How to use On-Premise Bridge agents to synchronize data

To install and manage agents

Note To install the On-Premise Bridge agent, you must have the following permissions:

For Windows:

  • Modify, read, write, and execute permissions in the On-Premise Bridge installation folder
  • Permission to create the OpbAgent Windows service, and run service.msc

  • Permission to run tasklist and taskkill commands

  1. Download and install the On-Premise Bridge Agent

    You must download and install the On-Premise Bridge Agent before you can add an agent in Service Management.

    Note Make sure your system meets the following requirements:

    • Supported operating systems:

      • Windows 2008 R2 SP1 64-bit
      • Windows 2012 R2 64-bit
      • Windows 7 64-bit

    • System requirements:

      • Minimum memory - 4 GB
      • Minimum free disk space required - 80 GB

      • Number of vCPUs: 4

    It is recommended to install the On-Premise Bridge on a dedicated server or VM in an established data center that has constant access to the SMAX and interfaced tool (for example, UCMDB or LDAP).

    Caution If you attempt to install the On-Premise Bridge agent on an unsupported operating system, the installer will terminate with an Invocation Target Exception error.

    1. From the main menu, select Administration > Utilities > Integration. Service Management displays the On-Premise Bridge Agents page.
    2. Click Download agent, or click the download link in the New agent dialog box.

    3. To begin the installation, double-click the downloaded opb-installation.exe file.

    4. Select the installation language and click OK to continue.
    5. Read the recommendations on the Introduction page and click Next to continue.
    6. Accept the license terms on the License agreement page and click Next to continue.

    7. Select the folder where you are installing On-Premise Bridge on the Choose installation folder page.

      If you do not want to use the default folder, click Choose to select a different folder.

      When you are finished, click Next to continue.

    8. Complete the details on the Setup authentication page.

      Field Description
      User name

      Enter the name of the user who will be logging in to Service Management.

      Note  

      • This user must be assigned the OPB Remote Agent role.

      • The On-Premise Bridge agent cannot be a federated user. It must be an integration user.
      Password

      Enter the password of the user who will be logging in to Service Management.
      Use proxy server

      Select this option if you will be using a proxy server, and enter the following details:

      Host. A valid address for the proxy server.

      Port. A valid port number (an integer between 1 and 65535).

      User name. The name of the user who will be logging in to the proxy server.

      Password. The password of the user who will be logging in to the proxy server.

      Click Next to continue.

    9. Review the installation details on the Pre-installation summary page.

      If all details are correct, click Install to proceed with the installation.

      To change any of the details, click Previous to return to the previous page of the installation wizard.

    10. When the installation is finished, the Installation complete page is displayed. Click Done to quit the installer.

    11. Specify credentials using the Endpoint Credentials Manager.

      In the Endpoint Credentials Manager, click New to add a new credentials record and select the required endpoint type. Enter the required user name and password for the on-premise application.

      Note If the On-Premise Bridge Agent service was running when you specified the credentials, restart the service now.

    Note The default values used when installing the On-Premise Bridge Agent are saved in the wrapper-custom.conf file in the <Agent_installation_directory>\product\conf folder:

    • wrapper.java.additional.108=-Drmi.server.port=1099

      To be able to start the agent, you must change the value of the rmi.server.port to an available port. If you do not, after several attempts to start the agent, the application will shut down and the On-Premise Bridge Agent Windows service will be stopped.

      If this port is in use by some other application, when you try to start the agent in On-Premise Bridge, the following errors are printed to log files, located in the <Agent_installation_directory>\product\log\controller folder:

      • In the wrapper.log file:

        java.rmi.server.ExportException: Port already in use: 1099

      • In the controller.log file:

        java.rmi.NotBoundException: ControllerAPI
    • set.OPB_SERVICE_NAME= On-Premise Bridge Agent

    • configure the firewall to ensure that the RMI port is only accessible from the local machine

  2. Enable a thread dump (optional)

    You can enable the Java thread dump feature which saves Java threads from the OPB operations. In the event of a problem, you can submit the threads to Support to help them resolve the issue.

    To enable the thread dump feature:

    1. In the <OPB_HOME>/product/conf folder, locate the dump.conf file.

    2. Set enableDumpThread=true (default is false).

    3. Restart the On-Premise Bridge agent.

    4. The thread dumps are saved in the <OPB_HOME>/product/log/threadDumps folder.

  3. Add an agent

    1. From the main menu, select Administration > Utilities > Integration. Service Management displays the On-Premise Bridge Agents page.

    2. Click Add agent.

    3. Enter the agent details.

      Field Description
      Name The name that you enter is displayed in the list of agents and is used when you create endpoints.
      Description Type a description that describes the agent.
      Enable notification Select this check box to enable the email notifications when the agent has not reached the Service Management server for 30 minutes, 2 hours, or 1 day.
      Recipients Specify the recipients that can receive the notifications.

    4. Click Download connection file. Copy the downloaded server-connection.conf file to the <Agent_installation_directory>/product/conf folder.

      The server-connection.conf file contains a unique agent identifier, which is used by Service Management when you create an endpoint to link between the agent and the endpoint. The identifier is also used to connect between the agent and the tasks that are routed to the agent in Service Management.

      The server-connection.conf file also contains the tenant ID and the base URL for Service Management.

  4. Start or stop an agent

    You must start an agent before you can manage it in Service Management.

    To start or stop an agent:

    1. Click Start > Programs > HP > On-Premise Bridge Agent.
    2. Select Start On-Premise Bridge Agent or Stop On-Premise Bridge Agent.

  5. Manage your installed agents

    Select an agent in the Agents pane to display:

    • The endpoints that are connected to the agent.
    • The three most recent events for the agent.

    You have three options for managing your agents:

    Label Description
    Restart Restarts the selected agent. You may want to do this if, for example, you see that server performance is not what you expect.
    Disable/Enable

    Temporarily prevents tasks on the selected agent from running, or re-enables a blocked task.
    Remove

    Removes the selected agent from the list of agents.

    You can remove an agent only if there are no tasks running on it. In addition, removing the agent also deletes all the endpoints that are configured to use it.

    Note To remove an On-Premise Bridge Agent, uninstall the software from its server. This does not uninstall an agent that you configured in the On-Premise Bridge.

    You can click the Refresh button to refresh the list of tasks.

  6. Manage the On-Premise Bridge service

    You can manage the On-Premise Bridge service using Windows Services as follows:

    1. Run the services.msc command.
    2. Select the On-Premise Bridge Agent service.
    3. Stop or start the service as required.

    You can also manage the On-Premise Bridge service using command line instructions in one of the following ways:

    • To run On-Premise Bridge Agent in a console, execute the following command:
      <Agent_installation_directory>/bin/OpbAgent.bat console.
    • To install the On-Premise Bridge as a service, execute the following command:
      <Agent_installation_directory>/bin/OpbAgent.bat install.
    • To start the On-Premise Bridge service (after installation), execute the following command:
      <Agent_installation_directory>/bin/OpbAgent.bat start.
    • To stop the On-Premise Bridge service (after installation), execute the following command:
      <Agent_installation_directory>/bin/OpbAgent.bat stop.
    • To restart the On-Premise Bridge service (after installation), execute the following command:
      <Agent_installation_directory>/bin/OpbAgent.bat restart.
    • To remove the On-Premise Bridge service, execute the following command:
      <Agent_installation_directory>/bin/OpbAgent.bat remove.

To uninstall the On-Premise Bridge agent

You can uninstall the On-Premise Bridge Agent in one of the following ways:

  • Double-click the opb-uninstall.exe file in the <Agent_installation_directory>/install directory to start the uninstallation wizard.

  • Click Start > Programs > HP > On-Premise Bridge Agent > Uninstall On-Premise Bridge Agent.

  • Uninstall the On-Premise Bridge Agent through the Control Panel.

Note When you uninstall the On-Premise Bridge Agent, the following occurs:

  • All data is deleted, except for credentials that you created.
  • Properties that you customized in the <Agent_installation_directory>/product/conf/wrapper-maas.conf file are deleted. However, this information is backed up in the wrapper-custom.conf.bak and wrapper-maas.bak files. To use this information, you must rename these backup files and then copy them to the corresponding folder in a new installation.

Troubleshooting

  • Checking log files

    There are several occasions when you should check the On-Premise Bridge log files for information.

    Agent connection errors

    • If you add an agent and the On-Premise Bridge module displays its connection status as Unknown, check the log files for possible reasons. Relevant information may be found in the following files in the <Agent_installation_directory>\product\log folder:

      • controller\controller.log
      • controller\wrapper.log
      • <Endpoint_type_name>\<Endpoint_type_name>.log
    • If you cannot log in, you may have used an incorrect user name or password.

    • If a user receives a 403 or AuthorizationException error when attempting to use the On-Premise Bridge Agent service, make sure you assign the OPB Remote Agent role to that user. For more information, see How to create a role.

  • Updating Windows service properties

    By default, the On-Premise Bridge Agent service is run using the Windows Local System user. If you need to enable a specific endpoint type flow, you can modify the Local System user to include additional required access rights.

Related Topics Link IconRelated Information