How to Customize Integration

This section describes how to customize the NNM Integration package in order to report additional attributes or entities, or to perform other changes.

Search for	Example	Results
A single word	`cat`	Topics that contain the word "cat". You will also find its grammatical variations, such as "cats".
A phrase. You can specify that the search results contain a specific phrase.	`"cat food"` (quotation marks)	Topics that contain the literal phrase "cat food" and all its grammatical variations. Without the quotation marks, the query is equivalent to specifying an OR operator, which finds topics with one of the individual words instead of the phrase.

Search for	Operator	Example
Two or more words in the same topic	`AND` `and` `+` (plus symbol) `&` (ampersand)	`cat AND dog` `"cat food"+milk` `"cat food"&"dog food"`
Either word in a topic	`OR` `or` `\|` (pipe)	`cat OR dog` `cat \| dog`
Topics that do not contain a specific word or phrase	`NOT` `not` `!` (exclamation point)	`NOT cat` `! dog`
Topics that contain one string and do not contain another	`^` (caret)	`cat ^ mouse`
A combination of search types	`( )` parentheses	`cat + (dog \| mouse)` `cat \| dog + (! mouse)`

Included Scripts

The NNM Integration package includes the scripts detailed in the following table:

Name	Description
nnmi_api.py	Implements API for accessing and retrieving data in NNM. Includes definition of base entities, such as Node or Interface, collections, topology and fetcher classes.
nnmi_filters.py	Support module used by nnmi_api.py. Includes definition of filters, allowing creation of advanced expressions when querying data in NNM. In general, you should not modify this script.
nnmi.py	Uses API provided by nnm_api.py to retrieve data, form topology into ObjectStateHolder objects and send result to UCMDB.
NNM_Integration.py	Main entry point of the integration. Contains DiscoveryMain method which is called by probe, and uses nnmi.py.
NNM_Integration_Utils.py	Previous version of NNM integration implementation, used by CheckCred.py script which validates credentials.
NNM_Integration_Utils_9.py	Previous version of NNM integration implementation for UCMDB 9.0
NNM_Update_Ids.py	Support module which updates custom attribute in NNM with UCMDB ID of the CI.

Customization Step by Step

The following steps illustrate customization of integration with an example, showing how you discover and report an additional attribute for an Interface. In this example, the attribute is the managementMode property in the NNM interface.

Prerequisites
1. You need to know the name of the attribute in NNM. Here it is managementMode.
2. You need to know the name of a method which should be called on the stub to read the corresponding property of entity, in this case Interface. This information is in the corresponding WSDL file or API documentation.
Property Retrieval

For the new property to be reported, it should be retrieved first. To do that, you must modify the nnmi_api.py script.
1. Locate Entity class
  
  Open nnm_api.py and find the corresponding Entity class. Entity class names follow the pattern Nms*Entity. For this example, you want NmsInterfaceEntity.
2. Add new entry to field_names tuple
  
  Add a new field to the field_names tuple. This tuple is used for real-time entity introspection, mainly debugging.
  
  Note For use in Python classes, translate a camel cased field name into an underscore separated field name. For example: management_mode.
3. Modify constructor of the Entity to read the new property
  
  Modify __init__ method of the entity to read the new property. Modification depends on whether you need property post-processing.
  1. Simple read
    
    Call the method on the stub.
  2. Read with post processing
    
    Delegate reading of the property to a new method which performs post processing for the retrieved value. In this case the new method is added to an NmsInterfaceEntity class called _get_management_mode which just strips the value of white spaces and makes it lowercase.
Property reporting

Once the modifications to nnmi_api.py are done, the new property is available, but it is not reported yet. To add reporting for this property, you need to modify the nnmi.py script.
1. Locate Builder class
  
  Open the nnmi.py script and find the corresponding Builder class for the entity being reported. All Builder names match the *Builder pattern. In your case, you need the InterfaceBuilder class.
2. Locate a place where ObjectStateHolder is created
  
  Each Builder has a build method and several other methods which assist in the creation of the ObjectStateHolder. Find where this ObjectStateHolder is created either directly or indirectly by calling the method in the modeling.py module. In your example, ObjectStateHolderis created in the method _createInterfaceOsh.
3. Add new attribute reporting
  
  Now you add reporting of the new property. Here, you report the new value to the attribute interface_management_mode of the Interface CIT which you previously created.