Configure Data Forwarding Policies

You can create or edit a Data Forwarding policy using the Data Forwarding policy editor, which you can open in the following ways.

• To open the editor from the Edit Aspect dialog box:

  1. Open the Management Templates & Aspects manager:

     Administration > Monitoring > Management Templates & Aspects

     Alternatively, click Management Templates & Aspects.

  2. In the Configuration Folders pane, expand the configuration folders.

  3. In the Management Templates & Aspects pane, click an aspect, and then click the  Edit Item button.

     The Edit Aspect dialog box opens.

  4. Click the Policy Templates tab, and then do one of the following:

     • To add a new policy template:

       1. Click the Add Policy Templates From List button. The Add Policy Templates From List dialog box opens.

       2. Click the  New Item button, and then click the Add New Policy Template or the Add New Policy Template (Raw Mode) button. The Select Type for New Policy Template dialog box opens.

       3. Select the type Data Forwarding, and then click OK.

     • To edit an existing policy template, click the policy template in the list, click the button, and then click the Edit Policy Template or the Edit Policy Template (Raw Mode) button.

     The Operations Connector High Availability policy editor opens.

     The Data Forwarding policy editor opens.

• To open the editor from the Policy Templates manager:

  1. Open the Policy Templates manager:

     Administration > Monitoring > Policy Templates

     Alternatively, click Policy Templates.

  2. In the Policy Template Groups pane, expand Policy Management > Templates grouped by type.

  3. Depending on the type of data collected by the particular policy, expand Configuration, Events, Generic, Metrics, or Topology. Each policy type can be used only for a subset of the available data types.

  4. Click the Data Forwarding item, and then do one of the following:

     • To add a new policy template, in the Policy Templates pane, click the button, and then click the Add New Policy Template or the Add New Policy Template (Raw Mode) button.

       The New Data Forwarding policy editor opens.

     • To edit an existing policy template, click the policy template in the Policy Templates pane, click the button, and then click the Edit Policy Template or the Edit Policy Template (Raw Mode) button.

       The Edit Data Forwarding policy editor opens.

• The integrated product is properly configured for integration with OMi. For more information, see the Integrate section.

• The certificate request from the integrated product is approved in OMi.

• The integrated product is configured as a connected server in OMi.

• Mandatory for specific OMi environments. A web proxy server is properly configured.

  For proxy server configuration, you must make adjustments in the underlying Operations Agent communication layer. In the most basic scenario, use the ovconfchg tool with the following settings:

  [bbc.http]
  PROXY=web-proxy.company.com:8088

  For more information, see the Operations Agent documentation.

A receiver target is a REST web service endpoint set up by a consumer application and is defined by its URL. The target can receive data in one of the two supported formats: JSON or XML. The consumer application that maintains the endpoint also defines whether data should be sent with a mechanism that guarantees delivery. You can define several different targets in a single policy.

You must specify the port as part of the URL, even for the standard HTTP port. For example, if your target is http://computer.company.com/omi_data, using the HTTP port, you need to specify http://computer.company.com:80/omi_data.

Metric forwarding rules, when configured, forward metric data after the policy rules are applied. They define what a Data Forwarding policy should do in response to specific metric data. Each rule consists of a condition and of settings for the data generated by the policy. The settings enable you to configure what data OMi forwards to which target.

Structured input forwarding rules, when configured, forward structured input data, that is, data gathered by a policy before the policy rules are applied. They define what a Data Forwarding policy should do in response to specific structured input data. Each rule consists of a condition and of settings for the data generated by the policy. The settings enable you to configure what data OMi forwards to which target.

Contrary to rules for other policies where processing stops when a rule is matched, all rules are processed for every data type. OMi then compares the lists of targets to which the data should be sent to with the list of targets for which data should be discarded. The final result is a list of targets where the data should be sent to. This means that data discarding takes precedence over data forwarding.

Configure a Data Forwarding Policy

In the Data Forwarding policy editor, follow the steps:

1. In the Properties page, define general policy information.
   

   Type the name of the policy in the Name text box.

   Optional. Provide a description of the policy (Description), select the instrumentation that will be deployed with the policy onto the host system where the agent is running (Instrumentation), and select the operating systems with which the policy is compatible (OS Types).

   For more information, see Properties Page.

2. In the Targets Page, configure data forwarder targets which receive data.

   1. In the Data Forwarding Targets list, click above the Name column to add a new target.

   2. Enter the name of the target and its description.

   3. Provide the URL of the REST web service endpoint.

   4. Select the wire format. The following formats are supported: XML and JSON.

   5. To enable guaranteed delivery, select the option Use Guaranteed Delivery.

   6. Click Save to save the configured target.

   For details, see Targets Page.

3. In the Metric Page, configure metric data forwarding rules.

   1. In the Metric Data Forwarding Rules list, click above the Description column to add a new rule. Select the rule type.

   2. In the Properties tab, enter a description for the rule.

   3. In the Condition tab, click to add new conditions.

      1. In the Property field, enter the name of the property or drag it from the Meta Data tab.

      2. Select the pattern operator.

         For a list of available operators,

      3. In the Operand field, type the value or pattern that you want the policy to compare with the property.

   4. In the Targets tab, select one or more targets from the list of available targets. For the rule to affect all targets, you select the option Affect all targets.

      Optionally, you can override the target configuration for individual or all targets by selecting the option Override Target Configuration. If you select this option, you can change the Wire Format and change the setting of the Use Guaranteed Delivery option.

4. In the Structured input Page, configure structured input data forwarding rules.

   1. In the Structured Input Data Forwarding Rules list, click above the Description column to add a new rule. Select the rule type.

   2. In the Properties tab, enter a description for the rule.

   3. In the Condition tab, click to add new conditions.

      1. In the Property field, enter the name of the property or drag it from the Meta Data tab.

      2. Select the pattern operator.

         For a list of available operators,

      3. In the Operand field, type the value or pattern that you want the policy to compare with the property.

   4. In the Targets tab, select one or more targets from the list of available targets. For the rule to affect all targets, you select the option Affect all targets.

      Optionally, you can override the target configuration for individual or all targets by selecting the option Override Target Configuration. If you select this option, you can change the Wire Format and change the setting of the Use Guaranteed Delivery option.

5. Click Save and Close to save the policy template and exit the dialog.

• To start troubleshooting, check the log files of the agent in the %OvDataDir%log directory (Windows systems) or the /var/opt/OV/log directory (Linux systems).

• To investigate issues related to policy execution, first examine the %OvDataDir%log\System.txt file (Windows systems) or the /var/opt/OV/log/System.txt file (Linux systems).

  Note The log files whose names start with the opr- prefix are generated by the OMi web console.