Integrate > Third Party Integrations > HPE Systems Insight Manager (SIM) Integration > HPE SIM Integration Mechanism

SIM Integration Mechanism

DFM uses the HPE SIM Web service API to retrieve node information from the HPE SIM database. DFM also enables you to specify extended attributes that should be retrieved for each node.

HPE SIM represents hosts (blade enclosures, racks, servers, and so on) as Nodes; UCMDB has separate CITs for each such host. To represent hosts correctly in UCMDB, a two-level mapping is used, to enable integration customization without code changes. This makes the integration completely customizable and dynamic.

For details on jobs, see "Module/Job-Based Discovery" in the Data Flow Management section of the UCMDB Help.

The following sections describe the levels of mapping:

ClosedHPE SIM Node to UCMDB Node Mapping

All IP-enabled systems are represented as Nodes in HPE SIM and each node has attributes (for example, operating device type and operating system name) that can be used to classify nodes as specific CITs in UCMDB. The first level of mapping involves setting parameters on the SIM Integration job. This job includes HostCitIdentifierAttributes and HostCitIdentifierMap parameters that are used for the mapping:

  • HostCitIdentifierAttributes. This attribute specifies the names of HPE SIM Node attributes that are used for the mapping. This parameter uses the DeviceType and OSName out-of-the-box Node attributes. The parameter accepts comma-separated node attribute names, is case sensitive, and expects each node attribute name to be enclosed in single quotes.

  • HostCitIdentifierMap. This attribute specifies the mapping between values of the above HPE SIM Node attributes and corresponding UCMDB CITs. This parameter accepts a comma-separated list of value pairs, where each value pair takes the following format:

    'node attribute value':'UCMDB CI Type'

    • Both attributes are case-sensitive and must be enclosed in single quotes. Each Node-attribute value is one possible value of one or more Node attribute names specified in the HostCitIdentifierAttributes parameter. Each UCMDB CIT is the name (not the display name) of the UCMDB CIT to which this value maps.

    This parameter has out-of-the-box mappings as follows:

    HPE SIM Node Attribute

    UCMDB CIT

    'AIX'

    'unix'

    'Complex'

    'complex'

    'Embedded'

    'management_processor'

    'Enclosure'

    'enclosure'

    'HPUX'

    'unix'

    'Hypervisor'

    'unix'

    'LINUX'

    'unix'

    'MgmtProc'

    'management_processor'

    'Printer'

    'netprinter'

    'Rack'

    'rack'

    'Server'

    'node'

    'Solaris'

    'unix'

    'Switch'

    'switch'

    'WINNT'

    'nt'

    'Workstation'

    'node'

Example mapping based on the above settings:

  • If the DeviceType attribute of a node has the value Switch, in UCMDB the node is represented as a Switch CIT.

  • If the OSName attribute of a node has the value WINNT, in UCMDB the node is represented as an NT CIT (Display name: Windows).

The DFM script parses these mapping parameters from left to right and does not stop on success, so the rightmost match is considered final. This means that if a node has DeviceName = Server and OSName = HPUX, the rightmost match is OSName with value HPUX. The resulting CIT for this node in UCMDB is unix because HPUX maps to unix.

ClosedNode Attribute to CI Type and CI Attribute Mapping

Once the nodes are mapped to CITs using DFM job parameters as described in HPE SIM Node to UCMDB Node Mapping, individual node attributes (including extended node attributes) are mapped to corresponding attributes (or CITs, as appropriate) using a generic UCMDB integration framework. The framework uses an XML file in which source and target CIT and attribute names are specified.

A sample XML mapping file (SIM_To_UCMDB_Sample_MappingFile.xml) that includes all node CITs mapped in the HPE SIM Node to UCMDB Node Mapping section is included in the SIM_Integration package. The sample file includes host resources (for example, CPU, Disk) and relationship mapping information, to build relationships between various nodes (for example, Blade Enclosure to server, virtual machine host to guest, and so on).

Using this framework, you can map additional CITs without any code changes. For example, to map HBAs, add a new section to the XML file. Define the node attributes that identify an HBA and its attributes. Relationships between HBAs and HOSTs are also required.

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