CA Alert Monitor

The SiteScope CA Alert Monitor allows you to integrate an existing CA Unicenter installation with Mercury Interactive's Topaz by transferring CA Unicenter events to a Topaz server.

This monitor makes use of Mercury-supplied integration module (called an Addon) that must be installed on the CA Unicenter Event Management server. Once the SiteScope CA Alert Monitor is configured and running, it collects events from CA Unicenter server as these are posted to the Unicenter log, and transfers the alerts to the Topaz server via SiteScope.

Usage Guidelines

The following are important guidelines and requirements for using the CA Alert Monitor.

Operating Environment

The SiteScope CA Alert Monitor depends on a Mercury Interactive CA Integration Addon module to collect events from the CA Unicenter server. The Addon, when installed on the CA Unicenter server machine, listens to events received by the CA Unicenter system. The CA Alert Monitor, installed on a SiteScope or other agent machine, transfers the event data to a Topaz server. The Addon and the monitor communicate using TCP/IP networking (using a customizable TCP port).

CA Integration Installation

The following is an outline of the steps you use for the CA Integration Installation Process:

Install and configure the CA Integration Addon on the CA Unicenter server
Activate the CA Integration Addon
Activate the CA Alert Monitor

See the section Working with the CA Integration Addon below for more information about installing, activating, and configuring the Integration Addon.

Status

The status reading returned by the monitor is the current value of the monitor, such as Received 10 events since the last update. The status is logged as either OK, warning, or error. A warning status is returned if no addon is connected to the monitor. The status can be configured further using the Advanced Options in the CA Alert Monitor Configuration Form.

Completing the CA Alert Monitor Form

To display the CA Alert Monitor Form, either click the name of an existing Network Monitor in a monitor table, or click the Add a new Monitor to this Group link on a group's detail page and choose the Add CA Alert Monitor link.

Complete the items on the CA Alert Monitor Form as follows. When the required items are complete, click the Add/Update Monitor button.

Update Every

Select how often the monitor will update its events counter. The default interval is to run or update the monitor once every 10 minutes. Use the drop-down list to the right of the text box to specify another update interval in increments of seconds, minutes, hours, or days. The update interval must be 15 seconds or longer.

NOTE: This setting controls only the statistics reports. Actual alerts are sent without any delay.

Title (Optional)

Enter a title text for this monitor. This text is displayed in the group detail page, in report titles, and other places in the SiteScope interface. If you do not enter a title text, SiteScope will create a title "CA Alert".

Advanced Options

The Advanced Options section presents a number of ways to customize monitor behavior and display. Use this section to customize error and warning thresholds, disable the monitor, set monitor-to-monitor dependencies, customize display options, and enter other monitor specific settings required for special infrastructure environments. The options for this monitor type are described below. Complete the entries as needed and click the Add or Update button to save the settings.

Disable

Check this box to temporarily disable this monitor and any associated events. To enable the monitor again, clear the box.

CA Addon TCP Port

Enter the TCP port number as configured in the CA Integration Addon. By default port 9875 is used.

EMS configuration file path

Enter the path to the EMS integration configuration file. The default location is: <SiteScope Path>\ems\CA\main.config. For more information about format of the file see the EMS Generic Alert Probe Configuration section.

Verify Error

Note: This option is not used by the CA Alert Monitor.

Update Every (on error)

Note: This option is not used by the CA Alert Monitor.

Schedule

Note: This option is not used by the CA Alert Monitor.

Stop Logging to Topaz

Check this box to not log the data for this monitor to Topaz

Monitor Description

Enter additional information about this monitor. The Monitor Description can include HTML tags such as the <BR> <HR>, and <B> tags to control display format and style. The description will appear on the Monitor Detail page.

Report Description

Enter an optional description for this monitor that will make it easier to understand what the monitor does. This description will be displayed on with each bar chart and graph in Management Reports and appended to the tool-tip displayed when you pass the mouse cursor over the status icon for this monitor on the monitor detail page.

Depends On

To make the running of this monitor dependent on the status of another monitor or monitor group, use the drop-down list to select the monitor on which this monitor is dependent. Select None to remove any dependency.

Depends Condition

If you choose to make the running of this monitor dependent on the status of another monitor, select the status condition that the other monitor or monitor group should have in order for the current monitor to run normally. The current monitor will be run normally as long as the monitor on which it depends reports the condition selected in this option.

List Order

By default, new monitors are listed last on the Monitor Detail page. You may use this drop-down list to choose a different placement for this monitor.

Error if

Set the Error threshold for this monitor. You can set the threshold to be dependent upon number of received CA events. Choose the option you want from the drop-down list, select a comparison value symbol, and enter the threshold number in the text entry box. You must enter a whole number. For example, if you want SiteScope to report an error condition if the monitor receives more than 1000 events since the last update, you need to choose "Received CA Alerts" >= from the pull-down menus and then enter 1000 in the text entry box.

Warning if

Set the warning threshold for this monitor.

Good if

By default SiteScope monitor assumes a good status. You can change this to be dependent upon number of received CA events.

Working with the CA Integration Addon

The purpose of the CA Integration Addon is to connect to the CA message infrastructure, to receive events from the CA and to forward these events to the SiteScope machine. The following diagram describes the functional relationship of the Addon, SiteScope, and the other applicable systems.

CA Alert Monitor data flow

Note: The Addon module is platform specific. Currently we provide Addon modules for the MS Windows platforms.

Detailed Addon Installation Instructions

Before Installing the CA Integration Addon

Prior to installation of the CA Integration Addon, make sure you have following data available:

IP address (or network name) of the SiteScope machine on which the monitor is installed.
CA Unicenter WorldView Object Repository information (machine name, user name, password)
In case of the distributed CA Unicenter deployment - CA Unicenter common utilities directory.

Installing the CA Integration Addon

Use the following steps to install the CA Integration Addon module:

Copy the CA Integration Addon module installation executable to the server where CA Unicenter is installed
Run the installation executable. The installation setup verifies if the machine contains a CA Unicenter installation. If no CA Unicenter is present, a warning message is displayed.
The setup verifies that no other "user exits library" presents in the CA Unicenter Event Management (Unicenter is restricted to only one entry).
If another integration is present, a warning message is displayed.
Confirm the Unicenter version.
Confirm the local or distributed Unicenter deployment. You should enter the Unicenter Repository user name, password and the machine name in case of a distributed deployment. The installation setup process tries to connect to the Repository. If fails, a warning message is displayed.
In the case of a distributed deployment, Enter or verify the "CA Unicenter common utilities directory" in the field provided. This will be added to the System Path.
Enter the SiteScope information as indicated (machine name, port). The setup process tries to verify the SiteScope information. If fails, a warning message is displayed. If the setup successfully verifies the SiteScope connection, the setup process continues
The setup process asks if you want to restart the Unicenter.
Note: You must restart the Unicenter application in order to activate the Addon module.

Starting and Stopping the CA Integration Addon

Start up and Termination

The CA Integration Addon is connected to the CA Unicenter Event Management through the "user exits library" mechanism provided by CA. The library (a Windows DLL) receives Unicenter events as they enter the Unicenter console and forwards them to the Addon process that is running on the same machine which forwards them to the SiteScope.

The CA Integration Addon starts running once you restart the CA Unicenter after the Addon installation.

The CA Integration Addon Log File

The CA Integration Addon logs its activity to the log files. The log files are created when the Addon is started. Their names and locations are defined in the ca_topaz.cfg file.