DX Infrastructure Management

CA SPECTRUM AP Office Hours Transcript - April 21st, 2016,  2.00PM - 3.00PM (AEST) Sydney Time 

Apr 21, 2016 03:30 AM

Spectrum Office Hours was held on Thursday, April 21st.  The transcripts are as follows:

 

Tarun Pamu to Everyone: Hello Everyone...Welcome to Spectrum Office Hours

Tarun Pamu to Everyone: Hello Alex..

Tarun Pamu to Everyone: Hello Jason

Tarun Pamu to Everyone: Lets get started...feel free to ask your questions

Jason to Everyone: Hi, apologies for being late

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: @Jason, no worries.. you are on time

Jason to Everyone: sorry final question - is there a separate audio channel? Not hearing anything over the WebEx

Tarun Pamu to Everyone: @Jason.. This is a chat only session and we do not have audio for this. You will need to type in your question in this chat

Jason to Everyone: thanks

Tarun Pamu to Everyone: We have Nagesh from our Product Management Team too

Nagesh Jaiswal to Everyone:Hello Everyone

alex to Everyone: sorry i'm slightly confused

alex to Everyone: what is this session for?

alex to Everyone: demonstration of the full capability of Spectrum?

Tarun Pamu to Everyone: @Alex if you look at the slide...Basically this is a session for the customers to ask any questions pertaining to Spectrum and its functionality

Tarun Pamu to Everyone: This is a not  a Community webcast to demonstrate Spectrum...

Tarun Pamu to Everyone: Go ahead and ask any questions you have regarding Spectrum. Future functionality...any Enhancements ...Compatibility etc.

alex to Everyone: i can see that but struggling to understand the objective , by discussing pain points there is a risk of overlapping those questions into environmental questions which you do not like

Jason to Everyone: ok - enhancement - when running redundant Archive manager - can we have a mechanism to suppress the event messages from secondary unless primary is inactive?

alex to Everyone: just from my point of view what i would find useful at this stage is someone from CA do a demo of Spectrum 10.1.1

alex to Everyone: maybe i dialed into the wrong meeting

alex to Everyone: my apologies

Nagesh Jaiswal to Everyone: @Alex, The demo recording is available.....Let me ping you the link

Jason to Everyone: Next - need a more elegant way of implementing passing event variables into the Alarm info - at present its a very tedious manual process, and I Can understand why, but have options to parse event varbinds to pcause files would be great

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: @Alex, check this link https://communities.ca.com/community/ca-infrastructure-management/blog/2016/04/12/webcast-recap-introducing-ca-spectrum-1011-and-demo

Nagesh Jaiswal to Everyone: And here is the recording: https://communities.ca.com/videos/4020

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: @Jason, is 'mapping trap' functionality within MIB Tools not helping in that case?

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: @Jason, if you have Trap MIB definition file, we normally compile and add into MIB Tools database. MIB Tools can then map the trap and create Alert Map automatically for that trap

Jason to Everyone: yes I do that process, and get events etc

Jason to Everyone: its more when I want to pass varbinds into the Alarm title

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: @Jason, I see ... dynamic alarm title ?

Jason to Everyone: yep

Jason to Everyone: at present I'm doing this sort of thing

Nagesh Jaiswal to Everyone: @Jason, Have you tried posting this on Spectrum community? Lot of people have their own ways of doing this and you may get some responses on how other customers are doing it

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: @Jason, yes, we normally have to utilize Event Procedure for that

Jason to Everyone: 0xfffa7621 P "CreateEventWithVariables ({ C CURRENT_MODEL },{ H 0xfffa7619 },SetEventVariable (GetEventVariableList(),{ H 0x00012b4c },Append ({ S\"DMACH7 MT  P3 RECV TFP : \" },GetEventVariable ({ U 9 }))))" 0xfffa7619 E 20 A 3,0xfffa7619,16

Jason to Everyone: yep, got that

Nagesh Jaiswal to Everyone: @Jason, would also suggest opening an idea/enhancement on Spectrum community if you feel something should be out of box by Spectrum

Jason to Everyone: ok will do

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: @Jason, my suggestion is you can post idea into Spectrum Idea Wall so we can consider Enhancement in the future

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone:  Here is the Spectrum Idea Wall link https://communities.ca.com/create-idea!input.jspa?containerType=14&containerID=2019

Jason to Everyone: so shoudl I just pass any ehnancement ideas there or would you want discussion here?

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: @Jason, please post the Idea to start the discussion.

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: A cross-functional team including Product Management, Technical Support, Sustaining Engineering and Development will review this request relative to all other customer requests and current product development plans.

Within CA, Enhancement Requests are handled by Product Management. If you want to escalate this request, please contact your account  representative and reference your Enhancement Request in the Idea Wall.

Jason to Everyone: cheers - ok

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: We also look other customers to vote (promote) the idea in the Idea Wall

Jason to Everyone: ok, another question - whats the ongoign life of sysedge in relation to spectrum?

Nagesh Jaiswal to Everyone: @Alex, We also post overview videos on Spectrum YouTube channel. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLynEdQRJawmwSUZ9YRddVw61DgsGTvEdj

Jason to Everyone: Ive heaqrd its on its way out and we shoudl look at implementing nimsoft

Jason to Everyone: but thats not really alwasy viable

Nagesh Jaiswal to Everyone: @Jason, You are right. Sysedge is supported. But future is to have integrations via UIM aka Nimsoft

Jason to Everyone: ok, thanks that confirms it, shame really as it makes more of a forced software path

Jason to Everyone: can I ask about support for Centos for Report MAnager?>

alex to Everyone: Syslog monitoring , are they any plans for CA to get spectrum to do monitoring ?

alex to Everyone: atm we use kiwisyslog

Jason to Everyone: what Im doing is looking at a graylog solution to take all syslogs then make the searches there to then alert out via trap

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: @Alex, I believe Spectrum supports Syslog (Cisco Syslog) so far

Jason to Everyone: another advnatge of using a big data option like greylog, logstash etc is you can also then use SSLOGGER to feed stats into it for graphing

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: @Alex, you can also configure Syslog Server to send trap to SpectroSERVER

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: @Jason, I understand SystemEDGE has that log parsing capability

Tarun Pamu to Everyone: @Jason we have plans to have Report Manager (JasperSoft) on Linux going forward. However nothing is planned for Centos...This would have to be an ER

Jason to Everyone: but thats on its way out - also the key is we want to get decent aggregation , using a central log consolidator with elastic search type functions really gives you a powerful toolset

Nagesh Jaiswal to Everyone: @Alex, More info on Spectrum supports syslog traps from Cisco devices https://docops.ca.com/ca-spectrum/9-4-3/en/managing-network/cisco-device-management/cisco-technology-support/syslog-trap-support

Jason to Everyone: Thanks Tarun, looks like I need to get a RedHat server then

alex to Everyone: @Widjaja i don't think Spectrum does it , atm we have kiwisyslog server sending traps to spectrum server

alex to Everyone: @jason ,i will have a look at Graylog , looks good

Jason to Everyone: I would say Splunk - but thats very expensive once beyond small amounts of logging

alex to Everyone: yeah it is too expensive

Jason to Everyone: again look at using it to get your sslogger files in too - have foudn sslogger one of the best tools to get up tot he minute polled data

alex to Everyone: had hoped CA would have a solution

Jason to Everyone: Not yet viewsed the 10.1 vid - with Jasper - is that 100% valid on as Linux platform?

Jason to Everyone: So the quesiton is can I go staright inot Jasper on a 10.1.1 install on Redhat?

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: @Alex, it sounds to me that you expect something beyond processing syslog traps.. If you can describe more ?

Nagesh Jaiswal to Everyone: @Jason, Nope. Its only Windows for Spectrum 10.1.1

Jason to Everyone: ok ta

Nagesh Jaiswal to Everyone: Plan for Linux support is coming by 2nd half of this year

Jason to Everyone: thanks

Nagesh Jaiswal to Everyone: @Jason, Will you be intrested in doing Beta with JasperSoft on Linux with Spectrum?

Jason to Everyone: when that happens would it be a case of an inplace upgrade?

Jason to Everyone: @Nagesh - yes

Jason to Everyone: if I Can run 2 Report Managers - one CABI for stability and 1 Jasper for testing

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: @Jason, you can do that..

Nagesh Jaiswal to Everyone: @Jason, Yes you can do that. However did not understand your question on upgrade

Jason to Everyone: what I mean is if I have a CABI install on Linux at present, when Jasper is viable would it allow an inplace upgrade of the SRM to use Jasper or woudl it be a parallel build / migration process?

Nagesh Jaiswal to Everyone: @Jason, this is not supported

Jason to Everyone: @Widjaja - that sounds like the best process

Jason to Everyone: ok

Jason to Everyone: Alex - flick me an email to jason.hebron@gmail.com if you want some more ideas on the use of Big Data and how to use it with Spectrum to give you a good solution

Jason to Everyone: so using Spectrum as a Manager of Manager for things that's it normally woudl have no ability to model

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: @Jason, Jasper is another integration separate from CABI, that's why you can have two of them running in paralel. When you upgrade your Spectrum - BOXI environment, you can just then add Jasper integration

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: @Jason, not sure if that helps answering your question about upgrade ?

Jason to Everyone: oic

Jason to Everyone: yes - so if I install a CABI now on Linux then when next version with JAsper support comes out it may be inplace ugarade?

alex to Everyone: @Widjaja spectrum is ok at processing traps sent by a syslog server , we havd had to use 3rd party tools to setup a syslog server , one of these 3rd party tools is your competitor , so constantly find ourselves in a conversation of why are we paying 2 separate licences etc

Jason to Everyone: You using Southbound gateway for integration?

alex to Everyone: the closes CA solution i have seen was to use UIM to read your logs of a syslog server

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: @Jason, if you are going to replace BOXI with JasperSoft on that machine, that will be going to uninstalling the BOXI and then reinstall JasperSoft

Jason to Everyon: ok

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: @Jason, no BOXI data can be migrated to JasperSoft, unfortunately

alex to Everyone: @Jason  jaspersoft isn't ready yet , i would keep CABI for a bit if i was you

Jason to Everyone: what about the underlying sql data in the CABI?

alex to Everyone: i have it running in my lab and its not the best to say the least

Jason to Everyone: yeah will do , in fact need to as totally linux based

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: @Jason, sql data as of BOXI database or SRM database?

Jason to Everyone: SRM

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: SRM database (reporting data) resides on OneClick server. Replacement of BOXI to JasperSoft is only replacing the reporting engine. The SRM data remains intact when you change from BOXI to JasperSoft

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: BOXI data contains report relation configuration, such as chedule report data

Nagesh Jaiswal to Everyone: @Alex, I take that as a feedback. Will it be possible for ou to tell the 3rd party tool name?

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: this BOXI data cannot be migrated to JasperSoft. This means you need to reschedule to report within JasperSoft

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: if you have scheduled reports

alex to Everyone: @Widjaj , kiwisyslog which has been bought now by solarwinds

Nagesh Jaiswal to Everyone: @Alex, We will review this and get back to you in case of more questions/clarifications

alex to Everyone: @Nagesh, thank you because we have to make a decision on what direction to take on one of our customers

Jason to Everyone: think about log aggregaton is that its very very system agnostic :-) as long as aggregation works and you can search across it can feed to pretty much anything. I'm working on doing something like that from a graylog tool and using SBG to provide event models then feed into a server model based on Services monitoring GC populated by rule sets

Tarun Pamu to Everyone:  We have another 4 minutes to wrap up...Any other questions please ask

Jason to Everyone: that to me is the strength of  Spectrum

Jason to Everyone: all good, will post the enhancements

Jason to Everyone: one more question - any plans to retire SSLOGGER?

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: @Jason, never heard about retiring it ..

Jason to Everyone: :-)

Jason to Everyone: good, as I say one of the best straight polling to log methods Ive seen - all other packages want to hove everything into bloomin databases

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: great

Jason to Everyone: CA realyl should emphasise it more - its great in its elegant simplicity

Jason to Everyone: FYI - built a polling for billing system around it for an $80Mil a year revenue stream and it worked incredibly well

Jason to Everyone: plsu with the ease of big data tool sets those flat logs then can more easily be parsed into an integrated display of performance

Nagesh Jaiswal to Everyone: @Jason, Sure will do

Jason to Everyone: woudl recommend maybe CA lookign at making some plugins for some  big data tool sets for that purpose - it may in some ways be seen to ne going into nimsoft land but in other ways it woudl really enhance use of the tool and encourage moire licensing by increasing the versatility of th platform

alex to Everyone: gentlemen , thank you for your time , unfortunately i have to bouce

Jason to Everyone: same

Jason to Everyone: thanks all

alex to Everyone: @jason i will send you an email tomorrow

Tarun Pamu to Everyone: @Alex ..Thanks for joining..Hope this session was useful..

Widjaja Sangtoki to Everyone: @Jason, @Alex, thanks for joining

Nagesh Jaiswal to Everyone: @Jason, Sure. Would suggest to open ideas on community.

Nagesh Jaiswal to Everyone: Thanks everyone. Nice talking to you.

Tarun Pamu to Everyone: Alright we have to wrap up now...

Tarun Pamu to Everyone: @Jason.. Thank you so much for joining and for the feedback...

Tarun Pamu to Everyone: Thanks everyone for joining Office Hours! We hope you found this session useful.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 











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