BMC Impact Solutions Concepts Guide

8/8/2019 BMC Impact Solutions Concepts Guide

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BMC Impact SolutionsConcepts Guide

Supporting

BMC Impact Manager 7.3

BMC Impact Event Adapters 7.3

BMC Impact Administration Server 7.3

BMC Impact Explorer 7.3

BMC Impact Publishing Server 7.3

BMC Impact Service Model Editor 7.3

BMC Impact Integration Web Services Server 7.3BMC Impact Portal 7.3

February 2009


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4 BMC Impact Solutions Concepts Guide


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Contents 5

Contents

Chapter 1 BMC Impact Solutions 11

What is Business Service Managem ent? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Wh at is BMC Impact Solutions? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

BMC Impact Solut ions d eployment op tions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Basic d ep loym ent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Stan dard deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Atr ium dep loym ent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Chapter 2 BMC Impact Solutions architecture and components 17

BMC Imp act Solutions architecture an d components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

BMC Im pact Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Knowledge Base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Com ponen ts of a Knowledge Base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Imp act Ad ministra tion Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Master or Stand ard BMC Imp act Adm inistration server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Imp act Ad ministra tion cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Central Ad ministra tion Console . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Even t Ad ap ters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

BMC Im pact Explorer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

BMC Impact Man ager even t rep ository . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

StateBuild er . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

BMC Impact Integration Web Services Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

BMC Im pact Portal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

BMC Im pact Service Mod el Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

BMC Atrium CMDB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

BMC Im pact Publish ing Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

BMC Im pact In tegrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Integration for BMC Remedy Service Desk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

BMC Im pact Database Gatew ay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

BMC Even t an d Imp act Repor ting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Chapter 3 Event Management 33

Wh at is ev ent m anagement?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Defining events using th e Common Even t Mod el . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

How an even t flows th rou gh BMC Imp act Solution s. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

How events ar e collected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Event classification and formatting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Even t p rocessing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41


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Viewing an d organ izing events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Even t collector s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

MetaCollectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Even t grou ps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Image v iews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Perform ing op eration s and actions on events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54Even t op era tions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Chapter 4 Service Impact Management 57

What is serv ice impact managem ent? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

How service imp act managem ent works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Service mod el overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Service models in Atriu m and non -Atrium environm ents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Service mod el components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Service schedules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Service com ponent sta tu s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Service component prior ity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Service comp onen t consum er and provider r elationsh ips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Service comp onen ts serv ice agreem ent statu s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Sources of objects in a ser vice m od el . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

BMC Atrium CMDB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Non-Atrium CMDB sources for serv ice mod el objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

BMC Performance Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

BMC Impact Service Model Integration w ith HP OpenView Op erations. . . . . . . 70

How business services are m anaged . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

BMC Im pact Explorer Services view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Service reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Chapter 5 BMC Impact Solutions infrastructure management 75

Infrastru cture managem ent overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

BMC Impact Explorer Ad ministra tion v iew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

High availability cells. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Wh at is high availability? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

High availability implementat ion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

How high availability functions du ring norm al operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

How high availability functions during failover. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

How h igh availability fun ctions when p rimary server becomes available afterfailover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

How group s, roles, and perm issions in Impact Adm inistration server are related . . 79

Event flow from comp onent s to Infrastructure Managemen t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Event p ropaga tion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Index 81


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Figures 7

Figures

BMC Im pact Solution s architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Even t processing ru le phases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

BMC Im pact Explorer Events v iew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Collector s in BMC Im pact Explorer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Event grou ps in an image view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Service mod el objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

BMC Impact Explorer Imp act/ Cau se View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

BMC Im pact Explorer Services View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

BMC Im pact Porta l Status tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

BMC Im pact Explorer Services view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73


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Tables 9

Tables

Service imp act management an d event m anagement ap plications at a glance . . . . . 19

Other in tegrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

BMC Im pact Explorer view s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

BMC Imp act Man ager ru le phases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Even t op era tion descrip tion s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

How service mod el objects get to a SIM cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Ad vantages and d isadvan tages of different object sour ces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67


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C h a p t e r 11BMC Impact Solutions

This chap ter presents the following top ics:

Wh at is Business Service Managem ent? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Wh at is BMC Imp act Solutions? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

BMC Im pact Solut ions d eployment op tions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Basic dep loyment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Standard dep loym ent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Atr ium dep loym ent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14


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What is Business Service Management?


What is Business Service Management?

Business Service Management (BSM) is a dyn amic IT managemen t strategy th at

enables comp anies to align their IT opera tions and resources w ith their key business

objectives. By focusing IT techn ology, peop le, and processes on sup por ting criticalbusiness services, IT mana gemen t can increase the qu ality and value of IT services,

while redu cing th e cost of IT service delivery an d low ering the risks of failures to

business op erations.

Using the BSM ap proach, IT staff can continuou sly monitor, man age, and im prove

the specific IT systems and applications that are most importan t to the bu siness. BSM

also enables comp anies to un derstand and pred ict how technology changes affect

their business, and how changes in the bu siness affect the IT infrastructure.

What is BMC Impact Solutions?

BMC Imp act Solutions p rovides the following event m anagement and service imp act

man agement technologies to enable BSM:

The BMC Event Manager (BMC EM) solution p rovides real-time event m anagem ent

for proactive detection an d resolution of IT problems before they have an imp act on

critical IT systems. It prov ides a v iew of the op erational state of the IT infrastru cture.

If service imp act managem ent is imp lemented, any events th at are p rocessed by th e

event man ager can be u sed in service impact managem ent.

s The BMC Service Imp act Manager (BMC SIM) solution p rovides real-time imp act

managem ent to determine th e effect of IT problems on bu siness services and their

customers.

BMC Impact Solutions deployment options

BMC Impa ct Solutions p rovides various dep loyment options to m eet your event an dservice management n eeds.


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Basic deployment


Basic deployment

Basic deployment is recomm ended for organizations n eed simp le and lightw eight

access to the functions of BMC Event and Impact Managem ent. In a basic

deployment, no reporting capabilities exist and you cann ot benefit from th e BMCAtrium CMDB and associated integrations.A minimu m basic deployment relies on

the th ree core comp onen ts of BMC Imp act Solutions:

s BMC Impact Manager(IM)the event and service imp act engine

s BMC Impact Explorer(IX)the op eration an d adm inistration console

s BMC Impact Administration Server (IAS)the authentication/ auth orization

server for the users of the solution and the infrastructu re services for administering

the solution.

The BMC Portal and BMC Atrium CMDB are notpart of the basic deployment.

BMC Imp act Event Adap ters, BMC Imp act Integra tion for Web Services and other

impact integration comp onents can be used with the basic deployment.

Basic deployment has the following advantages:

s faster time-to-value

s less comp licated configura tion

s less hard ware requ ired

s Microsoft Wind ows, AIX, HP-UX, Solaris and Linu x are sup ported by all corecomponents

The basic deployment op tion does notprovide:

s publishing to the Impact Manager server(s)

s Impact Reporting and som e operational views (which requ ire BMC Impact Portal)

s BSM workflows

s out-of-the-box intelligent ticketing for Remedy Service Desk

s out-of-the-box BMC Remedy SLM integration

Standard deployment

Stand ard d eployment is recomm ended for organizations that:

s have or p lan to use BMC Performance Manager for application an d systems

management


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Atrium deployment


s need to report on their events and service imp acts

s use a third party rep ository for their service model data an d wan t to pu blish this

data in a controlled mann er using the BMC Publishing Server

The stand ard d eployment option includes:

s the components includ ed in the basic dep loyment

s BMC Portal, wh ich includ es:

BMC Impact Portal

BMC Publishing Server

s BMC Event and Impact Reporting

BMC Impact Portal allows you to u se BMC Event and Impact Reporting.

The BMC Atr ium CMDB is notpart of the stand ard d eployment.

The stand ard d eployment has the following advan tages:

s direct pu blish to the Impact Manager server(s)

s out -of-the-box rep orting

s Portal operational views

s BMC Performance Manager integra tion (when ap plicable)

s no need to activate and w ork in a controlled environment like the Atrium CMDB

The standard deployment does notprovide:

s BSM workflows


s out-of-the-box BMC Remedy SLM integration

Atrium deploymentThe Atrium dep loyment is recomm ended for organizations that wan t to benefit from

all the fun ctions an d integrations of BMC Event and Impact Managem ent. Customers

wh o will use the BMC Atrium CMDB as the main repository for their service mod els

shou ld u se Atrium deploym ent. The ability to integrate to BMC Service Level

Manager an d to create intelligent incidents in BMC Remed y Service desk also will

need to use the Atrium d eployment. The Atrium d eployment add s the BMC Atrium

CMDB to the comp onents included in the standard dep loyment.


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Atrium deployment


The Atrium d eployment includ es all the ad vantages of standard dep loyment plus the

following advan tages:

s Atrium CMDB pu blishing to the Impact Manager server(s)

s sup port for mu ltiple CI providers

s BSM workflows


s BMC Remedy SLM integration

The Atrium dep loyment is approp riate for larger BSM imp lementations w here the

skills and resources are more read ily available to hand le a CMDB and its workflow.


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Atrium deployment



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C h a p t e r 22BMC Impact Solutions architectureand components

This chapter introd uces the m ain compon ents of BMC Impa ct Solutions an d providesinformation on th eir intern al mechanisms in the following topics:

BMC Impact Solut ions architectur e and comp onen ts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

BMC Im pact Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Know led ge Base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Com ponents of a Know ledge Base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Imp act Administra tion Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Master or Stand ard BMC Imp act Adm inistration server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Imp act Administ ration cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Cen tra l Administ ration Con sole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Even t Adap ters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26BMC Impact Explorer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

BMC Impact Manager even t repository . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

StateBuild er . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

BMC Im pact In tegration Web Services Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

BMC Impact Portal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

BMC Im pact Service Mod el Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

BMC Atriu m CMDB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

BMC Im pact Publish ing Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

BMC Im pact In tegrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Integration for BMC Rem ed y Service Desk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

BMC Imp act Database Gatew ay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31BMC Event an d Imp act Rep ort ing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32


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BMC Impact Solutions architecture and components


BMC Impact Solutions architecture andcomponents

Figure 1 show s the BMC Impact Solutions and BMC Imp act Portal applications andthe related technologies that together deliver BMC Imp act Solutions service imp act

management and event management.

Figure 1 BMC Impact Solutions architecture

The produ cts, produ ct comp onents, and related technologies shown in Figure 1 ar e

described in br iefly in Table 1 on page 19 and in greater d etail later in th is chap ter.


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Table 1 briefly describes the BMC Impact Solutions comp onen ts and related

applications. The compon ents are described in more detail in subsequ ent sections of

this chapter.

Table 1 Service impact management and event management applications at a glance (part 1 of 2)

Application Function Description Product kit

BMC Impact Manager event and service

monitoring and

management

core server comp onent (also know n as th e cell)

that receives events from v arious sou rces,

processes, and stores these events based on th e

processing instru ctions in its Knowledge Base.

That pr odu ct can also store Service Mod el data

pu blished from th e Atrium CMDB or from other

sources; in su ch a case the KB decides wh ich

events to associate to wh ich service componen ts,

and d ynam ically re-comp utes the operational

state and th e priority of those compon ents

BMC Imp act

Solutions

BMC Imp act Explorer(BMC IX)

event and servicemanagement

operations

console

operations console used by IT staff to performevent and service man agemen t activities on

events from any n um ber of BMC Impact

Manager cells

BMC Imp actSolutions

BMC Imp act

Adm inistration Server

(BMC IAS)

authentication

an d

authorization

the au then tication server for BMC IX tha t

prov ides CLIs for m odifying configur ation files,

defines user grou ps, roles, and perm issions for

accessing an d u sing var ious BMC IX features. It

up dates cell-related information as cells are

add ed to or r emoved from its cell_info.list and

controls other BMC IX pr operties such as log

files, color schemes, and custom icons.

BMC Imp act

Solutions

BMC Imp act

Publishing Server

service mod el

distribution

sends service mod el data from BMC Atrium

CMDB or from other sou rces to BMC Imp act

Manager (cells) in transactional mod e

BMC Imp act

Solutions

BMC Imp act

Integration Web

Serv ices Server (BMC

IIWS)

adap ter for event

and data

interchange

integration app lication th at enables Web

Services typ e commu nications betw een external

progr ams an d BMC Imp act Manager (cells)

BMC Imp act

Solutions

BMC Imp act Event

Adapters (BMC IEA)

event collection application that converts data from event

sources (such as log files, Telnet sessions, or

SNMP) into BMC Impact Manager events

BMC Imp act

Solutions

BMC Imp act Event LogAdapter for Wind ows

(BMC IELA)

event collection application that converts events from aWindow s event log into BMC Impact Manager

events

BMC Imp actSolutions

HP OVO CI Adap ter impor ts HP OVO

device and group

information

mod ule that connects to an H P OVO server to

obtain device and grou p information (node

banks, etc.) stored there and impor t them into

the BMC Atrium CMDB or directly into BMC

Event Managem ent or Service Imp act

Management

BMC Imp act

Solutions


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Table 2 lists other ap plications that integrate w ith BMC Imp act Solutions.

BMC Imp act

Extensions for Atrium

CMDB / Notify

ARDBC p lug-in

integra te SIM

with the CMDB

defines th e SIM-specific classes and attribu tes in

the Comm on Data Model (CDM) and allows the

pu blishing server to be notified wh en changes

have been m ade to the service mod el in the

CMDB

BMC Imp act

Solutions

BMC Event and Impact

Reporting (BEIR)

event and service

management

reporting

web server app lication that pr odu ces Event and

Service Imp act reports for bu siness and technical

users

BMC Imp act

Solutions

BMC Im pa ct Service

Model Editor

service m odel

developm ent and

maintenance

grap hical editor that you u se to develop and

maintain Service Mod el data in BMC Atrium

CMDB before it gets pu blished to the BMC

Impact Manager (cells)

BMC

Performance

Manager

Portal

BMC Portal service

monitoring

infrastructure comp onent that provides comm on

services, such as au thentication, security, and a

common user interface, to BMC Imp act Portal

and other Portal modu les

BMC

Performance

Manager

Portal

BMC Datastore database embedded Oracle database referenced by BMC

Atrium CMDB. Referred to in p revious versions

as the Portal Database.

BMC

Performance

Manager

Portal

BMC Desktop Status

Indicator

service

monitoring

a desktop icon that you install on a comp uter to

receive real-time notification and information

about the op erational status of a specific

compon ent or group of comp onents (for

example, services)

BMC

Performance

Manager

Portal

BMC Atriu m

Configuration

Management Database

(BMC Atr ium CMDB)

d atastore d atabase ap plication th at stores IT asset,

configuration m anagem ent, and Service Model

data u sed by d ifferent BMC pr odu cts. It

provides a common schema, the Common Data

Mod el (CDM), to ensure the consistency of IT

data within th e BSM solution

BMC Atriu m

Shared

Components

(Included in

the BMC

Impact

Solution s kit)

BMC Remed y Action

Request System

datastore and

workflow engine

prov ides services and interfaces to the Atrium

CMDB (can also su pp ort other ap plications

outside of BMC SIM)

BMC Remed y

Action

Request

System

Table 1 Service impact management and event management applications at a glance (part 2 of 2)

Application Function Description Product kit


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BMC Impact Manager


The following sections d escribe each of the comp onen ts of BMC Imp act Solutions indetail.

BMC Impact Manager

One or more Impact Manager s (cells) are the heart of the BMC Imp act Solution. A cell

is the event-processing engine tha t receives, processes, stores, and forward s events. If

service imp act managemen t is implemented , the cell also associates the events with

the service mod el comp onen ts and calculates the comp onent s statu ses. This type ofcell is referred to as a service impact management cell. If service image management is

not imp lemented , then the cell is an event management cell.

An ind ividu al cell can prov ide local event man agement or function as part of a larger

d istribu ted n etwork of cells using event p ropagation. Netw orks of cells can be

organ ized to serve any bu siness hierarchy (such as geograp hical, fun ctional, or

organ izational) or configured to meet technical issues (such as netw ork or system

limitations).

Table 2 Other integrations

Product or productcomponent Functionality Description Product kit

BMC Imp act

Integration forPATROL

(BMC II for PATROL)

event

transformation

integration app lication th at transfers event

information generated by PATROL Agents toBMC Imp act Manager and discovers PATROL

Agents

BMC Imp act

Solutions

BMC Imp act

Integration for

PATROL Enterprise

Manager

(BMC II for PATROL

EM)

event and d ata

interchange

integration app lication th at enables the

synchronized, bid irectional interchan ge of

PATROL Enterp rise Manager alerts to BMC

Impact Manager and BMC Impact Manager

events to PATROL Enterprise Manager alerts

BMC Imp act

Solutions

Integra tion for BMC

Remed y Service Desk

(IBRSD)

event and d ata

interchange

integration ap plication tha t au tomatically

creates trouble tickets for selected events and

up dates the event or trou ble ticket wh en either is

modified

BMC Imp act

Solutions

BMC Imp act Database

GatewayBMC imp act

event d ata

exportation

app lication th at au tomatically exports events to

a d atabase, such as Sybase Ad apter Server

Enter prise, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, or IBM

DB2

BMC Imp act

Database

Gateway

BMC Imp act

Integration

Developer s Kit

software

development kit

developers kit that prov ides C progr amm ing

interfaces and web services interfaces for

developing ad ditional integrations

BMC Imp act

Integration

Developers

Kit


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Knowledge Base


The cell stores all events an d d ata in m emory as w ell as on d isk in close to real-time. It

run s either as a Wind ows service or as a UN IX daem on on sup ported platforms. A

cell can be configured for high availability by configuring a p rimary cell server and a

secondary cell server to be used for failover if the p rimary cell server fails. For m ore

information abou t high availability, see High availability cells on p age 77.

Event management cell functions

A basic event managem ent (EM) cell performs th e following functions:

s receives source event d ata from an ad apter , integra tion, another cell, API, or the

BMC Imp act Manager CLI

s analyzes and p rocesses events according to the event man agement ru les and

policies d efined in its Knowled ge Base

s respon ds to events by executing actions, as defined in scripts or p rogram s in its

Knowledge Base

s propagates selected events to specified d estinations (typically, other cells) and

up dates prop agated events when th ose events are changed at the event source or

event destination

s records the event operations performed on an event

Service impact management cell functionsA service impact mana gemen t (SIM) cell performs th e following fun ctions in ad d ition

to the event man agement functions:

s relates an event to the ap prop riate service mod el comp onent

s comp utes the status of service mod el comp onents and prop agates their status to

the related compon ents using the designated status compu tation m odels

Knowledge Base

A Know ledge Base (KB) defines the beha vior of a BMC Imp act Manager instan ce

(also referred to as a cell). KB classes define what informa tion is contained in each

event. KB rules define how the even ts are processed. You can m odify the KB to

customize its behavior in your environment.

The KB is similar to a script an d th e cell is the engine that ru ns the script.


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Components of a Knowledge Base


The KB is a comp iled collection of files, such as event p rocessing rules, class

definitions, and executables, organ ized in a d irectory stru cture. A KB is installed w ith

each BMC Imp act Manager. The KB files are loaded by a cell at start time. The

Knowledge Base instructs the cell how to format incoming event d ata, process

received even ts, and d isplay events in BMC Impact Explorer. Although man y KBs

can exist within a d istributed BMC Imp act Manager en vironm ent, each cell can beassociated with only one KB at a time.

During installation, a u nified KB that serves as a tem plate for all cell KBs is created for

the BMC Impact Manager cell. The u nified KB contains the default BMC Imp act

Manager Event Managemen t (EM) and Service Imp act Managemen t (SIM) KBs. The

un ified KB provides th e cell with the d ata d efinitions, data instances, collector

definitions, and ru les for a fully fun ctional environm ent in which to process events

and service comp onents. Any new cell you create will contain a u nified KB by

default.

Components of a Knowledge Base

An event m anagement KB includes the following:

s event classes define the typ es of events to accept and classify source event d ata for

processing

s data classes define the classes and slots of dynam ic data instances and service mod el

comp onent instances

s dynamic data function as contextua l variables that can p rovide data values to rules

and policies d uring event p rocessing.

s global records are p ersistent structured global variables that m aintain data values

across all ph ases of event processing.

s event management rules are event p rocessing statements that u se the BAROC data

associated with an event, data instances or records to determine if, when, and how

to respond to new events or event m odifications.

s event management policies are one of several generic ru le types that p erform actions

against even ts tha t m eet selection criteria sp ecified in an associated event selector.

An event man agement p olicy selects the events that you wan t to p rocess, defines

the processes needed to m anage those events, and sched ules when the events are

processed.

s event collectors are filters that q uery th e event rep ository and display the resu lts in a

BMC Impact Manager event list in an organ ized man ner.


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Impact Administration Server


s action executables are executable program s or scripts that perform an autom ated

task on a particular event.

In ad dition, a service impact man agemen t (SIM) KB also includ es a reference copy of

s the BMC Atrium CMDB (Configuration Management Database) Common DataMod el (CDM) Service class definitions u sed in a cells service model

s a cells service mod el, pu blished by a BMC Imp act Publishing Server

Impact Administration Server

The BMC Imp act Adm inistration server (IAS) provides the follow ing functionality:

s au thent icates logins from the BMC Imp act Explorer to the BMC Imp act Manager

cell

s au then ticates cell registration to the BMC Imp act Portal

s defines user grou ps an d r oles and their permissions to view and edit the BMC

Imp act Explorer tab views and fun ctions

s receives the synchronization actions of the BMC Portal for users and grou ps

s up dates cell-related information as cells are add ed to or removed from the IASand/ or BMC Atrium CMDB

s controls log files

s determines the BMC IX color schem e for severities, statuses, and pr iorities

The Impact Adm inistration Server (IAS) primarily acts as a login server. Users of

BMC Imp act Explorer (IX) auth enticate on IAS, wh ich r eturn s a set of au thorizations

that d etermine the rights and perm issions of users in the BMC Imp act Solutions

environmen t. IAS maintains user, grou p an d cell definitions, perm issions, as well as

user settings. A unique comm and line interface called iadmin provides all required

man agement comm and s. IAS can integrate into a LDAP server on the backend that

can sup ply u ser definitions.

The BMC Imp act Adm inistration server can be configured as a high availability

server. IAS instances can be configured to work in a failover p air, where a p rimary

server normally acts as the active IAS server and a secondary server, typically

installed on another system, is started bu t in standby mod e.


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Master or Standard BMC Impact Administration server


In norm al operations, u sers of BMC Imp act Explorer log in to the p rimary IAS, and

retrieve and store configuration information on the p rimary IAS. Periodically the

second ary IAS server connects to the primary and synchron izes with it, so that it

always h as a recent set of da ta. In case the pr imary IAS server becomes u navailable,

the secondary IAS server can be used by BMC Imp act Explorer users so that their

ability to work is not disrup ted.

For more information see theBMC Impact Solutions Infrastructure Administration Guide.

Master or Standard BMC Impact Administration server

You can select a Master or Stand ard IAS at installation. A Master IAS enables the

Infrastru cture Management feature in BMC Impact Explorer and installs an

accomp anying Impa ct Administration cell (IAC) on th e same host as the Master IAS.

A Stand ard IAS provides all the featu res of the IAS, except sup port for Infrastructu re

Management and the Impact Ad ministration cell.

Impact Administration cell

The Imp act Adm inistration cell (IAC) is an essential comp onen t of the Master version

of the Imp act Ad ministration Server (IAS). The IAC is a custom SIM cell that is

installed au tomatically and self-maintained . Its default cell instan ce name is Admin

and it contains a sp ecialized Know ledge Base. This cell accepts registration,

configuration, and other events from BMC prod uct components and app lications. It

then creates the componen t definitions based on the even t information. It also uses

these events to m aintain a service mod el of the BMC Imp act Solutions, complete w ith

configuration and real-status information.


NOTE

To switch from a Master IAS to a Standar d IAS or vice versa after installation, you mu st

un install the existing server and then install the new server.


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Central Administration Console


Central Administration Console

The Central Administration Con sole (CAC) is a front-end console includ ed in th e

Admin istration tab of BMC Imp act Explorer. This console shows the service mod el

created by the Impa ct Ad ministration cell (IAC) and provides ad ministrators w ith theability to:

s stop/ start a component

s ed it configuration files

s view trace files

s create sup port p ackages

s view m etrics and other configuration data

All these command s can be executed remotely from BMC Imp act Explorer and

ad ministrators w ill be required to enter credentials to access the compu ter system onwh ich these command s need to run.


Event Adapters

Event Adap ters read or m onitor external event sources from IT assets, format the

collected information as BMC Impact Manager even ts, and send th ese events to the

configured BMC Imp act Manager cell.

BMC Impact Manager p rovides the following Ad apter grou ps:

s BMC Imp act Event Log Ad ap ter for Windows, w hich collects source events from

the Wind ows Event Log

s BMC Impact Event Ad ap ters (BMC IEA):

LogFile Adap ter

SNMP Adapter Perl EventLog Adap ter for Window s

IP Adapters

BMC Impact Event Adap ters are imp lemented in Perl. The ad apters ru n as

backgroun d processes and generate self-mon itoring events that can be viewed in

BMC Impact Explorer.


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BMC Impact Explorer


BMC Impact Explorer

BMC Imp act Explorer (BMC IX) is the console used by IT operat ions staff to

s man age and monitor eventss monitor services and comp onent status

s man age event man agement p olicies and BMC Impact Manager configuration d ata

BMC IX is a Java app lication that you can install either as a stan da lone application or

as a web app lication that is available throu gh th e BMC Impact Portal. BMC IX

connects to the BMC Imp act Adm inistration Server for auth entication an d

au thorization. After su ccessful auth entication, th e BMC IX d irectly connects to select

BMC Imp act Manager instan ces. BMC Imp act Explorer consists of the following

views:

BMC Impact Manager event repository

After a cell receives and processes an even t, it stores the even t in the event r epository

as an instance of a particular event class. All events are held in mem ory and can be

viewed in BMC Impact Explorer. The event rep ository provid es persistent storage on

disk for events and data instances, includ ing service model comp onents and

relationships.

StateBuilder

StateBuilder is an executable that ensures optimized data persistency by saving the

state of the cell at regu lar intervals. When the cell starts, it loads its last saved state.

All transactions performed by the cell are stored in a tran saction file. As soon as the

transaction file reaches a certain size, or after a certain p eriod, th e StateBuilder is

Table 3 BMC Impact Explorer views

View Description

Ev en ts Use th is v iew to mon itor an d ma nage ev en ts receiv ed fr om IT com p on en ts.

Adm inistration Use this view to define event management policies and to define dynamic

data instances for use in event manag ement ru les.

Services Use this view to monitor service m od el.

Dashboards Use this view to monitor and detect problems in the most important

services and prioritize actions.


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BMC Impact Integration Web Services Server


started . The StateBuilder p rod uces a new saved state from the p revious file and from

the transaction file. When the cell terminates and restarts, any tr ailing tr ansaction file

is first processed by th e StateBuilder to pr odu ce a new saved sta te. A history of saved

states and correspond ing transaction files can be kept.

BMC Impact Integration Web Services Server

The BMC Impact Integra tion Web Services Server (BMC II Web Services Server)

provides a loosely coupled interface based on w eb services. You can use th is interface

for exchan ging events an d information with BMC Impact Manager. BMC

Performan ce Manager, for examp le, uses BMC II Web Services Server to send events

to BMC Imp act Manager.

The BMC II Web Services Server is installed au tomatically wh en you install the BMCImpact Adm inistration server comp onen t of the BMC Impact Solutions installation

package.

BMC Impact Portal

The BMC Impact Portal provid es a browser-based console throu gh w hich users can

monitor and report on the status of business services and their comp onents. The BMC

Impact Portal provides

s Statusthe cur rent statu s of a business service and its providers, consum ers, and

image.

The status of service mod el comp onents can be d isplayed in a tabular d ata view, in

an image view that shows compon ents on a backgroun d image, or in a d ashboard

view that show s comp onents in a list.

s Reports for service mod el comp onen ts:

s

Status History

Availability

Mean Time To Repair (MTTR)

Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)

Mean Time Betw een Service Inciden ts (MTBSI)

Finan cial Losses

s Eventsimp act events for business objects.


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BMC Impact Service Model Editor


s Configurationthe ability to view and change bu siness object proper ties, change

passw ords, create dash boards, change image views, and launch BMC Impact

Explorer and BMC Imp act Service Model Editor.

The BMC Imp act Portal is includ ed w ith the BMC Portal prod uct. The BMC Portal

product provides a comm on w eb-based interface for BMC console mod ules. Eachconsole mod ule, such as BMC Impact Portal, provides pr ogram s that integrate with

the Portal and other console mod ules in the Portal. The integrat ion of the data

collected by th e console mod ules provides a single custom izable entry p oint for

viewing the status, performan ce, and availability of the infrastructu re and bu siness

service environment.

BMC Impact Service Model Editor

In the BMC Impact Service Model Editor comp onent of the BMC Imp act Portal, a

service manager d efines the service model componen ts that sym bolize the real IT

assets that u nd erlie the d elivery of services, such as app lications, servers, and

databases; and the logical assets, such as u ser groups, business p rocesses, and

geograp hic locations. The default BMC Atrium CMDB Comm on Data Model (CDM)

provides the d efau lt componen t types used by the BMC Impact Service Model Ed itor.

BMC Atrium CMDB

The BMC Atrium CMDB is a data base store of configuration inform ation abou t IT

configuration items (CIs) and assets. It can be extend ed th rou gh an API to consolidate

and reconcile add itional sou rces of data, but initially it is defined for configuration

information.

The BMC Atrium CMDB is a Remed y ap plication that ru ns on top of the BMC

Remedy Action Request System server, wh ich conn ects to an RDBMS system on th e

backend . For ad d itional information on its architecture, see theBMC Atrium CMDB

Concepts and Best Practices.

The BMC Atr ium CMDB contains just the facts about the configuration of assets in

your environm ent. It does not contain real-time event information, performance

ind icators, or health state information.

You can use the BMC Atrium CMDB to store comp onent an d service model

information w hen you use the Service Model Editor to edit the service mod el.

In the context of BMC Imp act Solutions, the BMC Atrium CMDB offers th e following

advantages:


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BMC Impact Publishing Server


s comp onents and relationships m aking up the service imp act model are stored in

the CMDB. Components and relationships can be automatically populatedfor

examp le from BMC Discovery Solutions or p rod ucts.

s A full graph ical editor (Service Mod el Editor) can be used to view an d edit the

service mod el in th e CMDB before it is pu blished to BMC Imp act Manager cells.

s The CMDB is the found ation for other app lications su ch as Remed y Service Desk

and therefore acts as a natu ral integration point betw een BMC Impact Solutions

and other CMDB-based solutions, such as Remed y Service Desk and Remedy SLM.

BMC Impact Publishing Server

The BMC Imp act Publishing Server is an ap plication that publishes a service model tospecified BMC Impact Managers (cells). The Publishing Server

s triggers an au tomated p ub lish of SIM data from the BMC Atriu m CMDB to cells

when any reconciliation job terminates

s pu blishes the BMC Atrium CMDB asset service mod el data to cells on dem and

s stores a master copy of the pu blished service mod el for service models that

originate from the BMC Atrium CMDB in the imp act data set

s pu blishes d ata from a BAROC sou rce file to cells on d eman d

s exports the class definitions on deman d to BAROC files that are r eady for

d istribution to the BMC Imp act Manager cells


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BMC Impact Integrations


BMC Impact Integrations

Impact integrations are specialized gateways to other management systems. These

Impact Integrations are available

s Integration for BMC Remedy Service Desk (IBRSD)

s BMC Imp act Database Gateway

s BMC Imp act Integration for PATROL

s BMC Imp act Integration for PATROL 7

s BMC Imp act Integration for PATROL Enterprise Manager

s BMC Impact Integration for Tivoli

s BMC Imp act Integra tion for HP OpenView Network N ode Manager

s BMC Imp act Integra tion for HP OpenView Operations

s BMC Impact Integration for Peregrine Systems ServiceCenter

The imp lementa tion of an Imp act Integration varies accord ing to the third-par ty

prod uct that is integrated. H owever, all Impact Integrations use the Imp act Manager

SDK (iiDK), w hich p rovides a C API to conn ect to the BMC Imp act Manager (as a

client or server).

Integration for BMC Remedy Service Desk

The Integration for BMC Remed y Service Desk (IBRSD) enables bid irectional flow of

information between BMC Service Impact Manager (BMC SIM) or BMC Event

Mana ger (BEM) and BMC Remed y Service Desk. This compon ent ad ds business

context to the incident by providing th e details of the imp acted comp onent and the

causal comp onent in the incident.

BMC Impact Database Gateway

The BMC Database Gatew ay (BMC IDG) prod uct stores even ts in an external RDBMSdatabase for archiving and reporting pu rposes. It is a gateway app lication for BMC

Impact Manager. Whenever State Builder runs, the BMC IDG is configured to execute

a d edicated script th at stores events (and u pd ates to events) in a d edicated d atabase

instance.


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BMC Event and Impact Reporting


BMC Event and Impact Reporting

BMC Event and Impact Reporting u ses report temp lates to d isplay report data for

events and service model comp onents in your service impact man agement

environment. BMC Event and Impact Reporting contains imp act rep ort temp latesand event report templates.

s Imp act report temp lates allow for reports that d isplay data based on a services

availability, failures, repairs and incidents, and time related to each.

s Event rep ort templates allow for reports that display operator response times to an

event, event coun ts, top event sou rces, and other event d etails.

Data for impact report temp lates and event report temp lates is obtained from the

BMC Datastore.

BMC Event and Impact Reporting is installed w ith BMC Reporting Foundation

Express, which p rovides th e base on w hich BMC Reporting Solutions are bu ilt. BMC

Reporting Foundation Express is a p rerequ isite for BMC Reporting solu tion sets.

Reporting Found ation Express is the Crystal Report s Server p rod uct from Business

Objects, a third p arty bu siness intelligence system, and is the reporting eng ine that

adm inisters and p ublishes the reports.


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C h a p t e r 33Event Management

This chap ter presents the following top ics:

Wh at is event management?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Defining events u sing the Common Event Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

How an even t flows through BMC Impact Solu tions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

How events ar e collected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Even t classification and form att ing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Even t p rocessing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Viewing an d organizing even ts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Even t collector s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

MetaCollectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Even t grou ps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Image view s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Perform ing op erat ions and actions on even ts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54


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What is event management?


What is event management?

Event managem ent is the collection, correlation, enrichment, and manipu lation of

events across the enterp rise to enable IT opera tions staff to focus th e prop er resources

on the m ost critical events. Event man agement is required to implemen t serviceimpact man agement because events are associated w ith service mod el comp onents

and contribute to the comp utation of the status of those comp onents.

The BMC Event Man ager solution

s collects events from IT comp onents and other event m anagement systems through

its event ad ap ters and other BMC Software ap plication-specific integration

products

s processes events to enable faster prob lem detection and resolution in BMC Impact

Mana ger cells

s au tomates managemen t and corrective actions in the BMC Impact Explorer

console

s displays events in logical grou ps an d graph ical image views in the BMC Impact

Explorer console

s integrates with help desk and notification applications

Defining events using the Common EventModel

A Com mon Event Mod el (CEM) enables a consistent definition of an event. This

definition specifies the format and the data, both of which each event shou ld contain.

The event should contain the sam e format and data, regardless of its originating

source.

By ma pp ing all event sources to CEM d efinitions, you significantly redu ce theoverhead of managing and maintaining an event managemen t solution.

CEM definitions p rovide a single set of ru les that w ork w ith all events. Because of the

common set of ru les, you can bu ild an d m aintain integration clients more easily than

if you had to customize event ru les. An integra tion client that u ses CEM d efinitions

has th e following ad vantages.

s Reporting is standard ized. A single report temp late work with an y event,

regard less of its source.


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How an event flows through BMC Impact Solutions


s Event enrichment and correlation ru les are simp lified. For examp le, one

enrichm ent ru le works w ith any event that is CEM-comp liant.

s Slot nam es have comm on d efinition and uses.

s You can easily map IT events w ith business imp acts. The CEM event formatconsist of defau lt and optiona l fields that let you sp ecify

s event type

s CEM version

s origin information

s dom ain information

s object information

s managem ent pr ocesses such as availability, sched uling, and so forth

s parameters

How an event flows through BMC ImpactSolutions

The following sections explain the process an even t goes throu gh from th e time it is

generated un til the event is viewable in the BMC Imp act Explorer console.

How events are collected

BMC Imp act Manager collects and processes two types of eventsexterna l and

internal.

How external events are collected

External events are events tha t are generated by objects mon itored by BMC ImpactManager tha t are not p art of BMC Imp act Solutions. For examp le, external event

sources could be servers, app lications, or periph erals.

BMC Impact Manager collects external source event d ata from these event sources

through

s event adapters

s integration prod ucts


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How events are collected


Event adap ters and integrations both p repare the source event d ata and convert the

events into Basic Recorder of Objects in C (BAROC) language format for processing

by the BMC Impact Manager event p rocessor.

How external events are collected using event adapters

Using BMC Impact Event Ad ap ters or BMC Impact Event Log Adapter for Windows,

source event da ta can be collected from

s operating system an d ap plication log files

s SNMP typ e 1 and type 2 traps

s a Telnet, UDP, or TCP data sou rce

Event ad apters are installed on the event source. When the event adap ter receives an

event from the event source, the event adap ter formats the source event data for

processing by the BMC Imp act Manager event p rocessor by using a MAP file toconvert the event data to the BAROC langu age. The ad apters h ave pred efined

instances that also p rovide collectors for organ izing events in th e BMC Imp act

Explorer Events View.

The default MAP file includ ed w ith the event adap ters is map ped to the d efault

BAROC classes tha t ar e available in the BMC Imp act Mana gers Know ledge Base.

You can mod ify the p redefined adap ters and event classes, and can d efine and

implement their ow n event adap ters. If you make an y m odifications to th e event

ad apter MAP file, you m ust make correspon ding changes to the BAROC classes in

the Know ledge Base.

After the event has been formatted in BAROC, it is passed to th e BMC Imp act

Manager.

For m ore information on event ad apters, see theBMC Impact Solutions Event Adapters

User Guide.

How external events are collected using integration applications

Integration applications collect events from other event management products.

Integration app lications are installed on th e same host as the monitored ap plication.

BMC Impact Solutions p rovides the following out-of-the-box integration

applications:

s BMC Impact Integration for PATROL (BMC II for PATROL)

s BMC Imp act Integration for PATROL Enterp rise Manager (BMC II for PATROL EM)

Using these integration ap plications, BMC Imp act Manager can accept events (or

alerts) that h ave alread y been p rocessed by PATROL or PATROL Enterp rise

Manager.


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Event classification and formatting


BMC prov ides other integration ap plications that are sold separately, such as

s BMC Impact Integration for Tivoli

s BMC Impact Integration for HP Op enView N etwork N ode Man ager

s BMC Impact Integration for HP OpenView Op erations

s BMC Impact Integration for Peregrine Systems ServiceCenter

s BMC Impact Integration for z/ OS

Using these integration app lications, BMC Imp act Manager can accept even ts from

any of these third-party p rodu cts. For m ore information about integration p rodu cts,

see the docum entation for each specific integra tion prod uct.

If you w ant to collect events from an ap p lication tha t does not h ave an existing

integration p rod uct, you can u se the BMC Imp act Integra tion Developers Kit to

develop a custom solution to obtain sou rce event d ata from an IT application or

infrastructure mon itoring solution. The BMC Imp act Integra tion Developers Kitprov ides C program ming interfaces and web services interfaces for developing ad ditional

integrations. For more information about th e BMC Impa ct Integration Developers Kit,

see theBMC Impact Integration Developers Kit C API Developer Guide.

How internal events are collected

Internal events are events genera ted by th e BMC Impact Manager cell. In ad dition to

error rep orting events, internal events include even ts about th e operation of the cell

(for examp le, cell start and stop , state bu ilder triggering, event database cleanu p,

resource expan sion an d shrinkage). The action resu lt event that is generated w hen anaction is performed on an event is also considered to be an intern al event.

Because internal events are gen erated by the BMC Imp act Manager cell, that are

generated in BAROC format. Intern al events are classified in the sam e way as

external events ar e classified before they are processed.


The event source (an even t adapter, an integra tion app lication, anoth er BMC Impact

Mana ger -cell, an API, or a BMC Imp act Manager CLI) mu st prov ide events in th e

BAROC format and structu re. The BMC Imp act Manager accepts and p rocesses an

incoming even t if it matches an event class definition in the Know ledge Base (KB).

The following sections explain how event classes are structured and how the

Knowledge Base uses even t classes to classify and format incoming events.


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How event classes are structured

An event class defines the typ es of events th at the BMC Imp act Manager w ill accept

and classifies source event d ata for processing. For examp le, one class of event m ight

be Microsoft Wind ows operating system events. That even t class has several

subclasses: application even ts, secur ity events, and system even ts. Each event su bclass

represents a common type of event that occurs, such as a network logon, that contains

varying data values, such as a time stamp and the nam e of the host on w hich the

logon occurred. The varying d ata values from a source event are stored in data fields

called slots (attributes). An actual event is an instance of an even t class.

Using the BAROC langu age, you d efine each event class and its slots. Each slot has a

da ta type an d can h ave specific attributes, calledfacets, that can control the values tha t

the slot can h ave or control aspects of the events p rocessing. Slot enumerations specify

acceptab le values for a par ticular slot.

You can think of a class definition as an em pty form w ith its inpu t fields representing

slots, and a class instance as a comp leted form. A valid instance must respect slot

types, and if some slot valu es are not sp ecified, they are imp licitly set to their defau lt

values, which are inherited from the p arent class.

The following examp le illustr ates the event class structure for Wind ows Event Log

classes:

Class: CORE_EVENT

Class: EVENT

Class: MC_ADAPTER_BASE

Class: WIN_EVENTLOG

Class: WIN_EL_APPLICATION

Class: WIN_EL_SECURITY

Class: WIN_EL_SYSTEM


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The following show s the same examp le with some of the slots defined for these

classes:

In th is examp le, a WIN_EL_APPLICATION event defines mc_tool as Application.

Because WIN_EL_APPLICATION is a su b-class of WIN_EVENTLOG, it inherits the

mc_tool_class slot definition ofWINEventLog .

WIN_EL_APPLICATION also inherits mc_client_address from the CORE_EVENT

class. mc_client_addr ess contains the network addr ess of the host of the ad ap ter that

sent the event.

By comparison , a WIN_EL_SECURITY even t d efines mc_tool as Security; however, it

inherits the sam e values for mc_tool_class and mc_client_add ress as a

WIN_EL_APPLICATION event.

Event classes and their syntax are described in theBMC Impact Solutions Knowledge

Base Reference Guide.

Class inheritance

BAROC class d efinitions are organ ized in a hierarchical system w here existing classes

(superclasses) can be assigned subclasses so that the subclasses autom atically inh erit

definitions from th ese sup erclasses. This behavior is called inheritance.

While a subclass inher its all the slot d efinitions of the su perclass, it can also contain

ad ditional new slot definitions of its own, and even slot definitions that overr ide a

sup erclass slot definition. How ever, when a subclass slot overrides a su perclass slot

definition, it cann ot have a d ifferent data type from th e inherited slot, only different

facet va lues.

Also, a ru le defined for a class app lies to all instances of its subclasses. For examp le, a

ru le defined for th e base even t class, EVENT, applies to all events because all event

classes are su bclasses of EVENT.

Class: CORE_EVENT - Flags: p

Slot: mc_client_address - Type: STRING - Flags: rkpdh - Def:

Class: EVENTClass: MC_ADAPTER_BASE

Class: WIN_EVENTLOG

Slot: mc_tool_class - Type: STRING - Flags: rkPDh - Def: WINEventLog

Class: WIN_EL_APPLICATION

Slot: mc_tool - Type: STRING - Flags: rkPdh - Def: Application

Class: WIN_EL_SECURITY

Slot: mc_tool - Type: STRING - Flags: rkPdh - Def: Security

Class: WIN_EL_SYSTEM

Slot: mc_tool - Type: STRING - Flags: rkPdh - Def: System


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In sum mary, su bclasses

s inherit slots from sup erclasses

s inherit rules from su perclasses

s can have their ow n slots

s can override sup erclass slots (but m ust contain the sam e data type)

s can be a subclass of only one class

How the Knowledge Base classifies incoming events

When the event is collected by the BMC Imp act Manager, the BMC Imp act Manager

compares the incoming event to the pred efined even t classes in the Know ledge Base

to determine the event typ e of the incoming event and validate th e event.

If an incoming even t does not m atch one the p redefined event classes, BMC Impa ctManager takes one of the following actions:

s If the event d oes not match any of the p redefined events in the KB at all, an intern al

event in the form of an error message is generated and the event is stored as an

MC_CELL_UNDEFINED_CLASS event w ith a MINOR sever ity and a slot,

class_name, containing the original, incorrect event class.

s If the even t is of a class that matches one of the p redefined event classes, bu t

contains un defined even t slot(s), the event is generated an d continu es to

processing, bu t incorrect slot name(s) are stored in th e mc_bad_slot_nam es slot

and the corresponding value(s) are stored in the mc_bad _slot_values slot.

s If the even t has slot(s) that conta in value(s) that cannot be in terpreted (for example,

alph abetical string da ta in an integer slot), the d efault slot value(s) are u sed, the

incorrect slot nam e(s) are stored in the m c_bad _slot_names slot, and the va lue(s) of

the incorrect slot(s) are stored in the mc_bad_slot_values slot.

s If an event cannot be parsed, an internal MC_CELL_PARSE_ERROR event is

created containing th e text for that even t stored in the event_text slot. The

MC_CELL_PARSE_ERROR even t also uses error_line, error_colum n an d

error_messages slots to ind icate the position in text wh ere the error occur s and the

parsing er ror message. The MC_CELL_PARSE_ERROR event h as a defau ltseverity of MINOR.

Interface classes

Interface classes are used to interface with external pr ogram s. They define the format

of data that comes from the external sour ce, allow ing the external information to be

used in a rule. The external program retur ns an INTERFACE instance that it writes to

the ru le that called the external program.


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Event processing


Event processing

Once events are collected an d form atted , they are processed by the BMC Impact

Manager ru les engine. You can control how incoming even ts are processed using

either rules or event management policies.

Rules

Rules are processing statem ents that d etermine an d control the behavior of cells. A

rule determines if and how events are p rocessed. Rules consist of a set of statemen ts

that evaluate w hether or not an event is processed. If the event is to be processed the

rule can includ e an event man agement function or action to perform, such as

d iscard ing the event, enriching the event d ata, autom atically escalating an even t, or

au tomatically executing an action on the event. You w rite rules using the Ma ster Rule

Language (MRL). Rules are comp iled and stored in the cells KB. Rules and ru le

syntax are described in theBMC Impact Solutions Event Management Guide.

Event management policies

An event management policy is one of several generic rule types that p erform actions

against even ts that m eet selection criteria specified in an associated event selector. An

event m anagement policy selects the events th at you wan t to p rocess, defines the

processes needed to m anage those events, and schedu les wh en the events are

processed.

Event man agement policies can be defined interactively using p redefined , out-of-the-

box policy typ es accessed th rough th e BMC Imp act Explorer Ad ministrator in terface

of the BMC Imp act Explorer console or th e Event Managem ent Policy Editor. You can

also create new u ser-defined p olicy types to add n ew even t processing actions.

Wheth er pred efined or u ser-defined , all event management policies consist of

s event selector

s process(es)

s timeframe(s)

s evaluation ord er

How an event management policy differs from a rule

Like a ru le, an event man agement p olicy processes events and performs event

management.


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Event processing


How ever, unlike rules, an event m anagement policy

s is easily defined interactively through th e BMC Imp act Explorer Ad ministrator

interface of the BMC Imp act Explorer console rather than being m anu ally written

in MRL.

s uses an event selector by wh ich you specify the criteria used to select events for

processing by th e policy. The event selector allows you to sp ecify a num ber of

events that meet selection criteria. This gives the event policy greater flexibility

than a ru le.

s does n ot require comp ilation because it is imp lemented using p redefined data

classes and precompiled ru les.

When to use an event management policy rather than a

rule

Use a policy if there is a fairly simple, routine action that you would like to app ly to

many events.

If some comp lex event m anipulation is requ ired that is specific to a small subset of

events, a rule w ritten in MRL may be m ore app ropriate

In some cases, a rule can provide better p erformance than its event m anagement

policy equ ivalent. If an even t man agement policy gives problematic per formance,

substitu ting an equ ivalent rule might rectify the perform ance issue.

How events are processed using rules

Rules are associated w ith a specific rule phase based on their type; each ph ase

represents a logical stage of event processing. The cell processes each incoming event

one ph ase at a time and evaluates each event against one rule at a time. Internal

events are alw ays p rocessed before external events. The order in w hich the cell

evaluates events against rules is determined by the ord er in wh ich the ru les w ere

loaded . For information abou t configuring the ord er in which rules are loaded, see

th eBMC Impact Solutions Event Management Guide.

Figure 2 on page 43 identifies the rule ph ases and sh ows h ow event processing

proceeds, an d Table 4 on page 43describes the phases.


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Event processing


Figure 2 Event processing rule phases

Table 4 BMC Impact Manager rule phases (part 1 of 2)

# Rule phase Description

1 Refine validates incoming events and , if necessary, collects add itional data needed before the event

is processed further

2 Filter identifies events that should be discarded

2 Regulate evaluates events, and , if evaluated as tru e, collects dup licate events for a time period.

If a specified thr eshold of d up licates is reached, th e Regulate p hase p asses an event to thenext processing p hase.

4 New determines wh ich events in the event repository should be up dated with new information

from new incoming events

During this phase:

s actions are triggered th at mu st be performed just before a new event comes in

s previously received events are upd ated, and th e new event optionally may be dropp ed

Note: This is the last opp ortun ity to prevent an event from en tering the event repository.

Propagate

Filter

Regulate

Abstract The New, Abstract,

Correlate, andExecute rulephases can triggera Timer rule.

Delete rules executewhen a record isremoved duringrepository cleanup.

89

5

3

2

1

Refine

Event

Delete11

Timer10

Repository

New4

An event can bediscarded during anyone of these phasesbefore being addedto the repository.

Threshold88

Execute7

Correlate6

to other cells


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Event processing


Rule phase processing overview

The cell uses a m ain loop tha t starts tran sactions for each triggering event, such as:

s a new incoming event

s modification of a slot by a client (such as IX, or the mp oster or m setmsg CLIs) or

the p ropagation of this modification from an other cell

s a timer expiration (by timer ru le unless it is part of a regu late rule)

s end of a process called by get_external or confirm_external p rimitive

s cleanup

When each of these tran sactions occur , all app licable ru les are executed in th e order

of the phases (as shown in Figure 2 on page 43), then in ord er of definition inside each

phase.

Starting at the N ew p hase:

s every slot mod ification to the curren t event or other existing events are logged in a

first-in, first-ou t queu e

s abstraction events created by the abstraction rules are stored in another queu e

s internal events genera ted by the genera te_event() pr imitive are put in anoth er first-

in, first-out qu eue

5 Abstract evaluates events, and, if certain cond itions are met, triggers the generation of abstraction

events.

An abstraction event is a sum mary even t based on other even ts that are occurring.

6 Correlate determines whether any events have a cause-and-effect relationship

7 Execute specifies actions to perform wh en a slot of a new event matches a condition, or a slot of an

old event is mod ified to satisfy a cond ition

8 Threshold specifies the actions that must be performed w hen a certain nu mber of dup licate events have

been received over a certain time period

9 Propag ate determ ines wh ether an event is forward ed to anoth er cell or integration prod uct

10 Timer specifies act ions to be executed when a t imer has expired.

A timer can be set in th e N ew, Abstract, Correlate, Execute, Threshold a nd Delete ph ases.

11 Delete triggers actions to ensure that data integrity is maintained when an event is deleted from the

event repository dur ing the cleanup p rocess

Table 4 BMC Impact Manager rule phases (part 2 of 2)

# Rule phase Description


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Event processing


When all the rules have been evaluated the queue slot mod ifications are processed

(triggering the when parts of the ru les). During this processing, slot mod ifications and

internal events continue to be add ed to the qu eues.

When the slot mod ification qu eue is empty, the abstraction even ts are processed

starting d irectly at the new ph ase. When all abstraction events have been processed,the internal event queu e is processed.

When all intern al events hav e been processed, the processing continu es with the next

transaction in the m ain loop.

Rule phase processing details

Each incoming event's pr ocessing begins with the Refine ph ase. A Refine p hase ru le

allows the ru le engine to start an external p rogram to confirm the even t or to obtain

more information from the environmen t. The p rocessing of this event is susp ended

un til the external program return s its results. The ru le engine is not idle because it

processes other events in th e m eantime.

After the Refine ph ase, the incoming event enters the Filter phase wh ere it can be

d iscard ed if it does not meet the requ irements for processing. If the event is discarded

in the Filter ph ase, it is not stored in the even t repository, so it cannot be a ccessed by

any futu re pr ocesses that rely on th e event repository.

The Regulate ru le phase, like the Refine phase, can susp end the evalua tion process

while it waits for events similar to those held to app ear before a time window closes.

Depend ing on the rules and circumstances, the event is then d iscarded or it continues

the evaluation process throu gh th e remaining ru les.

The New ph ase is the last in w hich th e rule engine can d iscard an incoming event

without its entering the event rep ository. After this phase, an event can be drop ped

only if it is explicitly deleted or d iscard ed d ur ing the cleanup process.

The event then goes throu gh th e final p hases, Abstract, Correlate, Execute, Threshold ,

and Propagate, in tha t ord er, if any ru les have been d efined for those phases.

Abstract ru les can be u sed to create high-level, or abstract, events based on low-level

even ts, such as a SERVERS_LOGIN_ATTACK event based on certa in

LOGIN_FAILURE event s.

NOTE

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