Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Supporting
BMC Event Manager 7.3.00
BMC Service Impact Manager 7.3.00
February 2009
www.bmc.com
Contacting BMC Software
You can access the BMC Software website at http://www.bmc.com. From this website, you can obtain information
about the company, its products, corporate offices, special events, and career opportunities.
United States and Canada
Address BMC SOFTWARE INC Telephone 713 918 8800 or Fax 713 918 8000
2101 CITYWEST BLVD 800 841 2031
HOUSTON TX 77042-2827
USA
Outside United States and Canada
Telephone (01) 713 918 8800 Fax (01) 713 918 8000
Customer support
You can obtain technical support by using the BMC Software Customer Support website or by contacting Customer
Support by telephone or e-mail. To expedite your inquiry, see “Before contacting BMC.”
Support website
You can obtain technical support from BMC 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at http://www.bmc.com/support_home.
From this website, you can
■ read overviews about support services and programs that BMC offers
■ find the most current information about BMC products
■ search a database for issues similar to yours and possible solutions
■ order or download product documentation
■ download products and maintenance
■ report an issue or ask a question
■ subscribe to receive proactive e-mail alerts when new product notices are released
■ find worldwide BMC support center locations and contact information, including e-mail addresses, fax numbers, and
telephone numbers
3
License key and password information
If you have questions about your license key or password, contact BMC as follows:
■ (USA or Canada) Contact the Order Services Password Team at 800 841 2031, or send an e-mail message to
ContractsPasswordAdministration@bmc.com.
■ (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa) Fax your questions to EMEA Contracts Administration at +31 20 354 8702, or send
an e-mail message to password@bmc.com.
■ (Asia-Pacific) Contact your BMC sales representative or your local BMC office.
Contents 5
BMC Atrium CMDB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
BMC SIM CMDB extensions and BMC Remedy ITSM applications . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Database for the BMC Impact Portal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
BMC Impact Portal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
BMC Impact Publishing Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
BMC Impact Service Model Editor with a firewall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Component upgrade considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Database for the BMC Remedy AR System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
BMC Remedy AR System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
BMC Atrium CMDB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
BMC Impact Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Database for the BMC Impact Portal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
BMC Impact Portal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
BMC Impact Integration for PATROL hardware sizing requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Maximum number of BMC II for PATROL instances connecting to a cell . . . . . . 58
Determining when to use multiple BMC II for PATROL adapters or
multiple cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Index 61
Figures 7
8 BMC Impact Solutions Planning and Implementation Guide
Tables
Installing event management only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Factors to consider when installing BMC Service Impact Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Installing service impact management for a small service model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Installing service impact management for a medium to large service model . . . . . . 22
Installing service impact management for a very large service model . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Computer specifications and applications for medium EM and
SIM environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Computer specifications and applications for large EM and SIM environment . . . . 34
Example implementation using three servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Tables 9
10 BMC Impact Solutions Planning and Implementation Guide
Chapter
1
1 Planning your implementation
This chapter describes deployment options and installation scenarios, and provides
reference architectures for different size environments and recommendations for two
scenarios, a BMC Event Manager only environment and a BMC Service Impact
Manager environment that includes BMC Event Manager. Sizing guidelines are
conservative to allow for the natural growth of the solution.
For additional details, see the BMC Impact Solutions Concepts Guide.
■ handle and process all of the message traffic that accompanies IT Events
■ provide a view of the operational state (up, down, degraded) of the infrastructure
based on what can be learned from message traffic
Figure 1 on page 13 shows the architecture of the components that are part of BMC
Impact Solutions.
BMC Impact Solutions 7.3.00 provides three deployment options that allow you to get
started with BMC Impact Solutions with or without the BMC Portal and BMC Atrium
CMDB.
Upgrade paths are available if you want to upgrade your deployment. For example,
you might upgrade from basic to either the standard or Atrium deployments or from
the standard deployment to the Atrium deployment. The deployment options are
discussed in detail in the following sections.
Basic deployment
Basic deployment is the simplest and most light-weight way of deploying BMC
Impact Solutions. A minimum basic deployment relies on the three core components
of BMC Impact Solutions:
The BMC Portal and BMC Atrium CMDB are not part of the basic deployment.
BMC Impact Event Adapters, BMC Impact Integration for Web Services, and other
impact integration components can be used with the basic deployment.
■ faster time-to-value
■ less complicated configuration
■ less hardware required
■ Microsoft Windows, AIX®, HP-UX, SolarisTM, and Linux® are supported by all core
components (For details on which versions are supported, see the BMC Impact
Solutions Release Notes.)
Standard deployment
Standard deployment is recommended for organizations that
■ have or plan to use BMC Performance Manager for application and systems
management
■ use a third party repository for their service model data and want to publish this
data in a controlled manner by using the BMC Impact Publishing Server
BMC IAS has replaced BMC Impact Portal as the authentication for BMC Impact
Explorer.
BMC Impact Publishing Server can be used to control the publication of service
model data (for example, data coming from a non-BMC CMDB) to the BMC Service
Impact Manager.
■ BSM workflows
■ out-of-the-box intelligent ticketing for BMC Remedy Service Desk
■ out-of-the-box BMC Remedy SLM integration
Atrium deployment
The Atrium deployment adds the BMC Atrium CMDB to the components included in
the standard deployment. The architecture is similar to the BMC Service Impact
Manager architecture versions 5.x and 7.0.x.
The Atrium deployment includes all the advantages of standard deployment plus the
following advantages:
The Atrium deployment is appropriate for larger BSM implementations where the
skills and resources are more readily available to handle a CMDB and its workflow.
■ event management only. See “Installing event management only” on page 17.
— medium (between 1,000 and 5,000 objects) to large (between 5,000 and 10,000
objects) service models.
■ high availability (for event or service impact management). See “Installing a high-
availability cell” on page 25.
Table 1 provides information about the order in which to install products, the
computers on which to install them, and where to find the step-by-step installation
instructions for each individual product or component.
NOTE
If you plan to install BMC Event Management only but also need to integrate BMC
Performance Manager or BMC Remedy Service Desk with the BMC Atrium CMDB, you must
also install the BMC SIM CMDB extensions.
Table 2 on page 19 lists the factors that you should consider when determining which
SIM installation scenario to use. The most important factor is the size of your service
model (the number of objects that you are managing). Depending on the size of your
service model, you might want to distribute the installation of the components among
several computers. The other factors listed in this table can also influence your
decisions about where to install specific components.
When you determine the number of computers on which you want to install the
components, ensure that the computers that you select meet the requirements for
installing and running these products. For system requirement information, see the
BMC Impact Solutions Release Notes and the BMC Portal Release Notes.
Table 3 Installing service impact management for a small service model (part 1 of 2)
Action Computer Reference
1. (optional) Install a single database to use for 1 See “Database for the BMC Remedy AR
both BMC Impact Portal and BMC Remedy System” on page 51 and the BMC Remedy AR
AR System. System 7.1: Installing guide or the BMC Remedy
Action Request System 7.5 Installation Guide,
depending on what version you will be using.
2. (optional) Install BMC Remedy AR System. 1 See “BMC Remedy AR System” on page 52 and
the BMC Remedy AR System 7.1: Installing guide
or the BMC Remedy Action Request System 7.5
Installation Guide, depending on what version
you will be using.
3. (optional) Install BMC Remedy 1 See “BMC Remedy AR System” on page 52 and
Administrator. the BMC Remedy AR System 7.1: Installing guide
or the BMC Remedy Action Request System 7.5
Installation Guide, depending on what version
you will be using.
4. (optional) Install BMC Remedy User. 1 See “BMC Remedy AR System” on page 52 and
the BMC Remedy AR System 7.1: Installing guide
or the BMC Remedy Action Request System 7.5
Installation Guide,depending on what version
you will be using.
5. (optional) Install BMC Atrium CMDB. 1 See “BMC Atrium CMDB” on page 53 and the
BMC Atrium CMDB 2.1: Installation and
Configuration Guide or the BMC Atrium Core 7.5
Installation Guide, depending on what version
you will be using.
6. (optional) Install BMC SIM CMDB 1 In the 7.3 version of BMC Impact Solutions,
extensions. there are two installation programs for the
BMC SIM CMDB extensions, depending on
what version of the BMC Atrium CMDB you
are using. For details, see the BMC Impact
Solutions Installation Guide.
7. Install the BMC Impact Solutions 1 See the BMC Impact Solutions Installation Guide.
components.
8. (optional) Install the BMC Impact Portal 1 See “Database for the BMC Impact Portal” on
database. page 54 and the BMC Datastore Installation
Guide.
If you are not using a single common
database server for the BMC Remedy AR
System and the BMC Impact Portal, install
an Oracle database for the BMC Impact
Portal.
9. (optional) Install the BMC Impact Portal. 1 See “BMC Impact Portal” on page 55 and the
BMC Portal Installation Guide.
Table 3 Installing service impact management for a small service model (part 2 of 2)
Action Computer Reference
10. (optional) Install the SNMP libraries. 1 See the BMC Impact Solutions Installation Guide.
11. (optional) Install BMC Impact Integration 1 See the BMC Impact Integration for PATROL
for PATROL. User Guide.
12. (optional) Install BMC Impact Integration 1 See the BMC Impact Integration for PATROL
for PATROL Enterprise Manager. Enterprise Manager Installation and Configuration
Guide.
Table 4 Installing service impact management for a medium to large service model (part 1 of 2)
Action Computer Reference
1. Install a single database to use for both the 2 See “Database for the BMC Remedy AR
BMC Impact Portal and BMC Remedy AR System” on page 51 and the BMC Remedy AR
System. System 7.1: Installing guide or the BMC Remedy
Action Request System 7.5 Installation Guide,
depending on what version you will be using.
2. Install BMC Remedy AR System. 2 See “BMC Remedy AR System” on page 52 and
the BMC Remedy AR System 7.1: Installing guide
or the BMC Remedy Action Request System 7.5
Installation Guide, depending on what version
you will be using.
3. Install BMC Remedy Administrator. 2 See “BMC Remedy AR System” on page 52 and
the BMC Remedy AR System 7.1: Installing guide
or the BMC Remedy Action Request System 7.5
Installation Guide, depending on what version
you will be using.
4. Install BMC Remedy User. 2 See “BMC Remedy AR System” on page 52 and
the BMC Remedy AR System 7.1: Installing guide
or the BMC Remedy Action Request System 7.5
Installation Guide, depending on what version
you will be using.
5. Install BMC Atrium CMDB. 2 See “BMC Atrium CMDB” on page 53 and the
BMC Atrium CMDB 2.1: Installation and
Configuration Guide or the BMC Atrium Core 7.5
Installation Guide, depending on what version
you will be using.
6. Install BMC SIM CMDB extensions. 2 In the 7.3 version of BMC Impact Solutions,
there are two installation programs for the
BMC SIM CMDB extensions, depending on
what version of the BMC Atrium CMDB you
are using. For details, see the BMC Impact
Solutions Installation Guide.
7. Install the BMC Impact Solutions 1 See the BMC Impact Solutions Installation Guide.
components.
Table 4 Installing service impact management for a medium to large service model (part 2 of 2)
Action Computer Reference
8. (optional) Install the BMC Impact Portal 2 See “Database for the BMC Impact Portal” on
database. page 54 and the BMC Datastore Installation
Guide.
If you are not using a single common
database server for the BMC Remedy AR
System and the BMC Impact Portal, install
an Oracle database for the BMC Impact
Portal.
9. Install BMC Impact Portal. 1 See “BMC Impact Portal” on page 55 and the
BMC Portal Installation Guide.
Table 5 Installing service impact management for a very large service model (part 1 of 2)
Action Computer Reference
1. Install a single database to use for 3 See “Database for the BMC Remedy AR System” on
both the BMC Impact Portal and BMC page 51 and the BMC Remedy AR System 7.1:
Remedy AR System. Installing guide or the BMC Remedy Action Request
System 7.5 Installation Guide, depending on what
version you will be using.
2. Install BMC Remedy AR System. 3 See “BMC Remedy AR System” on page 52 and the
BMC Remedy AR System 7.1: Installing guide or the
BMC Remedy Action Request System 7.5 Installation
Guide, depending on what version you will be using.
3. Install BMC Remedy Administrator. 3 See “BMC Remedy AR System” on page 52 and the
BMC Remedy AR System 7.1: Installing guide or the
BMC Remedy Action Request System 7.5 Installation
Guide, depending on what version you will be using.
4. Install BMC Remedy User. 3 See “BMC Remedy AR System” on page 52 and the
BMC Remedy AR System 7.1: Installing guide or the
BMC Remedy Action Request System 7.5 Installation
Guide, depending on what version you will be using.
5. Install BMC Atrium CMDB. 3 See “BMC Atrium CMDB” on page 53 and the BMC
Atrium CMDB 2.1: Installation and Configuration
Guide or the BMC Atrium Core 7.5 Installation Guide,
depending on what version you will be using.
6. Install BMC SIM CMDB extensions. 3 In the 7.3 version of BMC Impact Solutions, there are
two installation programs for the BMC SIM CMDB
extensions, depending on what version of the BMC
Atrium CMDB you are using. For details, see the
BMC Impact Solutions Installation Guide.
7. Install the BMC Impact Solutions 1 See the BMC Impact Solutions Installation Guide.
components.
8. (optional) Install the BMC Impact 2 See “Database for the BMC Impact Portal” on
Portal database. page 54 and the BMC Datastore Installation Guide.
Table 5 Installing service impact management for a very large service model (part 2 of 2)
Action Computer Reference
9. Install BMC Impact Portal. 1 See “BMC Impact Portal” on page 55 and the BMC
Portal Installation Guide.
For an explanation of how a high-availability cell works and for procedures for
configuring primary and secondary cell servers, see BMC Impact Solutions
Infrastructure Administration Guide.
For details on registering the cell with the BMC Impact Portal, see BMC Impact
Solutions Getting Started Guide.
Recommended architectures
On equivalent hardware, BMC Impact Solutions demonstrate no substantive
difference on different platforms in terms of footprint and performance. Based on
testing done in BMC Software testing labs, Microsoft Windows, Linux, and UNIX
platforms have very similar performance figures.
Using a dual CPU (or dual core single CPU) computer to host the BMC Impact
Manager ensures that BMC Impact Manager processing does not encounter
performance issues when the State Builder runs.
Both BMC Event Manager (BMC EM) and BMC Service Impact Manager (BMC SIM)
use the same underlying technology, BMC Impact Manager, and therefore share
many features. A SIM cell processes events in the exact same manner as a EM cell. It
may therefore be tempting to use a single cell to perform both event and service
impact management. However, best practice is to split event and service impact
functionality into separate cells. In other words, use one cell for event management
functions (event collection, normalization, de-duplication, correlation, escalation) and
another cell for service impact management functions.
In each of the environments listed in the following sections, the BMC Impact Explorer
runs on remote desktops, typically at operator workstations. In the associated
diagrams, blue, dotted lines represent event flows. Black, dashed lines represent
console connections from BMC Impact Explorer to BMC Impact Manager instances.
For clarity, all application connections, failover capabilities for the IAS and cell, and
event and impact reporting are not shown.
■ no more than 200 computers, all located on the same local area network
■ no more than 2 monitoring tools (for example, BMC Performance Manager, SNMP)
are feeding events to EM
■ no more than 500,000 events per day are collected and processed
■ no reporting needs
■ no high availability
In this environment, the entire BMC Impact Solution (including the BMC Portal
database) can be hosted on a single, dedicated computer with the following
specifications:
■ 2,000 to 5, 000 computers, distributed across several data centers with high-speed
connections
■ multiple monitoring tools (for example, BMC Performance Manager, SNMP) are
feeding events to EM
■ an total of more than 1,000,000 events per day, with an average of 300,000 events
per data center
■ no reporting needs
■ no high availability
Each remote location runs the BMC Impact Manager instance as well as adapters and
integration components and requires one dedicated computer with the following
specifications:
The sizing of the servers in remote locations may vary based on the event volumes in
each location. It may be acceptable to use servers with less power, such as a single
CPU when event volumes are low (less than 200,000 events per day).
The operations center runs IAS plus two Impact Managers, one for processing events
and the second for presenting events to operators. One dedicated server is required
with the following specifications:
BMC IX instances run on operators’ desktops and connect to the presentation BMC
Impact Manager. Since BMC IX instances need only occasional connection to the
remote Impact Managers (mostly for administrative purposes), these connections are
not shown in Figure 3.
■ setting up SAN technology for event and data storage in the operations center
■ installing a separate Impact Manager instance to handle source events that are
received in the operations center
■ if BMC Performance Manager is installed, reviewing the recommendations
provided in BMC Performance Manager Portal Performance and Scalability Guidelines.
■ moving the web server and application server to separate computers
■ no more than 200 computers, all located on the same local area network
■ no more than 2 monitoring tools (for example, BMC Performance Manager, SNMP)
are feeding events to EM
■ no reporting needs
■ no high availability
■ the service model has no more than a few hundred components plus the same
number of relationships
■ the BMC Atrium CMDB is only used by BMC Impact Solutions (and not by
Remedy ITSM applications)
In this environment, the entire BMC Impact Solution (including the BMC Atrium
CMDB) can be hosted on a single, dedicated computer with the following
specifications:
In Figure 4 on page 31, the dotted, blue arrows represent event flows, the dashed,
black arrows represent console connections (from BMC IX to BMC Impact Managers),
and the solid orange arrows show database dependencies.
■ events are collected and managed from a mid-size IT infrastructure with hundreds
of servers in a central location
■ various monitoring tools (for example, BMC Performance Manager, SNMP) are
feeding events to EM
■ no high availability
■ the service model has no more than a 5,000 components plus the same number of
relationships
■ the BMC Atrium CMDB is only used by BMC Impact Solutions (and not by
Remedy ITSM applications)
In this environment, the BMC Impact Solution (including the BMC Atrium CMDB) is
hosted on two computers with the following specifications:
■ applying BMC Portal tuning guidelines described in the BMC Performance Manager
Portal Performance and Scalability Guidelines
■ increasing the number of threads (list and fast) for the BMC Remedy AR Server by
using the BMC Remedy Administrator tool. The recommended number of threads
is 2 for each processor. See also the white paper Performance Tuning for Business
Service Management.
■ moving the database for the BMC Portal to a computer separate from the database
for BMC Atrium CMDB
■ placing the event integration components (BMC Impact Integration for PATROL,
adapters, and so on) on separate computers
■ setting up SAN technology for event and data storage
■ using the architecture for a large EM environment (see “Large BMC Event
Manager only environment” on page 28)
■ if Remedy ITSM applications are installed, reviewing the white paper Sizing and
Capacity Planning for BMC Remedy IT Service management 7.0 and BMC Atrium
CMDB 2.0
■ if BMC Performance Manager is installed, reviewing the recommendations
provided in BMC Performance Manager Portal Performance and Scalability Guidelines
■ 2,000 to 5,000 computers are distributed across several data centers with high-
speed connections
■ various monitoring tools (for example, BMC Performance Manager, SNMP) are
feeding events to EM
■ no high availability
■ the service model has no more than a 10,000 components and about the same
number of relationships
■ the BMC Atrium CMDB may be used by a medium configuration BMC Remedy
ITSM suite
For the EM part of this environment, dedicated Impact Manager instances are
installed in each remote data center and feed events to a computer that hosts the
central EM and SIM instances. The BMC Impact Solutions is hosted on 4 computers
with the following specifications:
■ applying BMC Portal tuning guidelines described in the BMC Performance Manager
Portal Performance and Scalability Guidelines
■ increasing the number of threads (list and fast) for the BMC Remedy AR Server by
using the BMC Remedy Administrator tool. The recommended number of threads
is 2 for each processor. See also the white paper Performance Tuning for Business
Service Management.
■ moving the database for the BMC Portal to a computer separate from the database
for BMC Atrium CMDB
■ placing the event integration components (BMC Impact Integration for PATROL,
adapters, and so on) on separate computers
■ for Remedy ITSM applications information, reviewing the white paper Sizing and
Capacity Planning for BMC Remedy IT Service management 7.0 and BMC Atrium
CMDB 2.0
■ if BMC Performance Manager is installed, reviewing the recommendations
provided in BMC Performance Manager Portal Performance and Scalability Guidelines.
You will need to refer to the following BMC Impact Solutions documentation to help
you with your BMC Event Management implementation:
You will need to refer to the following BMC Impact Solutions documentation to help
you with your BMC Service Impact Management implementation:
Figure 8 implementation workflow for BMC Service Impact Management with the BMC Atrium
CMDB
Example architectures
This section describes real-life customer production environments where BMC
Impact Solutions have been successfully deployed. The architectural choices made by
each customer were influenced by multiple factors (not all described here) and other
approaches may have been valid, but these examples provide valuable information.
For event integration, all PATROL agents connect to cells using the Mexico
integration component, in other words, using direct PATROL agent connections. The
customer, working with BMC Professional Services, established that optimal
performance of BMC II for PATROL 3 was obtained if each instance of BMC II for
PATROL 3 connected to no more than 100 PATROL agents. A total of 50 BMC II for
PATROL 3 instances are used in the solution.
■ Tier 1 cells collect events from the BMC II for PATROL 3 instances and apply
enrichment and filter rules to the events before propagating them to the second
tier. There are 10 tier 1 cells in the environment, each configured similarly. The tier
1 cells filter out about 90 percent of the incoming events.
■ Tier 2 event processing is performed by one centralized cell that performs event
correlation and de-duplication on events collected from the Tier 1 cells. This cell
contains all the event management logic, but no collectors. Correlated events are
propagated to a presentation cell that manages display of events to operators. This
presentation cell does not contain any rules, it contains only collectors.
The 12 cells and the 50 BMC II for PATROL 3 instances run on only two Windows
servers and each server has 4 CPUs with 4 GB RAM. Each server hosts six cells and
approximately 25 BMC II for PATROL 3 instances. Data storage uses SAN
technology, which provides significant performance gains in terms of processing
speed. The customer estimates that using SAN-based storage for BMC IM speeds up
event processing by a factor of 2 to 3.
Summary
■ A two-tiered approach to Event Management is sound in large environments. The
first tier cells receive the infrastructure events and do the basic work of event
filtering and normalization; the second tier takes care of event correlation,
integration with ticketing/notification systems and of the presentation.
■ Storage Area Network (SAN) technology can be used to solve BMC Impact
Manager performance bottlenecks, usually found at disk I/O level.
■ When using BMC II for PATROL 3 (mxcp) to receive events from BMC PATROL
agents, limit the number of connected agents to 100 agents per integration instance.
Two years ago, as the need to manage their infrastructure from a service perspective
grew, they began implementing BMC SIM for one of their most important business
services, the ordering process.
BMC PATROL EM still acts as the central console for event management. Events
coming from BMC PATROL and a couple of other smaller event sources are
integrated into BMC PATROL EM. The BMC Impact Integration for PATROL
Enterprise Manager (BMC II for PATROL EM) is used to forward the events to BMC
IM. Events coming from BMC PATROL EM are first processed in one cell before
being forwarded to BMC Service Impact Manager. It is common practice (although
not technically required) to place a “staging” cell in front of SIM cells to ensure
proper normalization and centralization of events before they affect the service
model.
Because the service model is large and includes elements (components and
relationships) that are repeated many times, a custom utility populates the BMC
Atrium CMDB with the model objects. As of November 2006, the model contains
approximately 8,500 components, which are published to a single cell.
Operators and service impact managers primarily use BMC Impact Explorer as the
main console. BMC Impact Portal is primarily used for authentication and
authorization.
Table 8 describes the three servers that support their solution. Each server uses local
hard drives for storage.
NOTE
This customer currently uses version 4.1 of BMC Impact Solutions. The BMC Atrium CMDB
and the BMC Impact Portal are therefore not part of their solution. The solution is
nevertheless worth describing due to its distributed nature and the high event volumes.
There is a dedicated Event Management server in each datacenter that takes care of
the collection and processing of the local events. Events are received from
The BMC II for PATROL 7 integration instances run on the Patrol Console servers
and connect about 50 agents per instance.
■ HP OpenView Network Node Manager using the ad-hoc integration product BMC
Impact Integration for HP OpenView Network Node Manager (BMC II for NNM)
The BMC II for NNM integration instance is hosted on the HP OpenView Network
Node Manager server.
The BMC Patrol agents are not “tuned,” so many events are generated by the
PATROL agents. Strict filtering rules discard events based on a “top 10” logic (only
events related to the most important parameters are accepted), and “info” events are
closed after two minutes. Finally, only events that have an impact on service model
components are propagated to the SIM instance at the central location. This requires
building service model component aliases at the EM level.
Operators and service impact managers primarily use the BMC Impact Explorer as
their main console. There are about 10 users simultaneously logged in.
Figure 11 on page 44 summarizes the functional architecture. The solid, red lines
present the primary event stream between BEM and SIM cells, and the dashed,
purple lines present the secondary event flow.
Each datacenter uses a dedicated server to host the EM and, in two data centers, the
SIM instance.
These three Windows 2003 servers have all the same specifications: 4 CPUs with 8 GB
RAM, using SCSI RAID 5 local disks.
The customer has noted that the CPU utilization on these servers is very low (< 10%).
Summary
■ distribute the solution to match the topology of your environment. Deploy at least
one Impact Manager instance per datacenter.
■ close and discard events as quickly as possible to make room for new ones. The
policy at the customer is to discard closed events after 3 hours
■ build service model component aliases at the EM level so that only events that
actually impact the service model are propagated to SIM
2
2 Implementation considerations
This chapter discusses items that you should consider when planning your
installation or upgrade of the BMC Impact Solutions components.
■ it is best to use at least a 2-CPU (or dual-core single CPU) system to host BMC
Impact Managers, so that the cell does not encounter performance issues when the
StateBuilder runs
■ to prevent disk I/Os causing bottlenecks when event volumes are high, use fast
disks or SAN technology
■ the resource utilization of the cell is dependent on the type of adapter supplying
the events and the retry and recovery mechanisms used by the adapters; for
example, buffering events, attempts to resend events, and so on
■ both event management and impact management functions must be provided; use
one BMC Impact Manager for event management and one for service impact
management.
■ the managed infrastructure is distributed across several locations; install one BMC
Impact Manager instance in each remote location
■ the number of events is large, more than 500,000 events per day
■ there are different event sources which require a different set of event management
rules
■ the number of users of BMC Impact Explorer grows to more than 10 simultaneous
users; in which case, consider also separating the processing and the presentation
of events into different BMC Impact Managers
■ By event source: In cases where there are multiple event sources and event volume
is high, you can deploy dedicated BMC Impact Managers to process the different
event streams. This is especially recommended when events arrive with different
formats (SNMP traps, in particular) and need to be normalized before they can be
properly processed.
Another factor to consider is that the BMC Impact Manager supports the distribution
of a service model across multiple BMC Impact Managers, as long as the number of
relationships that cross BMC Impact Managers is minimal.
The first BMC Impact Manager handles event management and has a minimum
Knowledge Base (KB), which contains rules and policies, but no collectors (the
kb/collectors directory is empty). The KB contains a propagation rule that ensures that
all events are propagated to the second BMC Impact Manager.
The second BMC Impact Manager has all the collector definitions, but no event
management rules (the kb/rules directory is empty). Users of BMC Impact Explorer
connect only to this second BMC Impact Manager.
Normally, built-in mechanisms take care of synchronizing events across two BMC
Impact Managers, but if you set up separate processing and presentation BMC
Impact Managers, it may be necessary to extend the number of slots which are
synchronized. The configuration file mcell.propagate controls which slot changes are
synchronized (and in which direction) after event propagation. For more information
about mcell.propagate, see the BMC Impact Solutions Infrastructure Administration
Guide.
You can select a Master or Standard BMC Impact Administration Server (IAS) at
installation. A Master IAS enables the Infrastructure Management feature in BMC
Impact Explorer and installs an accompanying administration cell on the same host as
the Master IAS. (The administration cell is designated by default as Admin in the BMC
Impact Explorer GUI.)
A Standard IAS provides all the features of the Master IAS, except support for
Infrastructure Management and the administration cell. You must install a Master
IAS before you install a standard IAS.
NOTE
To switch from a Master IAS to a Standard IAS or vice versa after installation, you must
uninstall the existing server and then install the new server.
You can also specify the IAS as a standalone server, meaning you install only one IAS,
or, to allow for failover capability, you can install one IAS on one computer as the
Primary server and then install a second IAS on another computer as the Secondary
server in a high-availability pair. The primary and secondary servers should be
installed on the same type of platform and must have the same name.
For more information about configuring the IAS, see the BMC Impact Solutions
Infrastructure Administration Guide.
High-availability cells
Installing cells for high availability requires two servers, one to function as the
primary cell server and a second to function as secondary cell server in a failover
situation. These two servers must run on separate logical operating system images of
the same type. Additionally, only one of the two servers should be active at any time.
To get the same behavior for the primary and for the secondary cells, both should be
installed and configured similarly, and the Knowledge Bases for both servers must be
identical. Configuration parameters also should be set to the same values for both
servers, except for the CellDuplicateMode parameter that indicates whether the server
is a primary or a secondary server. For details about the high-availability cell
configuration parameters, see the BMC Impact Solutions Infrastructure Administration
Guide.
■ Service Administrators
■ Full Access
Only members of either group can view the Infrastructure Management subtab.
For more information about defining group roles, see the BMC Impact Solutions
Infrastructure Administration Guide.
■ Event groups and image views organize and represent the contents of collector.
Consequently, you should carefully plan and create the collectors for your
enterprise. Event groups and image views can provide no more information than
that gathered by collectors. (Collectors must be created before the event groups
that use them. For more information about collectors, see the BMC Impact Solutions
Knowledge Base Development Reference Guide.)
■ Creating event groups by using static collectors allows you to create the event
groups before you run the event management system in a test or production
environment. However, this practice can require a significant amount of manual
work depending on the number of event groups you create.
■ Creating event groups by using dynamic collectors requires less manual work than
using static collectors, but the event groups do not exist until cells receive events to
populate the dynamic collectors.
■ Install the BMC Datastore from the BMC Portal Infrastructure and Datastore
installation DVD for Windows. This DVD is located in the BMC Impact Portal kit.
For more information, see the BMC Datastore Installation Guide. You can use the
same BMC Datastore for both BMC Remedy AR System and the BMC Impact
Portal.
■ Download a licensed Oracle database (Standard Edition) from the Oracle website.
For information about installing Oracle, see the Oracle website.
NOTE
The BMC Remedy AR System that is included as part of the BMC Service Impact Manager
package is licensed exclusively to support BMC Atrium CMDB and its included application
components. If you intend to install other BMC Remedy ITSM applications, custom-
developed AR applications, or both, on this BMC Remedy AR System server instance, you
must purchase the appropriate BMC Remedy AR System server and user licenses, ITSM
application licenses, or both. This restriction does not preclude the integration of other BMC
products or integration of third-party products with the BMC Atrium CMDB under the BMC
Service Impact Manager package license.
If you have enough resources, you can create multiple instances of Oracle on the
same computer and use one for BMC Atrium CMDB and the second for BMC Portal.
On a computer with multiple processors, you can install BMC Impact Portal and the
BMC Datastore database on the same computer as the BMC Atrium CMDB database.
It is possible to use the same instance of Oracle for both BMC Atrium CMDB and
BMC Portal for small environments without ITSM applications and where system
resources prevent running multiple Oracle instances on the same computer, but this
is not a recommended configuration.
Version requirement
BMC Impact Solutions supports BMC Atrium CMDB version 2.1 patch 003 and BMC
Atrium CMDB 7.5. If you already have BMC Atrium CMDB installed, you must
upgrade it to the version 2.1 patch 003 or version 7.5 to use it with your new BMC
Impact Solutions product installation.
For instructions about installing the BMC Atrium CMDB, see the BMC Atrium CMDB
2.1 Installation and Configuration Guide or the BMC Atrium Core 7.5 Installation Guide in
the respective BMC Atrium Shared Components kit.
If the BMC Remedy IT Service Management (BMC Remedy ITSM) product or any of
its component products are installed after the BMC SIM CMDB extensions have been
installed, you must apply a patch to the BMC Atrium CMDB by using the cmdbdriver
script provided in the SIM_CMDB_Extension\patches directory on the BMC Event and
Impact Management Base DVD. For directions for applying the patch, see the readme.txt
file included with the script.
■ Use the same Oracle database instance (either the BMC Datastore or a licensed
Oracle database) that you installed for BMC Remedy AR System.
■ Create another instance of the Oracle database by using the Oracle database that
you installed for the BMC Remedy AR System.
■ Install another copy of the Oracle database or the BMC Datastore on a different
computer and use it solely for the BMC Impact Portal.
For installation instructions for the BMC Datastore, see the BMC Datastore Installation
Guide.
NOTE
Only one Oracle database installation can exist on a computer.
Many BMC Impact Portals can connect to a single Oracle database, but in such a situation, you
must create a different Oracle user for each BMC Impact Portal that you install.
For installation instructions for the BMC Impact Portal, see the BMC Portal Installation
Guide.
For optimization guidelines postinstallation, see the BMC Performance Manager Portal
Performance and Scalability Guidelines. Since the BMC Performance Manager Portal
product leverages the same base architecture as the BMC Impact Portal, much of the
document remains valid for BMC Impact Portal.
BMC Impact Publishing Server works with the BMC Impact Portal but is installed
separately. Advice for high volume sites without multi-processor computers is to
install BMC Impact Portal and the BMC Atrium CMDB on different computers;
however, best practice is to have the BMC Impact Publishing Server run on the same
computer as the BMC Atrium CMDB (or in close proximity). This is because of the
complexity of the data exchange protocol between these two components.
Ensure that the following services are stopped before you upgrade the BMC
Datastore; otherwise, the upgrade might fail.
■ AR System
■ BMC Impact Publishing Server
■ BMC Portal
■ BMC Portal Web Server
■ iiws
■ mcell_cellName
NOTE
If you installed the Oracle 10g client, uninstall it before you upgrade the datastore.
For upgrade instructions, see the BMC Remedy Action Request System 7.1: Installing
guide or the BMC Remedy Action Request System 7.5 Installation Guide in the respective
BMC Atrium Shared Components kit.
You can also upgrade BMC Atrium CMDB version 2.0.01 patch 006 to version 2.1
patch 003, which you can also use with BMC Impact Solutions 7.3.00. For upgrade
instructions, see the BMC Atrium CMDB 2.1 Installation and Configuration Guide.
Upgrading from versions earlier than 2.0.01 patch 006 is not supported. You must
upgrade BMC Atrium CMDB to at least version 2.0.01 patch 006 before upgrading to
version 7.5. Before upgrading to BMC Atrium CMDB version 7.5, you must apply the
AR Server license and the CMDB license.
BMC Atrium CMDB 7.5 does not support Microsoft Windows 2000, so you must
upgrade the operating system to Windows 2003 before upgrading the application.
If you plan to perform the BMC Impact Portal upgrade with BMC Datastore version
2.0 (as shipped with SIM 5.1.01), you must first upgrade the datastore to version 2.4
and then upgrade it to version 2.6.50. A direct upgrade from BMC Datastore 2.0 to
2.6.50 is not supported.
■ In environments with 100 agents or less, you can host BMC II for PATROL on the
same computer with PATROL Console Server, BMC Impact Manager, or both.
■ A single computer can host RTserver, PATROL Console Server (dedicated to BMC
II for PATROL), and BMC II for PATROL for up to 500 agents.
■ If your environment exceeds these thresholds, host BMC II for PATROL, PATROL
Console Server, or BMC Impact Manager on separate computers, primarily to
support a higher number of PATROL agents and event rates. In this scenario, a
computer with a fast CPU and large memory resources (for example, a 2-CPU
computer with 4 GB of memory) is recommended to allow the BMC II for PATROL
server to maintain a high throughput under peak conditions. Even so, a dedicated
BMC II for PATROL computer typically has spare capacity that can be used by
other PATROL infrastructure components, such as a PATROL for Event
Management—Notification Server or an Aggregator for PATROL Reporting. In
fact there are some scenarios where multiple BMC II for PATROL can be hosted on
the same computer as PATROL or BMC Impact Manager servers to reduce the
hardware costs associated with hosting the PATROL and Impact Solutions
infrastructure.
BMC has observed that a cell can receive and process around 20-30 average PATROL
events per second from one or more BMC II for PATROL instances.
A single BMC II for PATROL can handle 500 PATROL agents (the actual figure may
be higher). You can configure additional BMC II for PATROL adapters when a single
BMC II for PATROL is not sufficient to handle the workload of the total number of
PATROL agents.
Index
A
Atrium deployment option 16 D
deployment options
B Atrium 16
basic 14
basic deployment option 14 overview 13
BMC Atrium CMDB standard 15
installation considerations 53
upgrade considerations 57
BMC Impact Integration for PATROL, hardware sizing
requirements 58
E
BMC Impact Manager event management
determining number to use 46 implementation workflow 36
using a processing and presentation cell 48 installation scenario 17
using tiers for load sharing 47 recommended architecture for large environment 28
BMC Impact Portal recommended architecture for large event and service
database installation considerations 54 impact management environment 33
database upgrade considerations 57 recommended architecture for medium event and
installation considerations 55 service impact management environment 31
upgrade considerations 57 recommended architecture for small event and service
BMC Impact Publishing Server, installation considerations impact management environment 30
55 recommended architectures for small environment 26
BMC Impact Service Model Editor, using with a firewall
55
BMC Remedy AR System
database upgrade considerations 56
H
installation considerations 51, 52 hardware sizing requirements, for BMC Impact
upgrade considerations 56 Integration for PATROL 58
BMC SIM CMDB extensions, installation considerations 54 high-availability cells
BMC Software, contacting 2 implementation considerations 49
when considering installation scenarios 25
C I
cell
determining the number to use 46 Impact Administration Server
installing for high availability 49 roles and permissions 50
using a processing and presentation 48 using a Master or Standard type 49
using tiers for load sharing 47 implementation considerations
customer support 2 determining the type of IAS to use 49
guidelines for creating event groups and image views
50
high-availability cells 49
internationalization for Common Event Model slots
51
number of BMC Impact Managers to use 46
Index 61
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
R
recommended architectures
large event and service impact management
environment 33
large event management environment 28
medium event and service impact management
environment 31
overview 26
small event and service impact management
environment 30
small event management environment 26
requirements, hardware sizing for BMC Impact
Integration for PATROL 58