Solve Operations alert forwarding using SNMP traps.

Products

• SOLVE:Operations Automation

Issue/Introduction

We have been looking at various options to forward logs/alerts from our z/OS systems to a centralised midrange system running Solarwinds for common system wide alerting/ticketing.

One option is to consider forwarding alerts from our long established Solve Operations alert monitor where we combine alerts from several LPARs. I have seen in the Solve Operations manual the section on Alert forwarding. We would be looking at using the SNMP traps option. We are looking for some advice on how much is required to set this up?

 

Environment

Release : 11.9

Component : CA SOLVE:Operations Automation for z/OS

 

Resolution

The /PARMS ALERTS defines the alert forwarding. It supports filters and whether a trap is required when an alert is closed.
A sample of the MIB definition can be found in $AMTRAP in the CC2DSAMP dataset.

I have looked at the PARMS config option $AM ALERTS.
We can specify a Dest Type SNMPTRAP and Dest Address being the external server and default port 162.

Client was able to configure his forwarding alerts to his Solar Winds server.

First issue was to get the Solarwinds server to be able to detect and define the Mainframe LPAR via SNMP. 
I was able to see that a connection had been made from a display of UDP connections (Sysview IPUCONN command). 
This showed the remote server IP address connecting on port 161 with z/OS SNMP agent OSNMPD. 
I then added this IP address to the PWSRC config to allow it to access community as public. 
Solarwinds was then able to view the mainframe system correctly.

I then defined this address as the destination address in the alert forwarding definition in the Alert Monitor Interface 
and with dest type SNMPTRAP and port 162. 
I have added the server address to the SNMPTRAP config.

To assist with Tracing:
You can also turn on tracing with - issued from CMD
tcpip modify trace=yes
To turn it off - tcpip modify trace=no

If you do a HELP TCPIP it will show you what all options you have.

I have tried that trace option and confirmed I got a N3B106 IP TRACE: SEND_TO SOCKET Message with the correct IP address.

This worked and successfully sent an alert to the SolarWinds server.

 

 

 

Additional Information

SNMP V3 is NOT supported by Solve Operations and this support is not planned at this time.

SNMP forwarding is using the TCPIP stack to send UDP packets to the nominated destination. It does not use the SNMPD task on the mainframe.  No other task is needed on Z/OS

There is no extra configuration required in SOLVE:Operations. 
There is no tracing or logging option built in to the alert forwarder.