HP OM is an Event Management tool. For the complete ITIL
workflow this has to be integrated with any one of the ITSM tools available in
the market.
We have used Remedy Smart Plug-in(remspi) by HP to integrate HP
OVO with BMC Remedy Action Request System (ARS) in our environment.
The above diagram shows a basic flow within the integration.
This post expects the reader to be well versed with HP OVO and
Remedy ARS. Also refer to the SPI_RARS_AdminRef.pdf for more information.
This post gives a brief example of the cfg file and the rules
file.
1. The SPI for Remedy ARS server receives the ID of an HPOM
message from the HPOM management server via a submission
program.
2. The SPI for Remedy ARS server retrieves details of the HPOM
message from the HPOM management server via an application
programmer interface (API).
3. The SPI for Remedy ARS server creates and updates action
requests
using the ARS API.
4. When an action request changes, the action-request system
calls the SPI for Remedy ARS client and passes on the details of the update via the ARS filter
mechanism.
5. The SPI for Remedy ARS client sends the update details to the
SPI for
Remedy ARS server.
6. The SPI for Remedy ARS server updates the HPOM message on the
HPOM management server using HPOM’s API.
7. When an HPOM message is modified, the SPI for Remedy ARS server receives a
message-change event via the HPOM API.
8. HPOM sends the details of the message-change event to the SPI
for
Remedy ARS server via the HPOM API.
9. The SPI for Remedy ARS server updates the action request by
means of the Remedy-ARS application-programming interface (API).
The data components that are used in the data flow are:
- External
Actions and Data
- Configuration
file - remspi.cfg
- Rules
File - remspi_rules.txt
- The
SPI for Remedy ARS database
Configuration File - /etc/opt/OV/share/conf/remspi/remspi.cfg
The configuration file remspi.cfg defines the user name and
passwords that the SPI for Remedy ARS uses to log in to HPOM. The passwords are
encrypted.
There has to be a user in HPOM with appropriate permissions in
HPOM.
Use remspipasswd
to encrypt the password of this user.
remspipasswd <new_user_password>
Example of a configuration file :
# File: remspi.cfg
# Description: Configuration file for
Remedy(tm) SPI
# Package: HP Operations SMART Plug-In for
# Remedy(tm) Action Request System(r)
# Note: Value must be on same line as keyword
REMSPI_ITO_USER remspi_server
REMSPI_ITO_PASSWD
C338D5F21219E076C2000C45AA0475925A1
REMSPI_ITO_ADMIN_PASSWD
C338D5F21219F076C2000C4VAA0475925A1
Rules File: /etc/opt/OV/share/conf/remspi/rules
Sample Rules file: This is an example from my test environment
SYNTAX_VERSION 2.4
SPI_RULES "SPI Rules -
ProblemReport"
DESCRIPTION "Example rules for the
Problem Report System"
TARGET "Probsys"
SCHEMA
"Problem Report"
USER
"ovouser"
SERVER
"REMEDY_PRODSERVER"
BACKUPUP_SERVER
"REMEDY_BACKUPSERVER"
PASSWORD
"KMIDDKLFN9R43093LNSVNDIFDFLN49RRLADMC1233NDS"
FIRST FIELD 2
"$ITO_SUBMITTER$"
FIELD
7 "New"
FIRST FIELD 8
"$MSG_TEXT$"
UPDATE OVERWRITE FIRST FIELD
8000000078 "$MSG_TEXT$"
FIRST FIELD 8000000079
"\\n$MSG_ANNO$\\n"
UPDATE OVERWRITE FIRST FIELD
8000000080 "$MSG_SEVERITY$"
FIRST FIELD
8000000081 "$MANAGEMENT_SERVERS$"
FIRST FIELD
8000000082 "$NODE_NAME$"
FIRST FIELD
8000000083 "$NODE_APPL$"
FIRST FIELD
8000000084 "$MSG_GRP$"
FIRST FIELD
8000000085 "$MSG_OBJ$"
FIRST FIELD
8000000086 "$MSG_ID$"
FIRST FIELD
8000000087 "$Instructions$"
UPDATE OVERWRITE ALL FIELD
8000000088 "$ACK_USER$"
FIRST FIELD
8000000089 "$EXTERNAL Severity$"
ON_SUBMIT
OWN #OVO
message is owned after creation
MSGTXT_PREFIX "ARS-ID=$ARS_ID$: "
ITO_UPDATE
ANNOTATE 7 "Closed" "Action request
closed by $5$ on $6$"
FORCE OWN 7 "Assigned"
OWN 7 "Fixed"
DISOWN 7 "Rejected"
ACKNOWLEDGE 7 "Closed"
UNACKNOWLEDGE 7 "Reopened"
OP_ACTION "operator-action"
ESCALATE "escalate"
ANNOTATE "Action request modified"
Latest work log entry: $8000000079$
MSGCONDITIONS
DESCRIPTION "Catch All"
CONDITION
SET TARGET "Probsys"
FIELD 8000000083 "$NODE_APPL$"
SUPPRESSCONDITIONS
DESCRIPTION
"Condition Suppress"
CONDITION
MSGGRP
"Printers"
Severity
"Warning"
A little bit of explanation of the rules file
8000000080 all
these numbers relate to the field id in the REMEDY ARS form that gets called
when remspi gets invoked. Here the form is called "PROBLEM REPORT"
MSG_SEVERITY --> 8000000080 is the Severity of
the alert that comes in OM
EXTERNAL severity --> 8000000089 is
the severity chosen by the operator (DC-ops uses semi-automation to create
tickets)
8000000079
"\\n$MSG_ANNO$\\n"--> this goes into the
work log of the ticket
MSGCONDITIONS are the conditions that have to satisfy for a
ticket to be created.
SUPPRESSCONDITIONS are the conditions which have to be true for
a message to be filtered out.
Sometimes you might have issues when
the RemedySPI process doesn't start with ovstart. This
behavior seems to be normal. The remspisrv is integrated
into ovstop/ovstart through
the remspisrv.lrf file. ovstop / ovstart is
the official way to stop and start. ovstop stops RemedySPI,
but ovstart starts
the OVO processes but ovspmd doesn't know the status of the previous RemedySPI and
doesn't start it again. You would have to perform “ovstart RemedySPI” to
start it.
Another issue that I have faced with remspi is
that remspiconfig and remspifilter produce
the following errors.
Can't
lock DBM database files '/var/opt/OV/share/tmp/remspi/Probys'
for
target 'Probsys'. Permision Denied (SPI215-45)
&
Can't
lock DBM database files '/var/opt/OV/share/tmp/remspi/_Remspi'
for
target '_Remspi'. Permision Denied (SPI215-45)
Well, the technical document (Doc ID emr_na-c00917549-1)
says :
These error messages occur when the Remedy SPI process is
running due to the fact that the process locks these files.
Run "ovstop -c RemedySPI", then run remspiconfig
This also pertains to the remspifilter command.
