TBSM v6.1 Feature Review: Full Netcool/Impact Included

Ever since the days of Netcool/SLAM, Netcool/RAD and now TBSM v4.x, the heart of the product has been based on Netcool/Impact. If you peel all the layers of the onion back, you’ll see a few dozen Netcool/Impact policies that handle all of the heavy lifting for TBSM and simply feed various UI components. The use of Netcool/Impact has been limited to basically a “run time” version of Netcool/Impact v3.x era software. When compared to the full featured stand alone Netcool/Impact product, what is available for use in the TBSM v4.x and earlier versions was significantly limited and often very difficult to use, modify or customize due to the lack of standard capabilities (DSAs, commands/functions, etc.) and UIs.

Enter TBSM v6.1 this week and we introduce the consolidated and modernized core TBSM architecture based on a full featured instance of Netcool/Impact v6.1 under the covers containing all of its features, functions, UI and capability. While things essentially work the same, there are subtle differences in a few areas but they should be transparent for most. In fact, you may have to really look hard to find where the Netcool/Impact UI components are located within the TIP Task Panel.

The most common use of Netcool/Impact over the years is to perform event enrichment (collecting data from some source and populating an event slot with that data). There has always been a point of contention in typical architectures where both TBSM and Netcool/Impact connect to the same Netcool/OMNIbus system around the timing of TBSM acting upon events after Netcool/Impact has completed its processing. The same concerns exist in TBSM v6.1 but we have an easier approach for handling the timing of event processing. You can read about this feature here.

Netcool/Impact 6.1 introduces an alternative policy development language using Javascript in addition to the standard Impact Policy Language. Some key differences between the two policy languages is available here.

TBSM v6.1 exploits the full featured Netcool/Impact v6.1 instance to create a new Service Component Registry (SCR) API. This basically now establishes Netcool/Impact as a means to collect data from any of its supported data source adaptors (DSA) and insert that data into TBSM’s SCR database to add/move/change instances, attributes, relationships, groups, dependencies, etc. within the TBSM service model. This can be an alternative to manual, autopopulation, ESDA, IDML or TADDM methods for building and maintaining TBSM service models. More information is available here.

Similarly, a new function has been created which allows TBSM service models that are manually created, created using RADSHELL or via autopopulation to be passed into the SCR database. This allows for reconciliation of those service model instances, attributes and relationships along with other data in the SCR from IDML or TADDM sources. I’ll try to speak about why this will become important soon.

Passing data from Netcool/Impact v6.1 Data Sources (other than the default event reader) to TBSM v6.1 requires special consideration. A new Netcool/Impact v6.1 function has been added called “PasstoTBSM” which can be used in both local and remote installations of Netcool/Impact to pass any data into TBSM for processing via standard rules. More information and examples of using this function are available here.

So, this leads me to an important point you need to become aware of and that’s what you can and can not do with the full featured Netcool/Impact that comes with your entitlement and license for TBSM v6.1. The Limited Use License that comes with the Netcool/Impact 6.1 component of TBSM v6.1 simply states:

IBM Tivoli Netcool/Impact may be used only for the query and integration of data stored and generated by IBM Tivoli software products. Implementation of clustering requires a separate entitlement to IBM Tivoli Netcool/Impact license.

As I (IANAL) interpret this, apart from the use of Netcool/Impact Clustering, I can do ANYTHING and USE ANY FEATURE, CAPABILITY or FUNCTION of Netcool/Impact v6.1 (e.g DSAs) as long as I’m interacting/integrating (get, put, read, write) with ANY data generated by ANY IBM TIVOLI software stored ANYPLACE (e.g TDW on DB2, TDW on Oracle, TSRM in the Cloud, WebService on any Tivoli product, etc). I can think of a lot of things I could do with that capability. If I owned another snazzy product like Tivoli Directory Integrator (TDI) I could use that to collect data from similar sources AND non-Tivoli sources and aggregate or “mash up” all of that into a common repository that I then use TBSM v6.1 and associated Netcool/Impact v6.1 to interact and integrate with for upstream purposes such as event enrichment, task automation, operator views, etc.

So, in summary, TBSM v6.1’s toolbox just got a lot bigger by including a full featured instance of Netcool/Impact v6.1 and the list continues to grow as to problems you can solve with TBSM! It’s time for every TBSM administrator to become very knowledgeable and trained in Netcool/Impact. Don’t assume that the “normal Netcool/Impact admin” is the right guy for your TBSM needs! You need to develop your own skills!

One other VERY IMPORTANT NOTE – Netcool/Impact (any version) has a very important role as a stand alone product and installation in production architecture deployments. DO NOT assume that you should use the instance of Netcool/Impact 6.1 which comes with TBSM v6.1 for extreme production scale work. Proper architecture and design for its use is CRITICAL!

Here are some resources you should begin to become familiar with about what Netcool/Impact v6.1 is and can do:

Netcool/Impact Documentation Central

Netcool/Impact Wiki

START HERE Netcool/Impact By Example By Kevin Morris, THE Netcool/Impact Guru! ** UPDATED FOR NETCOOL/IMPACT v6.1 with JavaScript Policy Examples! **

Netcool/Impact v6.1 Event Isolation and Correlation: This new capability helps assess the impact of events and determine potential root cause by interrogating the dependency and relationship information stored in the TBSM SCR database. This information can come from a CMDB, network discovery tool, application discovery tool, or any similar Tivoli or 3rd party source via the XML TK and/or SCR API. For more information, check out a video overview here.

Netcool/Impact Maintenance Window Management Add On: Consider using this to implement a maintenance window event management solution. This can greatly extend the maintenance window capability in TBSM v6.1. If you’re interested in creating Netcool/Impact Operator Views, research the code driving them here for great examples!!!