We are pleased to announce the availability of OpenText Operations Bridge 2023.05, our AIOps platform. This release introduces the new versions of the Operations Bridge Classic, Container and SaaS deployments and includes important new features and usability improvements. This blog post talks about the new release of Containerized Operations Bridge, with a special focus on the changes in the Operations Bridge Reporting area, Agentless and Application monitoring, as well as Automatic Event Correlation (AEC).

This article is the second in a series of blogs introducing Operations Bridge 2023.05. For information on the new releases of Operations Bridge Manager (OBM) and SiteScope, check the blog article What’s New in Operations Bridge Manager and SiteScope 2023.05.

The third post is Hyperscale Observability: What’s New in Operations Bridge 2023.05.

Summary of changes

Operations Bridge Reporting

• OPTIC One Flex Designer:
  • An optimized workflow to design reports and dashboards, with no SQL query knowhow
  • Context filtering and highlighting: Selecting a value in one widget sets the context for other widgets
  • Miscellaneous improvements, such as improved text widgets with full HTML styling, a single data selector, drilldowns on widgets, etc.
• Extended list of out-of-the-box Flex reports
• The new Settings UI for user and global settings, including the option to select a time zone for reports
• The Roles UI now allows you to configure permissions inside OPTIC One
• PDF export optimized for printing
• Agent Metric Collection (AMC) enhancements:
  • Enhanced AMC benchmark tool
  • Delta detection for newly detected nodes
  • Automatic deny listing of nodes that are not reachable for metric collection
  • The possibility to exclude agent nodes from the metric collection

Agentless Monitoring enhancements

• Extended list of monitors that can be configured in the Monitoring Control Center (MCC) UI
• Global Search and Replace feature
• The new Certificate and Credential Profile Management UI
• Simplified process for onboarding SiteScope systems to OPTIC One
• Agentless monitoring capability can be deployed on OpenShift

Application Monitoring enhancements

• The new Application Monitoring UI enabling you to configure Business Process Monitor (BPM) probes from the MCC/OPTIC One UI

Automatic Event Correlation (AEC)

• Optimized calculation of a probable root cause of an AEC correlation event
• The option to reprioritize events by overwriting the root cause suggested by machine-learning algorithms
• AEC can now automatically update matching patterns of the previous AEC correlation events if newly arrived events are a better correlation with a bigger number of symptoms

Simplified installation

• Automatic import of certificates into the AppHub UI
• The ability to automatically create Oracle database schemas for Operations Bridge using the AppHub UI
• Guided install in low-footprint and test deployments, as well as for Operations Bridge + Network Operations Management (NOM) deployments with the shared OPTIC DL
• Log forwarding/logging improvements with Fluent Bit
• Improved interactive installation documentation

For more details, please see the Containerized Operations Bridge Release notes. For detailed information on supported components, versions, software and hardware requirements, as well as obsolescence announcements, take a look at the latest Operations Bridge support matrices.

Changes in Operations Bridge Reporting

The new OPTIC One Flex Designer

In this release, we have introduced a new workflow to design reports and dashboards.

OPTIC One, our new UI for multiple OPTIC applications, simplifies the data visualization process by providing you with the basic building blocks to visualize your collected data without requiring any SQL data query knowledge. The new Flex Designer allows you to browse through the database tables and customize how the data is presented with a range of display options.

The new intuitive workflow makes it possible to create dashboards and reports from scratch in only a few minutes using these simple steps:

1. Adding a widget.
2. Choosing data visualization.
3. Selecting a predefined query or adding a new query. The big advantage is that no prior SQL query expertise is required; you can simply browse through the database tables in the OPTIC Data Lake (DL) and choose the data you are interested in.
4. Specifying the visualization type, like a PI chart, a time-series line chart, etc.
5. Configuring visualization options if required.

As a result, the data you wanted to visualize is displayed.

The following figure graphically summarizes these steps and gives you an insight into the Design UI.

Figure 1. Designing dashboards and reports with Flex Designer

In this new workflow, we have built in machine intelligence allowing for a better and faster outcome. For example, if you selected the data that includes a timestamp in step 2, then time-series charts will be shown at the top of the chart list to choose from in step 3. We also use default values wherever possible enabling you to quickly view the result (which you can further finetune using various visualization options). For example, if your database table contains four columns and you want to display all of them in a table chart, then you can simply select the database table and the visualization type table – and it will automatically display all columns. But if you only want to show two of four columns, you can do this as well by specifying the two desired metrics in in the workflow.

By the way, the “metadata” information, such as which metrics are important, which metric is a timestamp, etc. is stored and pre-set in case you want to use the same query in another graph. This, again, helps you save time and contributes to making the design process fast and intuitive.

Note that if required, you can always switch from the simplified table browsing method to the SQL query editing. This may be the case if you want to:

• Manipulate your data using SQL before applying the visualization
• Combine the data from multiple tables
• Use other advanced SQL query features

For a detailed procedure on how to add widgets and the descriptions of available options, see Data Visualization.

Another useful feature that we have added in this area is context filtering and highlighting. When you select a value in one widget, it can set the context for other widgets. For example, if you select the Asia-Pacific (AP) segment of a pie chart that shows the data for different regions, other widgets that have the same region context can be configured to automatically show data for that region as well:

• By using highlighting in a time-series chart – the line of the AP region will be highlighted, or
• By using filtering, for example in a table chart, with the result that only the data from the AP region will be shown in the table

Figure 2. The UI flow for data highlighting and filtering

For more information on this feature, refer to Data Visualization.

Extended list of out-of-the-box Flex reports

In this release, we have extended the list of editable Flex reports that we provide out of the box.

Thus we designed three brand-new system infrastructure reports – among those the Hybrid Infrastructure report that offers consolidated information about the availability and performance of physical and cloud systems (Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure), one new event report, and fifteen converted BVD system infrastructure and event reports. On top of it, all our cloud monitoring reports and dashboards are now editable via Flex Designer.

This means that not only do you have a large set of Flex reports out of the box, but you can also easily extend them by using dashboards and underlying queries as a starting point.

The new infrastructure reports include:

• Hybrid Infrastructure Executive Summary report: As mentioned above, this report provides you with consolidated information about the availability and performance of physical and cloud systems in your environment. It displays how many systems are running in-house and on each cloud provider. You can also view the overall availability and Top 5 nodes by CPU, memory, disk and network utilization. In addition, the report allows filtering based on node groups, which enables you to view the data for all nodes or for a certain node group. For details, see Configure Hybrid Infrastructure reports and Hybrid Infrastructure Flex reports.
• System Infrastructure Inventory report. This report contains information about the number of nodes running in your environment, together with their operating systems. It also includes system details, such as physical memory installed, the number of CPUs, disks and network interfaces.
• System Forecast Summary report. This report allows you to determine your resource requirements in the next 30, 60 or 90 days

Figure 3. System Forecast Summary report

We have also added the new Top N Nodes/Top N Policies report, which is based on the event count. It allows you to see for which nodes (in a node group) you receive the most event (or the most critical events) and also which policies create the most events.

Figure 4. Top N Nodes by Events report

Also note that fifteen additional System Infrastructure and Event BVD reports are now available as Flex reports, which means that you can edit and enhance them without having to edit the Visio files.

For more information, see Use OPTIC Reporting.

The new Settings UI for user and global settings

As more and more applications and capabilities move into the OPTIC One UI, we have also started to move settings that are relevant for multiple applications into the OPIC One UI (for example, language and regional format settings).

For OPTIC One pages, we introduced a new time zone setting, which allows you to display the times in a dashboard or a report in the specified time zone.

Many of these settings are user-specific, which means every user can choose their own time zone, language, etc. An administrator can define defaults for those settings, but these only apply until a user changes the setting. Such settings include:

• Regional format
• Language
• Time zone
• Certain BVD settings

However, there are also settings that are system- and not user-specific, for example:

• Export and scheduled reporting settings
• BVD system settings

Figure 5. OPTIC One Settings UI displaying system settings

For more information, see Configure user and system settings.

Improved Roles UI

The new OPTIC One Roles UI allows you to view and control all OPTIC One permissions. The permissions include access to definitions (pages), instances (menu entries), menu categories and actions.

You can create roles and assign the following permissions to these roles:

• Create custom reports
• Read and write access to the reports
• Organize the reports under different categories
• Grant access at a page or a category level

For more information, see Manage roles.

Enhanced PDF export for Flex reports

So far, PDF export was a one-to-one copy of what is displayed on a Flex page. Because of this, it could happen that tables and charts had been cut off and printed on more than one page.

With the enhanced PDF export feature, you can select the “Optimize layout for printing” option when exporting a page. As a result, tables and charts are printed below each other, with the page breaks inserted at appropriate positions. If a data table widget is used on the page, you can specify the exact number of rows that must be exported into the PDF (in the System settings section). For more information see, Export.

AMC enhancements

• Enhanced AMC benchmark tool: The tool now calculates the required AMC replica count based on the actual number of disk, network interface and filesystem instances you have on your nodes. It is also able to categorize the nodes in different categories (nodes list) and make recommendations regarding the collection settings, in order to make the most effective use of resources in your environment. In addition, the tool makes sure that AMC has enough resources to collect all instance metrics from all nodes. For more information, see Use the amc-benchmark-tool.
• Delta detection for newly detected nodes: This feature detects if new nodes have been added to the view referenced in your collection and sends an OBM event to inform you. For more information, see Manage new nodes.
• Automatic deny listing of nodes not reachable for metric collection: This enhancement helps reduce the collection time since the nodes that cannot be reached are ignored for the collection purposes. For more information, see Verify Agent Metric Collector status.
• Excluding agent nodes from the metric collection using a node exclude list. For more information, see Filter list of nodes to collect metrics.

Monitoring Control Center (MCC)/Agentless Monitoring enhancements

In this release, we are delivering the following enhancements to the Agentless Monitoring capability:

• Enhanced coverage of monitors that can be configured in the Agentless Monitoring UI. The following monitors have been newly added: Oracle Database Monitor, Web Service Monitor, LDAP Monitor, VMWare, WebSphere Application Server Monitor, Microsoft SQL Server Monitor, as well as five VMware Host monitors monitoring network, storage, memory, state and CPU. With that, we fully support 41 monitors (for a complete list of supported monitors, see SiteScope monitors).
  With regard to other monitors, note that you can view their status and history using the Agentless Monitoring UI. You can also run, enable, disable and delete monitors, and edit their common properties (but monitor-specific properties are not yet editable).
• The new Global Search and Replace feature is now available, allowing you to find and replace attributes of several monitors. The following settings can be replaced:
  • General settings
  • Monitor run settings
  • Dependencies
  • Enable/disable monitor

This feature is useful if, for example, you need to bulk enable or disable your monitors, or do a bulk monitor renaming.

Note that although you can manage several SiteScope servers with the Agentless Monitoring UI, search and replace is not yet available across all your SiteScopes, but is limited to one SiteScope server at a time.

• The new UI for Certificate and Credential Profile management allows you to manage certificates and credentials for individual SiteScopes (earlier, this was only possible using the CLI). You can now also add, view, edit and delete a provider group using the UI.
• A simplified process for onboarding SiteScope systems to OPTIC One: Configuration file editing and file importing are no longer required, you only need to run a simple configuration script

Application Monitoring enhancements

The Application Monitoring capability is a new offering in Containerized Operations Bridge that delivers a simplified HTML-based UI to Application Performance Management (APM) for configuring BPM probes. The UI connects with APM instances to fetch the End User Management (EUM) configuration details and displays them in the Application Monitoring UI.

The new UI has a similar look and feel as the MCC-based UI already supported for agentless and cloud monitoring and also provides a similar set of features. Thus, this is the next step towards the UI unification and can be regarded as the evolution of the classic Application Performance Management (APM) UI.

Figure 6. The new Application Monitoring UI

This new UI also allows you to manage your BPM script/Files repository. (The Files repository in the Application Monitoring UI is the central storage location for all your BPM scripts.) It allows you to organize your scripts into logical groups and manage their properties.

AEC enhancements

A probable root cause event of an AEC correlation event is now better calculated. The root cause was previously based on the event severity only. Now, the root cause is calculated based on topology depth, event severity, CI Type (different CI types have different weights) and other metrics.

Additionally, you can overwrite this suggested root cause by reprioritizing events; the algorithm will apply this new root cause in future correlations.

Figure 7. AEC enhancements shown in the AEC Explained UI

For details, see Use Automatic Event Correlation Explained UI.

Operations Bridge Container deployment enhancements

In this release, we have simplified the installation procedure and made it more robust. In addition, we have improved our installation documentation and documented the disaster recovery procedure.

• Automatic import of certificates into the AppHub UI. If you are using trusted certificates, for example, database certificates and external server certificates, you no longer need to import certificates manually. Now, in the TLS section of the AppHub configuration, you are prompted to verify and accept the certificate as a trusted certificate (via the Verify button). After that, AppHub automatically imports the certificate. For more information, see Configure AppHub Parameters.
• You can now automatically create Oracle database schemas and users using the AppHub UI (that means you no longer need to manually run SQL statements or DBSQLGenerator script to create the users and databases). A user must have the permissions to create other databases (for example, the DB super user or a custom user with this privilege). Default DB usernames are pre-set. The user just needs to provide a password and confirm it.
• You can configure the guided install in low footprint and test deployments, as well as for OpsBridge+NOM deployments with shared OPTIC DL. If you are using the guided install method to deploy, you can now configure the parameters to deploy in OpsBridge+NOM, low footprint or test deployments. For more information, see Prepare the properties file and run the guided install script.
• Log forwarding/logging improvements with Fluent Bit. If your deployment contains multiple applications or products, for example, Network Automation (NA), Network Node Manager i (NNMi) or Operations Bridge, different services of these applications generate multiple logs. For easier log management, you can use Fluent Bit as your log forwarder. For more information, see Configure values.yaml.
• You can now monitor the expiration of your certificates in a Grafana dashboard and renew them as required. You can also view the certificate expiration alerts in the OBM Event Browser. For more information, see Monitoring certificate expiration in container deployment.

More Operations Bridge 2023.05 release-related details are provided in the Operations Bridge Release Readiness Webinar. The slides and the recording are available on our Community page here.

We encourage you to try out our new features and enhancements! For further information on our offerings, visit the Operations Bridge product page, explore our documentation resources and check out our videos and blogs.

If you have feedback or suggestions, don’t hesitate to comment on this article.

Explore the full capabilities of Operations Bridge by taking a look at these pages on our Practitioner Portal: Operations Bridge Manager, SiteScope, Operations Agent, Operations Connector (OpsCx), Operations Bridge Analytics, Application Performance Management (APM) and Operations Orchestration (OO).

Events

• On-demand: Operations Bridge 2023.05 Release Readiness Webinar
• On-demand: Operations Bridge Refresh 2023
• On demand: Operations Bridge 2022.05 – Has Observability, More SaaS

See all the OpenText events worldwide. 

Read all our news at the Operations Bridge blog. 

Related items 

• Operations Bridge – SaaS: Automated discovery, monitoring and automation
• Operations Bridge Technology Integrations eBook
• What is AIOps

Have technical questions about Operations Bridge? Visit the OpsBridge User Discussion Forum. 

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