User Guide

How to Show the Availability of a Business Process

A typical scenario for availability reporting is to show the logical availability of all the monitored objects (e.g., hosts and services) defined by an explicit Business Process model. So for instance if you have two redundant core network switches sized for failover, you can model them with a logical OR and report their joint availability rather than reporting on them separately.

In this How To you will create a sample business process, set up some report parameters, and generate a report covering the services that are part of that business process.

Prerequisites

  • The Business Process module must be enabled under Configuration / Modules / businessprocess

  • The SLM module must be installed under User Guide ‣ Initial Configuration ‣ Installing Additional Modules (see Installing Additional Modules)

Step #1: Set up a Business Process (or Reuse an Existing One)

First, let’s configure a business process to use as an example for checking availability. Open Business Process from the left side menu and select Create. In the panel that appears, enter the following information:

  • Name: Company.com

  • Title: ERP Services

  • Description: The services that compose ERP for Company.com

  • Backend: Keep the default backend

  • State Type: Keep ‘Use SOFT states’

  • Add to menu: Change this to ‘No’

Next, create three child nodes for our new business process with the following structure:

  • ERP System

  • Inventory Server (Host)

  • Supply Chain Server (Host)

If you’ve never created a business process node before, you can follow the official Icinga tutorial.

Step #2: Configure Checks in Director

Next, go to the Icinga Director module and set up the following:

  • If it doesn’t already exist, create and deploy a new host template of type generic-host.

  • Create a host inheriting from that template named business-process-checker*, with the Host address set to 127.0.0.1* (if using a cluster, set it to the public facing cluster IP).

  • Open Icinga Director / Commands / External Commands and search for icingacli-businessprocess-neteye*. In its Fields tab, make sure the Business Process Process ID* field is set to mandatory.

  • If it doesn’t already exist, create and deploy a new top-level service template named business-process-service-check, setting its check command to icingacli-businessprocess-neteye.

  • Create a service named business-process-check* on that service template and link it to your previously created business-process-checker host, specifying the top-level business process node ERP System (from Step #1) in the field Business Process Process ID*.

  • Deploy the Director configuration (Icinga Director / Activity Log / Deploy)

  • Go to Overview / Hosts, and check that both the business-process-checker host and its service are up and running.

Step #3: Configure Time Periods in Director

In the Director module, define the Time Period during which our business process is contractually required to be up and running. In this example, it will be the entire week excluding Saturday and Sunday.

  • Go to Icinga Director / Timeperiods / Timeperiods

  • Create a new TimePeriod called “24x5”

  • On the Ranges tab, set the time ranges as follows (Director will sort them alphabetically):

    Friday:      00:00-24:00
Monday:      00:00-24:00
Thursday:    00:00-24:00
Tuesday:     00:00-24:00
Wednesday:   00:00-24:00

  • Then deploy the Director configuration (Icinga Director / Activity Log / Deploy) so that the time ranges can be used in the next step.

Step #4: Set up Service Level Management

Now you can set up the processing step that will link the underlying BP service availability data to the reporting parameters. This step is carried out in the SLM module:

  • In the Customers tab, add a customer such as “Company.com”

  • In the SLA Types tab, create a new instance with the following parameters:

    • Name: Gold

    • Operational Time: 24x5 (the value from the previous step)

    • Calculation Period: Daily

    • Availability: 99.5

    • Downtime: (not checked)

  • In the Contracts tab, add a new contract with:

    • Name: Company 24x5 BP Availability

    • Description: (same as above)

    • Customer: Company.com

    • SLA Type: Gold

    • Objects Filter: “service_description=business-process-check” (you could also run this as a single top-level host/service check by using “host_name=business-process-checker”)

Once you add an objects filter, you will immediately see links to the hosts and services it maps to, allowing you to double check that those you expected are there. Please ensure that at least one host or service is returned.

Step #5: Create the Report

Finally, let’s define the report elements for the business process.

After naming the report, you will need a Time Frame that specifies the starting and ending dates/times for the report. If none of the existing Time Frames fit your needs, go to the Time Frames panel, and add a new one by selecting the “New Timeframe” action. Enter the following parameters (remember that the calculation period must be shorter than the time frame):

  • Name: “Last week including today”

  • Start: “last week”

  • End: “tomorrow”

Next, define a new report by specifying the type and any parameters necessary for that type:

  • Name: Business Process Report

  • Timeframe:* Last week including today

  • Report: SLM Report

  • Customer: Company.com

You can now view the new report by clicking on its name in the table. You should see the availability of the Business Process host business-process-checker and its associated service business-process-check that you configured in Step 2 above.