With the IBM® Db2® Data Management Console (Db2 Console), you can send performance and availability alerts directly to the IT management platform of your choice. As long as your platform can process SNMP traps, the setup is easy. In just a couple of minutes, you can integrate the Db2 Data Management Console with your enterprise alert management system.
Contents
- Introduction
- Pre-requisites
- Configuration
- Monitoring
- Conclusion
Introduction
The Db2 Console is the evolution of the IBM Data Server Manager. When it comes to managing and monitoring your databases, we know how important security is to you. The Db2 Console includes enhanced authentication and encryption algorithms to ensure the confidentiality of SNMPv3 messages.
This tutorial shows how to integrate the DB2 Console with ServiceNow. The ServiceNow instance uses a MID Server application to facilitate communication between the ServiceNow platform and external data sources, services, and applications. If you’re not familiar with ServiceNow, refer to the ServiceNow IT Operations Management product documentation.
ServiceNow Pre-Requisites
Before you can start configuring SNMP settings on the Db2 Console, ensure the following pre-requisites are met.
- Ensure the ServiceNow platform has the following active plugins:
- Event Management
- ITOM Metric Management / Operational Intelligence
- Create SNMPv3 credentials that can be used to send traps to the ServiceNow MID server.
On ServiceNow you can set the credential’s authentication protocol to either MD5 or SHA and the privacy protocol to any of the privacy protocols supported in the Db2 Console: AES128, AES192, AES256, and DES.
For specific instructions on creating credentials, refer to the ServiceNow SNMP Credentials documentation.
Configuring the Db2 Console
To start, let’s configure the SNMP Settings on the Db2 Console to specify where to send SNMP traps.
From the Db2 Console
- Click the settings icon to expand the Settings menu.
- Click the SNMP menu to navigate to the SNMP Settings page.
- From the SNMP Settings page, select and copy the product’s Engine ID to the clipboard.
You need to provide the Engine ID to the SNMP Trap Collector that runs on the ServiceNow MID Server.
The Engine ID uniquely identifies a device. It is a hexadecimal string where each byte is separated by a colon. The ServiceNow input field for Engine ID has a 30 character limit. Therefore, I recommend pasting the Engine ID to a text pad and removing the colons from the string.
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Fill out the Host name and Server port fields in the form. The host name should be the ServiceNow MID Server hostname. The server port is up to you, and can be modified when you configure the SNMP Trap Collector.
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Using the SNMPv3 credentials created in the ServiceNow instance, input those details into the appropriate fields on the page. The Authentication Protocol and Privacy Protocol radio groups should reflect the chosen protocols assigned to the SNMPv3 credentials that can be used to send traps to the ServiceNow MID Server.
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Click the Save button when you’re done.
Your SNMP server configuration is now complete on the Db2 Console.
After the SNMP Trap Collector is configured on your ServiceNow MID Server in the next steps, you may want to return to this SNMP Settings page to use the Send test SNMP message button. Clicking this button sends a test trap to your trap collector with the credentials you provided. To verify that your collector can successfully receive traps from the Db2 Console, you may want to check the ServiceNow events list after clicking the button.
Configuring ServiceNow
You can now set up ServiceNow to receive SNMP traps.
- From the ServiceNow console, navigate to the MID SNMP Traps Listener view and click the New button.
- From the new record view, set the SNMP version to v3, and paste the Engine ID string you copied from the Db2 Console.
- Fill out the required fields based on your preferences.
- In the Credentials table, add the SNMPv3 credentials that you used to configure the SNMP settings on the Db2 Console.
- Click the Submit button to create a new SNMP Trap Collector.
If you make any changes after creating the SNMP Trap Collector, be sure to restart the SNMP Trap Collector by clicking on the Restart link the Related Links.
Setting up the Monitoring to activate Alerts
On our Db2 Console, let’s add a custom monitoring profile to trigger SNMP notifications to our ServiceNow platform.
- From the Settings menu, click the Monitor profile option.
- Click the New profile button.
- From the General view, provide a profile name and select the databases you would like to monitor.
- Adjust your monitor and alert settings as you please.
From the Alert Settings, you can configure availability alerts.
You may want to configure the threshold for the Physical memory in use alert to receive the following alerts: a Critical alert when the memory in use hits 90% of the available memory and a Warning alert when it hits 85% of the available memory.
To enable SNMP trap notifications, let’s switch to the Notification view to add a new notification rule to the monitoring profile.
- From the Notification view, click the Add button.
- Provide a name for the rule, and select SNMP as the type of notification the rule should send.
- Select the availability and performance alert types that should trigger notifications.
- Select the severity of the alerts that should trigger the notifications.
- Click OK to save the notification rule, and then click Save to save this monitor profile.
Checking that traps (alerts) are being received
From the ServiceNow dashboard, you can view the trap events the SNMP Trap Collector received by going to the list of all events.
In my ServiceNow configuration, I included additional Event Rules to convert trap events into ServiceNow Alerts. For more information on ServiceNow events, refer to the ServiceNow Event Management documentation.
Conclusion
That’s all it takes to set up the Db2 Console to send SNMP trap notifications.
You can also connect the Db2 Console to an email server and configure notifications directly to your inbox. Alerts are also available through the Db2 Console open RESTful API if you want to build a completely custom solution.
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