White Papers - NerveCenter Integration with Micromuse Netcool/OMNIbus - How the Integration Components Interact -
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How the Integration Components Interact

For integration to occur, NerveCenter must be configured to send informs to Netcool/OMNIbus, and Netcool/OMNIbus must be configured to receive and process those informs. See NerveCenter Configuration Settings and Netcool/OMNIbus Configuration Settings for details.

The following must be running:

• Netcool/OMNIbus Object Server
• Netcool/OMNIbus NerveCenter probe
• NerveCenter Server
• NerveCenter Universal Platform Adapter

You may also want to start the Netcool/OMNIbus desktop applications, especially the Event List, to view messages and alerts.

Once the applications are running, the probe immediately creates a TCP socket and listens for connections from the NerveCenter platform adapter process. When the adapter sends a connection request, the probe confirms the connection.

The following illustrations show the components and their paths of communication for a simple integration configuration.

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Note    The illustrations do not suggest the physical location of the components, which can all reside on the same system or on different systems. However, it's worth noting that installing the NerveCenter probe on the same machine as the NerveCenter Server and platform adapter can reduce network traffic, since all messaging among those components is contained within a single system.

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The Probe Connects with NerveCenter's Platform Adapter

When the two applications have established a connection, the probe relays the connection status to the Netcool Object Server, and the Netcool Event List viewer displays the status messages received from the Object Server. The following sample Event List window shows the messages received when the probe is started and connects with the Universal Platform Adapter (paserver.exe).

Event List Messages Upon Connection

After the probe and adapter establish their connection, NerveCenter can send informs to Netcool/OMNIbus. The NerveCenter Server issues an inform when a NerveCenter alarm transition occurs and the transition includes an inform action targeted for Netcool/OMNIbus. The Server sends the inform to the platform adapter, which passes the inform data to Netcool's NerveCenter probe.

NerveCenter Sends Informs to Netcool/OMNIbus

The probe receives the inform data and generates an identifier that uniquely identifies the event. The probe also converts the inform to an alert format that the Object Server can recognize and then forwards the alert to the Object Server.

The Object Server stores alerts in an alert table that is part of its active database. The Object Server can manipulate alerts by associating them into classes, filtering them, and assigning automated actions to them. Based on defined parameters, the Object Server determines the destination for each alert and forwards the information to the appropriate desktop applications.

The Event List displays the alerts forwarded from the Object Server, as seen in the following illustration.

Netcool/OMNIbus Event List

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Note    You can double-click an alert in the list to see all the information received for a particular inform. See Inform Messages for a description of the data sent with NerveCenter informs.

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A heartbeat message monitors the connection between the probe and the platform adapter. If the probe goes down or comes back up, the probe's new operational status appears immediately in the Netcool Event List. Once the probe comes back up, the platform adapter attempts to reestablish the connection every minute.

When the platform adapter goes down or comes back up, the following occur:

• The Netcool Object Server immediately sends the status update to the Event List, which displays a message indicating the current connection status.
• After a configurable amount of time, the NerveCenter platform adapter notifies the NerveCenter Server of the status, and the Server sends a message to all connected clients.

While NerveCenter alerts are being monitored in Netcool/OMNIbus, you can also view the original alarms in the NerveCenter Client or Web Client. The following illustration shows a sample Alarm Summary window in the NerveCenter Client.

NerveCenter Client Alarm Summary Window

The Client has filters that reduce the alarms to those matching specified property groups, severity levels, and IP subnets for associated servers. For more information about monitoring alarms, refer to NerveCenter's Monitoring Your Network online guide.