

For information about the ﬁelds in the Add/Modify MPE/iX window, see the VPO Administrator’s Guide to Online Information.

For information about setting Advanced Options for a message source, or using the Instructions Interface see:

❏ “Setting Advanced Options for a Message Source Template” on page

116;

❏ “Setting Message Correlation Options for a Message Source

Template” on page 118.

❏ “Adding Instructions, Annotations, Automatic- and Operator-initiated

Actions” on page 136.

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Deﬁning Templates for Messages Sent to the VPO Message Interface opcmsg(1|3)

This section describes how to create or modify a template that intercepts messages sent to the VPO message interface - the function opcmsg(1|3) of the Agent Message API.

The partner solution can use the VPO message C library routine opcmsg(3) or command opcmsg(1) to route messages in the standard VPO format to any VPO agent. Messages sent through the API or command are intercepted by VPO at the managed node on which the command or API are invoked. This allows a distributed handling of messages across the network.

The following example shows how to create a VPO message with the opcmsg(1) command:

❏ This example submits a critical message issued by the script

diskwatcher.sh with the related object /usr/lib which belongs to the message group DB:

opcmsg sev=critical msg_grp=DB appl=diskwatcher.sh \ node=laurax.bbn.hp.com \ msg_text=”DSET vouchers FULL: No further processing \ on vouchers possible!” \ object=”/usr/lib”

For all messages created by the VPO Agent Message API, the same processing is done as for other message sources. You can ﬁlter messages, classify them, set attributes, and deﬁne actions or other options. The description of the message handling is almost the same as for the other message sources, with only the speciﬁcation of the message source being different.

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Figure 3-6 Add/Modify VPO Interface Messages Window

For information about the ﬁelds in the Add/Modify VPO Interface Messages window, see the VPO Administrator’s Guide to Online

Information.

For information about setting Advanced Options for a message source, or using the Instructions Interface see:

❏ “Setting Advanced Options for a Message Source Template” on page

116;

❏ “Setting Message Correlation Options for a Message Source

Template” on page 118.

❏ “Adding Instructions, Annotations, Automatic- and Operator-initiated

Actions” on page 136.

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Deﬁning Templates for Threshold Monitors

This section describes the different types of monitors that are available, and how to deﬁne your own monitors using the VPO administrator’s GUI.

Overview of VPO Monitoring Capabilities

VPO enables the monitoring of numeric values that are determined either by:

❏ Program

Calling a program at regular intervals that submits a numeric value to VPO.

❏ External Program

Accepting numeric values that are determined by some external mechanism and passed to VPO. These values can be accepted at any time.

❏ MIB variables

Polling MIB variables at regular time intervals.

The primary mechanism for monitoring numeric values in VPO is threshold monitoring. Threshold monitors can be set up to use any of the above methods to determine new values. Threshold monitors can, therefore, be used to poll MIB variables and to monitor any other values.

Threshold monitors are designed to watch numeric values which might indicate problems, and to generate messages as soon as a potential problem is detected. It is, however, important to avoid overwhelming operators by generating many redundant messages. To prevent such a ﬂood of redundant messages, VPO threshold monitors enable redundant messages to be ﬁltered out, for example, by deﬁning time intervals after which a new message may be generated. As with other VPO message sources, the full set of action options (automatic and operator-initiated actions, automatic acknowledgment, etc.) can be conﬁgured for the messages generated by a threshold monitor, together with instructions, external notiﬁcation, and trouble ticket services. Threshold monitors do not, by default, store the data that has been collected.

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HP (Hewlett-Packard) OpenView Vantagepoint User Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual

Legal Notices

Printing History

Conventions

VPO Documentation Map

About VPO Online Help

Why Integrate with VPO?

HP OpenView Partnerships

A Word about Licenses

Integrating Partner Solutions with VPO

VPO Conceptual Overview

The HP OpenView Product Family and VPO

VPO Concept and Key Features

VPO Implementation

Problem Management with VPO

Collecting Management Information

Agent Message API

Threshold Monitors

Legacy Link Interface API

Processing and Consolidating Information

Presenting the Information to the User

IP Map Window VPO includes the full network management features of HP OpenView Network Node Manager. These include network discovery and mapping, and the presentation of critical network events occurring in the managed computing environment.

Figure 1-3 Managed Nodes Window

Figure 1-4 Message Groups Window

Figure 1-6 Message Browser

Acting on the Information Provided

Customizing VPO

The VPO Java-based Operator User Interface

VPO as an INSM Framework

NIM Market Segment

NSM Market Segment

INSM Market Segment

Service Management Market Segment

Integration Facilities Provided by VPO

Integrating Events Using Messages

Threshold Monitoring

Working with Message Templates

Adding Instructions, Annotations, and Actions to a Message Template

Integrating Applications into the Application Bank

Integrating via APIs

NNM Integration Through the VPO GUI

Integrating via NNM Functionality

2 Integrating Solutions with VPO

Deciding Which Integration Capabilities to Use

Adapting an Existing VPO Integration for VPO A.07.00

Leveraging From an Integration into NNM

Powerful GUI Application Integration

Monitoring Facilities

Alternative Message Sources

User Role Concept

Advantages of an INSM Solution

Starting from Scratch

Obtaining Coexistence of NNM and VPO Integrations

Strategy 1: Use Transformed NNM Integration in VPO

Strategy 2: Develop a Separate VPO Integration

Summary of the Integration Process

In This Chapter

Event Integration Through Messages

Overview of VPO Monitoring Capabilities