BridgeGate™

Business Activity Monitoring BAM Guide

Overview

Use this document as a guide for Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) in order to create and configure Rules that can be used to alert based on events or even non-events. This guide is written with the assumption that the user has a general knowledge of BridgeGate Templates and Workflows and the BridgeGate Portal. This guide should not be used as an end all for documenting the functionality of BAM as use cases will vary from one solution to the next. With the combination of well thought out workflow architecture and BAM rules, almost any use case can be addressed concerning monitoring and alerting

Enabling BAM

In the bridgegate.xml file, the following entry is used to control BAM monitoring and alerting:

<BRIDGEGATE_BAM BAM_ADAPTER_HISTORY="45" BAM_EVENT_HISTORY="365" BAM_MONITOR_ACTIVE="FALSE" BAM_MONITOR_PING="10000"/>
Attribute Default Description
BAM MONITOR_ACTIVE FALSE Enables or Disables BAM Activity Monitoring
BAM_MONITOR_PING 10000 Determines how often in milliseconds that rules are evaluated
BAM_EVENT_HISTORY 365 Archives entries older than 365 days from the bg_bam_event_history table
BAM_ADAPTER_HISTORY 45 Archives entries older than 45 days from the bg_udt_admin_adapter table
BAM_PORTAL_REFRESHRATE 2:00 Controls the frequency that the Portal BAM Main screen will automatically refresh it's display. If NOT provided defaults to 2:00 seconds

Rule Types

The following rules are available by default*:

Configuring the Workflow

A workflow must have the "Enable BAM reporting" option set on the Workflow Properties tab via the Workbench before it can be used in conjunction with a rule.

For Workflow Error rules to be active, the Workflow Transaction Details must be set to one of the following:
For SLA Max Time rules to be active, the Workflow Transaction Details must be set to one of the following:
Get Data and Send Data rules are only active where there is at least one Get Data or Send Data workflow item enabled in the workflow.
NOTE: When using these rules in workflows where more than one Get or Send item is used, the rules will evaluate and Alert based on any one of those items failing.

Creating the Rules

Rules are created via the BridgeGate Portal using the Dashboard|BAM|Rules Tab.

Click on the Create New Rule button:

Enter the required fields as designated with * in the following screen shot:

A best practice is to use a description that is meaningful as this is what shows up in the rule notifications.

The Notification options are:

If Email is used, the SMTP server used is derived via the SYSTEM_ERROR entries in the bridgegate.xml file.
If PDC is used, the PDC must be an Email connection used as a Data Destination. Either a PDC or an Email address can be entered but NOT both.
Alert Interval is the number of Seconds after which an Alert is registered.
Warn Interval is the number of Seconds after which a Warning is registered.
NOTE: The Alert Interval should be greater than the Warn Interval.
Auto Resolve is just that, once the workflow associated with a rule is no longer in violation, the notification is automatically marked as Resolved, otherwise a user must Resolve the notification manually via the portal.
Activation Date is the date that the rule will be applied.
Activation Time is the time on the activation date that the rule will be applied.
Icon is an image to display with the rule and notification.
Once the Rule is configured, associate one or more workflows via the drag and drop Workflows window at the bottom of the Rule creation page:

Managing Notifications

The Main screen provides a role up of the Notifications. The Refresh Rate for the refresh of this page via the portal can be configured on this screen.

By clicking View beside the Alerts or Warnings badges, unresolved Notifications will be displayed:

By clicking the Notifications tab the entire Notification history will be displayed:

To Resolve a Notification manually, click Resolve via the BAM Event History List:

The Resolve Event dialogue is presented:

Enter comments associated with the resolution and click Resolve event.
By selecting the Detail link on a Notification via the BAM Event History List:

The following dialogue is presented reflecting information regarding that Notification including who Resolved the Notification.

If the Notification was Auto Resolved, the Event Resolved By entry will reflect system, and not a user name.


Monitoring BAM

The Main screen can be used by a user with limited permissions to monitor the Notifications.

The limited user may also be granted the ability to Resolve issues. This functionality is provided so that in the event a data center operator might need to resolve an issue at the behest of a remote support engineer that may not have access to get to the portal to do so themselves.
The user must have at least BAM…View rights as well as Access to the accounts associated with Rules.


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