Operations Bridge

To configure a target of type Micro Focus Operations Bridge Manager ( OMi/OpsBridge), you need to do these steps:

1. Check that your OBM version is a supported version
2. System Preparation: Configure a "connected server" in Micro Focus OpsBridge
3. Target Configuration: Configure the mandatory connection settings in the corresponding OBM target in the ClipConfig.xml on the Clip server or in the Clip Web UI

Supported Versions

Please assure that the system you intend to integrate meets the version requirements outlined in the table below.

The following versions of Micro Focus Operations Bridge Manager ( OMi, ex. OMi / OpsBridge ) are supported:

System Preparation

“Connected Server” Setup

To create a "Connected Server", access the Operations Bridge Managers console and  from the "Administration" menu, select "Setup and Maintenance" → "Connected Servers". Then, add a "Connected Server" of type "External Event Processing".

General

In the "General" dialog window, type in the following Information:

• Display label  →  a descriptive name for the "Connected Server" which shows up in the popup menu on a selected event in the event list 
• Identifier →   the Name of the new Server Connection - it will be autogenerated by OBM ( until 2020.05 ) or can be set individually ( 2020.10 and newer ). This is the user name configured in ClipConfig.xml for the Clip server to connect to OBM and update events (attribute "userOut" in the OBM target definition in ClipConfig.xml).
• Description → a description for the "Connected Server"

Server Properties

In the "Server Properties", type in information for the target server

• Fully Qualified Domain Name → the fully qualified DNS name of the system where Clip is installed
• CI Type → select "Management System" as "CI Type" (this CI type represents the CLIP server in the CMDB )

and in the "advanced delivery options":

• Delivery Options → in the "Advanced Delivery Options", customize the way events and change notifications are forwarded to CLIP. The available options are:
  • Serial → Events and change notifications are delivered serially in the order that they were received.
  • Serial per Source (default) →  Each originating server is provided with a dedicated outgoing request delivery path. For each individual outgoing request delivery path, events and change notifications are delivered serially in the order that they were received.
  • Parallel → The configured number of outgoing request delivery paths are used when forwarding events and change notifications. This can increase the throughput for delivery of events and change notifications. However, because the source of the event is not considered, maintenance of the incoming order cannot be guaranteed. Dialog Window "Integration Type"

The recommended setting for the „Advanced Delivery Options" is „Parallel" (5).

Please note that OBM allows to use the same FQDN for the "Target Server" only once for all connected servers. In this case you will get this error message:

If you like to configure multiple connected servers in OBM for the same Clip instance, you can add alias names for the Clip server into the hosts file on the OBM server.

Integration Type

In the "Integration Type" dialog window:

• Type → select the option "Call External Event Web Service"
• URL Path → in the field for the Root URL path, type "/Clip/rest/OMi/" followed by the Clip target name of type OBM - in the example screenshot below "MF_OMi2SN" is shown as the Clip target name for the OBM to ServiceNow integration.
• Supports bulk Transfer → leave the "Support Bulk Transfer" option unchecked

The "URL Path" for the example OBM targets is

• • "/Clip/rest/OMi/MF_OMi2SN" for target "MF_OMi2SN"
  • "/Clip/rest/OMi/MF_OMi2ITSM" for target "MF_OMi2ITSM"
  • "/Clip/rest/OMi/MF_OMi_BMCDemo" for target "MF_OMi_BMCDemo"

Outgoing Connection

In the "Outgoing Connection" dialog window, type in

• the User Name and Password that OBM uses to login to Clip. For the Clip default installation, enter username "admin" and password "admin".
• the Port number, where Clip listens to accept events and event changes ( default: 9090 )
• Use Secure HTTP → to get a quick integration without installing certificates, please uncheck "Use Secure HTTP"
• Transfer Control → Confirm the check box "Enable synchronize and transfer control" is checked. Please note that
  • When the "Enable synchronize and transfer control" flag is set, an Operations Management operator is then able to transfer ownership of the event to the target connected server
  • If the "Enable synchronize and transfer control" flag is not set, then the option Synchronize and Transfer Control does not appear in the list of forwarding types when configuring forwarding rules
  • If the "Enable synchronize and transfer control" flag is not set for any target connected server, the Transfer Control to option does not appear at all in the Event Browser context menu
  • If a specific server is configured without the "Enable synchronize and transfer control" flag set, then that server is not available in the Event Browser context menu as a server to which you can transfer ownership

In order to secure the connection please check "Use Secure HTTP". This will enable HTTPS communication between the OBM Gateway server and Clip. Also set the port number to the port on which Clip's tomcat connector is listening to.
The default Clip SSL port is 9443. 

Incoming Connection

In the "Incoming Connection" Dialog Window, enter

• User name → the user name is identical to the Identifier in the General section from the first step above and is auto-generated
• Password → the password for the user –  These credentials enable CLIP to authenticate with OBM and update events

The user name and password entered here must correspond to the settings of the attributes "userOut" and "passwdOut" of a Clip target of type OMi in the ClipConfig.xml.

Event Drilldown

In the "Event Drilldown" Dialog Window, you define the

• Fully qualified domain name and
• Port number

of your target system. The drilldown URL is opened once an OBM operator clicks the "Show Details in External Application" link in an events' "Forwarding Info" in the Event Details.

The complete URL is composed from the settings for the FQDN and Port above, appended by the content in the "drilldownURL" XML tag in the Clip configuration for the target system.

Test Connection

To test the connection to the Clip instance, click the "Run Test" button.

Adding "Forwarding Rules"

To automatically forward events, you need to configure "Forwarding Rules" in Operations Manager.  From the "Administration" menu, select "Event Processing" →  "Event Forwarding" in the "Automation" group.
To create a new Forwarding Rule, select "New Item". In the "Create New Event Forwarding Rule" Window, enter the following details:

• Display Name
• Description
• Active: Set the Active Flag
• Condition: Select and configure the Event Filter Condition that you want to use
• Target Servers: Select the "Connected Server" that you configured in the previous step and press  to add it to the list of Target Servers.
• Forwarding Type:
  • Notify
  • Notify and Update
  • Synchronize
  • Synchronize & Transfer Control

In a new Clip setup, it is recommended to use manual event submission first and verify the setup first before using automatic forwarding.

Clip Target Configuration

To configure a target of Target Type OMi, you need to adjust the basic settings to point to your OMi server.
The update and external info settings define how Clip should display information in the external info tab of the OMi event and how Clip should modify an OMi event in case the synchronize ARS Incident changes. These settings do not need to be changed for the example targets of the default installation. 

Connection Settings

To configure a Clip target for an OBM system, you need to configure the connection settings to point to your OMi server.
The update and external info settings define how Clip should display information in the external info tab of the OMi event and how Clip should modify an OMi event in case the synchronize ARS Incident changes. These settings do not need to be changed for the example targets of the default installation.

On the Clip Server, edit the configuration file conf/ClipConfig.xml and restart Clip, or edit the configuration directly in the Cip Web UI "Configuration" Tab:

The following mandatory attributes must be set in the OMi target definition ( XML element <omiTarget/> ):

• name →  "MF_OMi2SN" is the target name in the example above. Note, that the target name must match the "URL Path" trailer in the "Integration Type" Dialog box above from the "Connected Server" settings.
• url → the URL needs to be customized to point to your OBM gateway server, i.e. when it is entered in a browser, it must take you to the OBM Web UI
• userOut: → this user name corresponds to the user name shown in the OBM  "Incoming Connection" dialog box of the "Connected Server" . In the example configuration above, the user name is "ServiceNow".
• passwdOut → this password corresponds to the password defined in the OBM  "Incoming Connection" dialog box of the "Connected Server". The password can be entered in clear text or as an encrypted value. To encrypt the password, use the password encryption in the "Configuration" tab of the Clip Web interface:

Furthermore, the following optional attributes can be set in the OBM target definition:

• retryIntervalSecs → defines the time interval for Clip to retry a connection to this target if the connection is lost.
• trustAllCerts → should be used for testing and debugging purposes only. If set to "true", Clip will accept all SSL certificates even invalid ones.
• keystoreFile → can be used to load a key store for private key authentication: keystoreFile="/var/keystore/myKey.pfx"
• keystorePass → must be configured when the "keystoreFile" attribute is configured in order to provide the password to load the key: keystorePass="myPassword"
• Event update control: whenever a forwarded OBM event changes, an event update is sent to Clip that updates the corresponding incident. To limit the number of incident updates, the following attributes can be used:
  • processUpdates → this boolean setting , if set to "true", means that Clip does process event updates and updates the corresponding incident. With the setting processUpdates="false", no updates are performed by CLIP for any incident.
  • eventAttributeChangesToIgnore →  instead of using the processUpdate attribute as a general switch for processing event updates on or off, you can also exclude individual OBM event attribute changes to be forwarded by specifying them in a semicolon separated list in the "eventAttributeChangesToIgnore" attribute. The default is to suppress updates for the duplicate counter and the event's transfer state ( eventAttributeChangesToIgnore="control_transferred_to;duplicate_count" ). The following additional OBM event attributes can be used in the list:
    • "state": OMi event state ( Open, In Progress, Resolved, Closed )
    • "title": OMi event title
    • "description": OMi event description
    • "solution": OMi event solution
    • "severity": OMi event severity ( normal, warning, minor, major, critical )
    • "priority": OMi event priority ( None, Low, Medium, High, Highest )
    • "cause": OMi event cause as determined by OMi's TBEC
    • "symptom": OMi list of symptoms as determined by OMi's TBEC
    • "assigned_user":OMi event assigned user
    • "assigned_group":OMi event assigned group
    • "annotation": OMi event's added or modified annotations
    • "custom_attribute": OMi event's added or modified custom attributes (CAs)
• the drilldown URL tag ( "<drilldownURL/>" ) specifies how an event or incident of this target can be opened in a web browser. It is used in the Clip Web UI in the incident list to provide a quick link to the incident.
• the incident description tag ( <incidentDescription/> ) defines the description text for an event or incident for this target. It is displayed in the Clip Web interface in the "Description" column.

Synchronization Settings

The update settings define how Clip should update an OBM event in case the synchronized peer incident changes. These settings are defined under the <updateOMi> element for an OBM target. They can include Variables ( [variablename] ), that refer to attributes of the BMC Remedy or ServiceNow incident. These settings do not need to be changed if the example targets of the default installation are used to provide an out-of-the-box integration.

Event Annotations

The following setting in the Clip Configuration file can be used to add annotations to an event:

Results example:

Event Custom Attributes (CA)

The following setting in the Clip Configuration file can be used to add and update custom attributes to an event:

Results example:

Event Solution

The following setting in the Clip Configuration file can be used to add and update the solution field of an event:

Event Severity

The OBM event severity can be set according to a configured mapping schema based on the new value of any incident attribute. In the example form, the OBM event severity is mapped to the Clip form field "Priority" in the following manner:

For example, if the Priority is set to "Critical" in the ARS example form
,
the corresponding OMi event severity will be set to "critical"

Event Priority

The OBM event priority can be set according to a configured mapping schema based on the new value of any ARS Ticket attribute. In the example form, the OMi event priority is mapped to the Clip form field "Priority" in the following manner:

For example, if the Priority is set to "Critical"
,
the corresponding OMi event priority will be set to "critical"

Event State

The OBM event state can be set according to a configured mapping schema based on the new value of any ticket attribute. In the example form, the OBM event state is mapped to the Clip form field "Status" in the following manner:

For example, if the state is set to "Active"
,
the corresponding OMi event state will be set to "In Progress"

Event "Forwarded to" 

The Settings in the ClipConfig.xml file in the "externalInfo" Tag define how Clip should display Information about the incident in the OMi "Forwarding Tab" ( formerly "External Info Tab"):

Results example: