Configure Smarts SolutionPack

Products

• VMware Smart Assurance

Issue/Introduction

What is the workflow for setting up M&R Smarts SolutionPack?

Environment

7.x

Resolution

Before you can view notifications or historical event reports from the M&R Report Library, you must install and configure the following:

• Smarts Service Assurance Manager (Smarts SAM)
• M&R
• SolutionPack for Smarts

The order in which you install Smarts SAM and M&R does not matter. But, the licensing and configuration of both products must be completed and the services for both products must be installed and running before you install the SolutionPack for Smarts.

This article covers the process and requirements to prepare M&R for deploying the Smarts SolutionPack after the initial installation is complete.

M&R and install the Smarts SolutionPack:

1. Install or upgrade to M&R 7.x. The M&R (Watch4net) Installation and Configuration Guide provides more information.
2. Start the services. In a default installation, the command is:

/opt/APG/bin/manage-modules.sh service start all

3. Obtain and install permanent licenses for the SolutionPacks you plan to use for longer than 30 days. 
   Permanent license can be obtained through the software download portal.

4. Install the SolutionPack for Smarts. The SolutionPack for Smarts Summary Sheet article provides more information and is attached to this KB article.

• On the Reports page of the SolutionPack installation wizard, you must enter the IP address or Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of the M&R Tomcat server. This address must match the entry in the SM_CAS_SERVER parameter setting in the runcmd_env.sh file in the Presentation SAM server. See Note 1 below.
• Enter the IP address or FQDN for the server hosting the Smarts EDAA. See Note 2 below.
• Accept the default values for the other fields unless your deployment has a non-default SAM setup. For example:
  • SAM Presentation server is not named INCHARGE-SA-PRES
  • SAM server is using SSL
  • The admin-profile in SAM has changed

5. The Smarts-related nodes are under Network in the navigation tree.

The following sections explain how to set up and assign non-administrator roles and users of the Smarts SolutionPack.

Setting role restrictions for non-administrator users of SolutionPack for Smarts
You can add non-administrator user roles such as oper (operator) or profiles in your Presentation SAM server. To configure these roles, you must set role restrictions after installing the SolutionPack for Smarts. This is done as follows:

1. Log in to the User Interface with administrator credentials. In a default installation, the URL will be as follows:

http://<frontend-hostname>:58080/APG

2. Click Administration > Roles > New Role:

3. Click Modules & Restrictions Access and expand the Smarts module.
4. Add an existing Smarts profile (such as oper-profile or default-profile) and click Save. You can see the full list of available profiles in the Smarts SAM Global Manager Administration Console:

5. From Administration > Users, create a new user and assign the role to that user.

SAM user profile mapping and M&R role-based access
After you set up the user profiles and assign them to roles in M&R, the administrator must associate those profiles and roles with users who need to access both Service Assurance Manager (SAM) Consoles and the M&R User Interface.

Administrator profile behavior
The M&R administrator role is mapped to the Smarts Admin profile when the SolutionPack for Smarts is installed.

User profile behavior
The administrator can assign a SAM profile to an M&R non-administrator user from Administration > Modules > Smarts.

• Ensure you assign an existing SAM Profile to the user, (for example, oper-profile, default-profile, and so forth)
• Do not assign more than one Role with a SAM Profile to a user.

 

Viewing notifications from the M&R User Interface
You can view notifications coming from the Presentation SAM server in the M&R User Interface.

1. To view Notifications (where an element name is collected, see Note 3 below) drill into Operations -> Network -> Notifications:

 

2. Right click on a notification and launch the Object Details report:

 

 

 

Additional Information

Note 1:
The EMC M&R Tomcat server is the front end of the EMC M&R deployment and has web address http://<FQDN or IP of EMC M&R front end host>:58080.  Use either IP or FQDN consistently when installing the solution pack and configuring the Smarts Service Assurance Managers runcmd_env.sh. That is, do not enter an IP address as the SM_CAS_SERVER parameter setting in the runcmd_env.sh file and then use an FQDN login for EMC M&R. Choose one convention and use it consistently.

Note 2:
The Smarts EDAA is the Tomcat server that points to the Smarts Service Assurance Suite Broker.  In a default deployment the Smarts EDAA is installed alongside the Smarts Service Assurance Manager as the service smarts-tomcat and runs on port 8080.  The web address would be http://<FQDN or IP of Smarts Service Assurance Manager>:8080.

Note 3:
The SolutionPack for EMC Smarts does not collect every class and instance that exists in the Smarts domains. It selects "top level" classes like Routers, Switch and some of their underlying components.