Connect Geneos to Obcerv

Overview Copied

Obcerv is an observability platform for data storage and analytics. You can configure Gateways and Netprobes to publish data to Obcerv so you can store and analyse metrics, logs and events in Obcerv.

Obcerv concepts Copied

Obcerv adopts a data model that includes many features that may sound familiar to Geneos users. However, it is important to recognise that these concepts are fundamentally different.

Entities Copied

Unlike the user-defined Managed Entities in Geneos, in Obcerv an Entity is automatically created based on the dimensions that describe the data points. See the Data model for more information.

Entities can also have associated attributes but this does not affect the definition of an Entity. Obcerv allows users to search for Entities metrics using both dimensions and attributes.

Geneos structures are mapped to Obcerv entities, attributes, and metrics.

Consider an example:

item Entity dimensions Attributes Metrics
Managed Entity probe=itrspc101 ConState=Up
Managed Entity managedEntity=pc101 HostName=itrspc101.itsgroup.com
Managed Entity COUNTRY=UK
Managed Entity OS=Linux
Managed Entity DEPT=SALES
Sampler probe=itrspc101 Plugin Name=CPU
Sampler managedEntity=pc101 Group Name=Infra
Sampler sampler=CPU
Sampler type=LinuxInfra
Dataview probe=itrspc101 numCpuCores
Dataview managedEntity=pc101 numOnlineCpus
Dataview sampler=CPU loadAverage1Min
Dataview type=LinuxInfra loadAverage5Min
Dataview dataview=CPU
Row probe=itrspc101 type
Row managedEntity=pc101 clockSpeed
Row sampler=CPU percentUtilisation
Row type=LinuxInfra percentUserTime
Row dataview=CPU percentIdle
Row row=cpu_0

In general, traditional data generates the following entities:

Cells in dataview rows (and headlines) are mapped to metrics that exist on these Obcerv entities according to the following rules:

For data that is sent to Geneos by a Collection Agent, the type of the metric will be preserved. As Collection Agent v2 does not use STATUS_METRIC, non-numeric data from Collection Agent will be sent and published as ATTRIBUTES.

Obcerv closely follows the data model used by the Collection Agent. For more information, see Data collection in an orchestrated environment.

Data labels Copied

Gateway sends two types of labels that allow you to search through Obcerv entities:

Every metric has a set of dimensions that uniquely identify it. These are derived from the Geneos hierarchy of gateway, managedEntity, sampler, type, dataview, and row.

Geneos Managed Entity attributes set in the Gateway Setup Editor are sent as ENTITY_ATTRIBUTE metrics on the corresponding Obcerv entities in the itrsgroup.com/geneos/gse namespace. Gateway also sends each sampler’s Group and PluginName as ENTITY_ATTRIBUTE metrics on the Obcerv entity representing that sampler.

Netprobe parameters, such as HostName, Port, ConState, OS, or Version, are sent as ENTITY_ATTRIBUTE metrics on each Obcerv entity representing a Geneos Managed Entity running on that Netprobe. The Netprobe also sends a sanitised version of OS called osType.

Signals Copied

Gateway sends severity changes to Obcerv as signals, and a signal stream is provided for every metric. Gateway sends the severity and the value on the cell at the time that the severity changed, and snooze events to Obcerv.

Audit Copied

Gateway sends audit events to Obcerv when a connection is established. Audit events originating from a Gateway will have a dimension of gateway. Audit events originating from a Netprobe (like running a command on a Netprobe) will have dimensions of both gateway and probe.

Publish from Gateway to Obcerv Copied

You can publish data from Gateway to Obcerv via the Ingestion service. This service is installed as part of your Obcerv installation.

By default, Gateway will publish all metrics, severity events, and audit events to Obcerv. You can configure filtering strategies to control what data is published to Obcerv. This can help minimise downstream data processing requirements in Obcerv. To configure include and exclude filters, see Strategies.

To start the connection between Gateway and Obcerv, you must configure the Obcerv connection in the Publishing settings in the Gateway Setup Editor. For more information, see Obcerv connection configuration.

Gateway self-monitoring, which is enabled by default, creates a dataview called Obcerv Connection that shows the current state of Obcerv publishing if the Obcerv Connection has been configured. For more information, see Self-monitoring.

Publish from Netprobes to Obcerv Copied

You can publish log data from a Netprobe to Obcerv via the Obcerv Ingestion service. Currently, the log data collected by the FKM plugin can be published to Obcerv. To do this, you must first configure the Obcerv connection in your Gateway, then configure a Publisher plugin in the same Netprobe where the FKM plugin collects log data. The Publisher plugin will inherit all required ingestion service settings from the Gateway.

To setup the Netprobe to publish data to Obcerv, see Setup and configuration in Publisher.

View Obcerv data in Active Console Copied

If the Gateways connected to your Active Console publish data to Obcerv, then those Gateways will share the Obcerv connection details with Active Console so you can create history charts by querying data in Obcerv.

To allow a connected Active Console to access Obcerv data, you must configure the Obcerv connection in the Data access settings in the Gateway Setup Editor.

In Active Console, you must also ensure that Tools > Settings > Geneos > Default data source is set to Obcerv.

Self-monitoring Copied

When Obcerv publishing is configured on a Gateway, self-monitoring statistics are reported in two dataviews under Gateway Info > Obcerv.

Detail dataview Copied

Name Description
name Name of the data type.
sendState Either SENDING or BUFFERING.
deliveryStatus Delivery status of the last message. This can be either NONE, SUCCEEDED, RETRYING or FAILED.
byteRate Transfer rate in bytes per second.
messagingRate Total transfer rate in messages per second across all three queues.
maxBufferSize Maximum number of buffered messages.
messagesInBuffer Current number of messages in the buffer.
messagesDroppedPerSample Number of messages dropped in the last sampler.

Summary dataview Copied

Name Description
enabled The Obcerv connection can be either Enabled or Disabled
connectionStatus Shows the connection status. This can be either Statistics only, Idle, Ready, Connecting, Transient Failure, or Shutdown.
messageRate Transfer rate per queue in messages per second.
byteRate Transfer rate in bytes per second.
messagesDroppedPerSample Average number of messages dropped per sampler.
dataviewsPublished Number of dataviews published.
dataviewsUnpublished Number of dataviews unpublished.
dataviewsWithErrors Number of dataview with errors.
accessTokenUser

Obcerv user associated with the access token used to connect to Obcerv.

Note, this is not an application key. Access tokens are short lived tokens used to secure connections.

accessTokenAvailable Status of access tokens.

Obcerv connection configuration Copied

Basic configuration Copied

The Obcerv connection section of the GSE provides the following options:

Setting Description Default
Enabled Enables or disables publishing to Obcerv. Disabled
Mode

Specify the publishing mode, choose from:

  • connection — publish Gateway data to Obcerv.

  • statisticsOnly — perform a dry run using the current publishing settings. Statistics are recorded to the self-monitoring dataviews and to log files.

connection

If the Mode is set to connection, then you can set up:

Section Setting Description
Connection Verify server certificate

Enables or disables the server certificate verification.

If this parameter is set to false and the TLS is enabled, then the server certificate will not be checked when the connection is made, and the provided certificate will be accepted.

Default: True

Note: If the certificate supports Application-Layer Protocol Negotiation (ALPN), make sure that ALPN is set to enabled for Gateway and Obcerv connection to work properly.

Connection Root certificates

Specify the root CA certificate used to sign the ingestion service certificate.

You can provide:

  • pemString — provide the full PEM string of the CA certificate. This can be found on the certificates page of the Obcerv Admin page in your Web Console.

  • pemFile — provide the path to a file in the Gateway's current working directory. This file should contain the full PEM string of the CA certificate.

A root certificate is not required if the certificate is already trusted by the host.

Connection > Publishing Service address

Specify the Obcerv ingestion service hostname with the http:// prefix. For example https://ingestion.my-obcerv.com.

Note: The service address field defaults to https and port 443, so that https://ingest.hub.local:443 can be entered as ingest.hub.local.

Connection > Publishing Credentials

Specify the credentials used to access the Obcerv ingestion service.

You should provide a username and password in the Gateway Setup Editor. For more information about password configuration, see Secure Passwords.

Connection > Data access Service address Specify the Obcerv Web Console hostname. For example, https://my-obcerv.com.
Connection > Data access Credentials

Specify the Obcerv user credentials to access data from Obcerv.

You should provide a username and password in the Gateway Setup Editor. For more information about password configuration, see Secure Passwords.

Advanced configuration Copied

The Additional settings allow you to specify the following additional publishing settings that you may set individually:

Settings Description
grpc.rpc.timeout

The time the Gateway waits for a gRPC response.

Default: 5000

Unit: milliseconds

Mandatory: No

grpc.batch.timeout

The time the Gateway waits before sending a batch of datapoints to Obcerv.

Default: 500

Unit: milliseconds

Mandatory: No

grpc.batch.size

The maximum size a datapoint batch can have. Once the batch reaches the given size, it will be sent to Obcerv.

Default: 1000

Unit: datapoints

Mandatory: No

grpc.queue.size

The number of messages the Gateway can hold before it starts dropping message. This queue holds messages before being sent to Obcerv. The Gateway will attempt to keep this queue as small a possible.

Default: 50000

Mandatory: No

Strategies Copied

Setting Description Default
Name Specifies a name to uniquely identify the strategy. New Strategy
Targets One or more XPaths identifying the data items to which the strategy applies. These XPaths must point to one or more Netprobes, Managed Entities, samplers, or dataviews. XPaths that reference run-time values such as severity or connection state, or XPaths that point to individual cells are not supported.
Options

Specifies what type of strategy to use. The following options are available:

  • include filter — publish only the data items specified by the targets, their ancestors, and their descendants. The metrics, severity messages, snooze messages, and user assignment messages of all data items not explicitly or implicitly targeted are not published. Severity is propagated through published data based only on included data items.
  • exclude filter — do not publish the data items specified by the targets or their descendants. Metrics, severity messages, snooze messages, and user assignment messages are not published for any targeted data items. Severity is propagated through published data based only on data items which are not excluded.

Note: If you specify both include filters and exclude filters, a data item is published if it is selected (directly or as an ancestor or descendant) by at least one include target and it is not selected (directly or as a descendant) by any exclude target.

filter

Strategy Group Copied

Strategies may be grouped for organisational purposes. This has no effect on their application but is useful for grouping categories and making them easier to find in the navigation tree.

You must specify a name when creating a strategy group.

["Geneos"] ["Geneos > Gateway"] ["Technical Reference"]

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