Configuring Utilities

Click the Configuration tab to configure the utilities, as shown below:

  1. Click the Configuration tab.


  2. Select the desired utility from the Utilities area.

 

Configuring Admin Notifications

You can configure a message that users will see in a popup whenever they log in. Users may dismiss the message, but it will appear upon each login until you disable the message. The message appears like this:

To configure the admin notification:

  1. Access the Admin Notifications configuration settings by clicking the Configuration tab and then selecting Admin Notifications from the Utilities area, as shown above.
  1. Configure the settings as shown below:

Backing Up and Restoring the Configuration

After you have invested the time to get RightITnow ECM configured exactly to your needs, you can backup that configuration so that you can use it in new installations without having to start all over again.

The system backs up the following configuration components:

Backing Up the Configuration

  1. Access the Backup Configuration settings by clicking the Configuration tab and then selecting Backup Configuration from the Utilities area, as shown above.

The Backup Configuration tab appears.

  1. Backup the configuration as shown below:

Configuring Automatic Backups

You can schedule automatic backups of the RightITnow ECM configuration. You can run automatic backups with the following frequencies:

Automatic backup jobs run at midnight. The files follow the following naming convention:

configuration_backup_yyyyMMdd

To schedule automatic backups:

  1. Invoke the Backup Configuration tab as shown above.

  2. Configure automatic backups as shown below:

Retrieving Automatic Backup Files

To retrieve automatic backup files:

  1. Invoke the Backup Configuration tab as shown above.

  2. Retrieve the automatic backup files as shown below:

Restoring the Configuration

You can only restore the configuration to a clean database. The option to restore the RightITnow ECM configuration appears after the user has configured the database during an installation of RightITnow ECM:

Once you have selected the configuration backup file, the system restores the configuration components automatically and you can log back in to RightITnow ECM.

Note: Solarwinds connectors will be undeployed. You need to validate the connection to get the certificate before deploying them again.

See the RightITnow ECM Installation Guide for more details on running the RightITnow Installation program that affords you access to the option to restore the RightITnow configuration.

Deleting Old Backup Files

To delete old backup files:

  1. Invoke the Backup Configuration tab as shown above.

  2. Use the delete backups controls to configure the purge interval:

  1. Click Save.

Configuring Data Export

You can configure regular export of highly configurable data sets for use and analysis by external systems such as Elasticsearch. The general process is:

To configure data export:

  1. Access the Data Export utility by clicking the Configuration tab and then selecting Data Export from the Utilities area, as shown above.

    The Data Export tab appears.



  2. Click Add New.
  3. Configure the settings.
    1. Provide a name. The name of the export in the target system will depend on the naming rules of the selected connector e.g. in Elastic Search the index name will be the export name all lowercased and with all whitespace replaced by hyphens.
    2. Select an existing connector that supports data exporting.
    3. Configure synchronization. Synchronization settings determine how new and existing alerts are handled if an export already exists in the datastore.
  4. Configure a date range.
  5. Configure filters to fine tune the data exported.
  6. Configure the export schedule. If you select the Append the date to the export of the name option, a new export will be generated every time the schedule kicks in, since the date will be added to the name.
  7. Configure the data to export, including attributes of alert fields, events, audits, assigned user, assigned user group, SLA breaches, custom fields, and incidents.
  8. Click Save.

Monitoring the ECM Server

There are two ways to monitor the ECM server:

You can also view and configure the System log using the ECM Health Monitor.

Monitoring Using the JSON API

RightITnow allows for polling of the RightITnow ECM server health statistics through a JSON API. These statistics are updated internally every 6 seconds. No special configuration is necessary to enable this feature. The URL to access the statistics is http://<RightITnow url>/rightitnow/api/health/getstats. The following is an example of the JSON object that is returned:

{"rmHealthStats":{"stats":[{"name":"Event Queue","value":0},{"name":"Alert Queue","value":0},{"name":"Event Average Enqueue Time","value":0},{"name":"Alert Average Enqueue Time","value":0},{"name":"HTTP Connection Count","value":2},{"name":"Thread Count","value":36},{"name":"Heap Memory Usage","value":93681584}]}}

Monitoring Using the Health Monitor

To monitor using the Health Monitor:

  1. Access the ECM Server Monitor by clicking the Configuration tab and then selecting ECM Server Monitor from the Utilities area, as shown above.

The ECM Server Monitor tab appears.

  1. Click the Health Monitor tab to monitor the ECM server:

Setting Up Health Monitor Logging

You can export health monitor readings to a log.

To set up health monitor logging:

  1. Access the Health Monitor as described in Monitoring Using the Health Monitor.

  2. Click Health Monitor Logging Configuration.

  3. Configure the export fields.

  4. Click Save.

Viewing and Configuring the System Log

To view and configure the System log:

  1. Access the ECM Server Monitor by clicking the Configuration tab and then selecting ECM Server Monitor from the Utilities area, as shown above.

The ECM Server Monitor tab appears.

  1. Click the System Log tab to view the raw log:

  1. To configure the system log, click Log Configuration and then use the resultant Manage Logging Configuration window to configure the log:

The Manage Logging Configuration window offers the following settings:

If additivity is set to true by default, then children inherit the appenders of their ancestors by default. If this variable is set to false, then the appenders found in the ancestors of this logger are not used. However, the children of this logger will inherit its appenders, unless the children have their additivity flag set to false also.

Using the Purge Utility

You can purge closed alerts, event records for alerts, audit records, SLA breaches, incident records, entities, and maintenance window records, which may enhance performance and free up disk space.

To access the Purge Utility:

  1. Click the Configuration tab at the top of the RightITnow ECM screen.

  2. Click Purge Utility in the Utilities section. The Purge Utility tab appears.

  3. Use the controls on the left to configure the purge schedule for closed alerts, event records for alerts, audit records, SLA breaches, incident records, and maintenance window records, and then click Save.

Note: Use the View/Edit Filter button to fine tune the records eligible for purging in the purge alerts sections and the Purge Incident Records sections.  

Click View Purge Schedule to view the corresponding schedule. You can view statistics from the last purge and the upcoming purge schedules on the right. Click Approximate time taken for next scheduled run to see an estimate of required  time for the next run. Click Restore RightITnow Default should you want to revert to the default settings. Click Interrupt Alert Purging to stop the current purge job.

Reporting on Alerts Data

You can create, schedule and download reports on alerts data. You can report on general alerts data, on how long an alert stayed in a particular state during a period of time, and on SLA breached alerts.

Note: ECM uses the double quote character (") to escape commas when exporting the report to a CSV file.

To create reports:

  1. Access the Reports configuration settings by clicking the Configuration tab and then selecting Reports from the Utilities area, as shown above.
  1. Create the report:

The Alerts Data report provides the following information:

The Alerts State Data report provides the following information:

The SLA Breached Alerts report provides the following information:

Using the VMware Browser

RightITnow ECM offers a VMware Browser you can use to view your virtual environment's topology and details, and execute actions on your virtual entities.

To use the VMware Browser:

  1. Select VMware Browser from the Utilities section of the Configuration tab.

The VMware Browser tab appears.

  1. Use the VMware Browser as described below: