We are pleased to announce the availability of OpenText Operations Bridge CE 24.2, our AIOps platform. This blog focuses on what’s new in our Classic products; we have also published a blog article talking about what’s new in Containerized Operations Bridge and Operations Bridge SaaS.

All Operations Bridge deployments, regardless of whether you use Classic products, Containerized Operations Bridge or SaaS, can now benefit from our new IT Operations Aviator, which is a secure, private generative AI (GenAI) virtual agent that leverages domain-specific enterprise knowledge to simplify work for everyone. Aviator empowers users to self-resolve common requests by providing relevant, contextual responses in natural language. 

Apart from that, the new Operations Bridge Manager (OBM) release provides many usability enhancements, some of which had been requested by customers via our Idea Exchange platform. The new SiteScope release also brings two enhancements requested by customers and our new Real User Monitor (RUM) release provides enhanced security.

Summary of changes

The new IT Operations Aviator

• Gives instructions on how to remediate OBM events.
• Offers intelligent documentation querying.
• Is powered by a private Large Language Model (LLM).

OBM CE 24.2

• Improved time to value (TTV): Easy topology synchronization between RTSMs without the need for a Data Flow Probe.
• Configuration synchronization between OBM installations.
• Intercept and manipulate OBM internal events.
• Unit-based license reporting and accurate license reporting in Manager-of-Managers (MoM) setups.
• The new opr-event CLI option to update the lifecycle state of events.
• Export node lists to Excel in the Monitored Nodes UI.
• Quickly understand which policies and aspects use specific instrumentation.
• Performance Dashboard (PD) enhancements:
  • A quick way to compare metrics from several processes from the process drill-down table widget,
  • A new permission to clear the PD cache to avoid slow PD performance.
• Reduced manual post-upgrade tasks.
• CI-status web service enhancement: View as a grouping criterion.
• Additional HTML tags can be used in Event Details.
• Updated third-party components.

Operations Agent 12.26

• Agent Health usability enhancement: A single page that shows policy status of a node.
• Avoid CI reconciliation problems (by sending BIOS UUID on Linux and a new option to ignore interfaces).
• Secure-by-default enhancement: OA REST_WS endpoint accepts only HTTPS in fresh installations.
• Prevent loss or duplicate events while processing XML files.
• Re-introducing Operations Agent for AIX.
• Updated third-party components and platform refresh.

SiteScope CE 24.2

• Custom Message Attributes (CMA) attributes and customizable CMA names in SiteScope events are now unlimited.
• Dynamic Docker swarm monitor enhancement.
• Simplified validation of SiteScope integration with the OPTIC Data Lake (DL).
• URL Sequence monitor enhancement to monitor details of all certificates.
• Introduced MySQL unified content.

RUM 9.60

• Supports default installation in the HTTPS mode.
• Supports Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.3.

Details on the new features

IT Operations Aviator

In this release, IT Operations Aviator is available as Software as a Service (SaaS). It integrates with your OBM environment deployed outside of SaaS and offers the following capabilities:

• Provides you with the instructions on how to remediate OBM events. When you encounter an event in the Operations Bridge Event Browser, Aviator can intelligently analyze the context and suggest remediation steps.
• Offers intelligent documentation querying. You can simply type in your query and Aviator will search through its documentation repository and provide you with comprehensive answers.

For more information, see Get started with Aviator.

Figure 1. Aviator inside of OBM

For more information about how to configure and enable Aviator, see Administer Aviator and Enable Aviator. For detailed instructions on using Aviator, see Use Aviator.

If you are interested in subscribing to Aviator, please contact your OpenText sales representative. 

What's new in OBM 24.2

IT Operations Aviator with AI Operations

As already explained above, the SaaS-based Aviator service can be integrated into OBM Classic and provide value to OBM Classic customers. See the previous section for details.

Easy topology synchronization between RTSMs without the need of a Data Flow Probe

With this release, topology can be synchronized between RTSM/UCMDB systems without the need to install a separate Data Flow Probe. The prerequisite is that the target needs to be OBM/UCMDB 23.4 or later. For more information, see Run UCMDB to UCMDB push without Data Flow Probe.

Configuration synchronization between OBM installations

You can now use the new opr-custom-config CLI to export and import custom configurations, such as recipients, notification rules and workspaces. Exported custom configurations can also be imported on other OBM installations. For more information, see opr-custom-config.

Intercept and manipulate OBM internal events 

The new infrastructure setting Operations Management - Internal Event Handling is now available. Upon activation, internal events will be routed through a predefined policy to the local agent. This setting enables you to suppress or manipulate internal events before they enter the OBM event pipeline. Also, you can remove unwanted internal events or enrich them. For more information, see Preprocess internal events. 

Unit-based license reporting and improved license reporting in Manager-of-Manager (MoM) setups

OBM license calculation has been improved to report license usage to avoid inconsistencies.

Figure 2. OBM license report showing unit-based license consumption

Several new infrastructure settings have been introduced in Operations Management - License Settings:

• CI types for reduced licenses: Defines the list of CI types (comma-separated) to be counted for reduced licensing.
• Limit the license usage counting to agent-based licenses: When enabled, OBM counts agent and Management Pack licenses. In Manager-of-Manager setups of OBM, all top-level OBMs should have this setting disabled, so that agent and Management Pack licenses are not counted multiple times.
• Node Roles for nodes excluded: Defines the list of node role attribute values (comma-separated) to be excluded from license counting.
• For more information, see List of Infrastructure settings and Overview about Configuration Item (CI) based License Counting.

The opr-event CLI option to change the lifecycle state of events

The opr-event CLI now has the option -change_state_to to update the lifecycle state of events. Use this CLI for standard automation instead of using the exception tool opr-close-events, which blocks the event pipeline. For more information, see opr-event.

Export to Excel for node lists in the Monitored Nodes UI 

You can now export monitored node lists to CSV or XLS file formats. This option allows you to share information about selected systems, like OS type or agent version, with others who do not use OBM. It also enables you to analyse data on monitored systems using tools, such as Excel. In addition, you can use the CSV output as an input for CLI tools, for example, to start upgrade on nodes with a certain agent version. For more information, see Monitored nodes.

Figure 3. Export node list

Figure 4. Exported node list in Excel

Quickly understand which policies and aspects use specific instrumentation

The Instrumentation Management UI now lists the artifacts that are using the selected instrumentation item. This helps you understand which policies and aspects use specific instrumentation. For more information, see Instrumentation Management.

Figure 5. The Instrumentation UI displays artifacts using the selected instrumentation

Performance Dashboard (PD): Quickly compare metrics from several processes from the process drill-down table widget

In the Performance Perspective pane, you can now drill down to process metrics from the process drill-down chart. This provides a quick way to compare the metrics behaviour over time of up to 5 selected processes. For more information, see Editing Charts.

Figure 6. Launch metrics graphs from the process drill-down widget

Performance Dashboard: A new permission to clear the PD cache to avoid slow PD performance

A new permission Clear Cache for Performance Dashboards allows you to control which user can clear the global PD cache. This operation triggers a reload of the metadata for all CIs and can cause slow performance if triggered too often and without real need. For more information, see Manage roles.

Reduced manual post-upgrade tasks

When integrated with the OPTIC DL, OBM regularly checks for newer versions of the integration Content Packs, which it downloads and installs automatically. This makes the corresponding manual post-upgrade tasks unnecessary. For this, a new infrastructure setting was introduced under Operations Management - Content Manager Settings: OPTIC Data Lake Integration Content Pack update interval.

This setting defines the time interval (in hours) to update the latest OPTIC DL integration Content Packs. For more information, see Infrastructure Settings Used in Event Processing.

CI-status web service enhancement

The CI status web service now supports specifying a view as a grouping criterion. This allows you to group results by view if the CI status for multiple views is queried. For more information, see Status web service interface.

Additional HTML tags can be used in Event Details

An additional set of HTML tags is now available, which you can use wherever applicable in Event Details. For a list of all the supported HTML tags, see HTML Rendering.

Updated third-party components

This release includes third-party component updates and security improvements. We recommend that you update to the latest version for the best security and user experience.

What's new in Operations Agent 12.26

Enhanced Agent Health View

Operations Agent Health View provides a single-page view to inspect the health of the node's policies. For more information, see Policy view.

Figure 7. Operations Agent Health View policy info

Support for AIX platform  

From this release onwards, Operations Agent continues to be supported on the AIX platform. The support brings in all latest Operations Agent enhancements and quality improvements on the AIX.

Save state functionality for the XML file processing

The opcgeni subagent now includes the functionality to save the state of the XML file processing while executing policies. This resumes file parsing and operations processing during subagent restarts and helps avoid the loss or duplication of events. For more information, see Opcgeni save state functionality for events.

Updated default value for the User and Group ID of the install user (opc_op)

On UNIX/Linux platforms, during fresh installation of Operations Agent, the user ID and the group ID of the default user opc_op is now set to 1000 and above. Additionally, the permission mask for the home directory /home/opc_op is set to deny access to others. The changes align with the audit requirements of vulnerability and security assessment tools.

Avoid CI Reconciliation problems

Operations Agent detects BIOS UUID at every restart on Linux platforms (both during system reboots or when the Operations Agent restarts on Linux). Starting from this release, Operations Agent can detect any change to the BIOS UUID and send data to OBM for proper CI reconciliation. For more information, see Update the BIOS UUID of ASSD.

Also, the configuration parameter OPC_ASSD_FILTER_IP now supports patterns to specify a list of IP addresses to include or exclude during system discovery and to forward them to OBM. Use this to exclude IP addresses that lead to duplicates, like addresses of internal subnets 10.x.x.x, etc. For more information, see Configuration Variables for the Operations Monitoring Component.

REST WebService is secure and accepts only HTTPS by default

REST WebService endpoint complies with the secure-by-default paradigm of Operations Agent by accepting HTTPS by default during a fresh install of Operations Agent. XPL configuration settings are automatically set when Operations Agent is deployed. For more information, see Operations Agent doesn't accept HTTP requests on REST endpoint.

For more information on configuration variables, see Configuration Variables for the Communication Component.

Upgraded open-source components

Operations Agent 12.26 upgraded the following open-source components to a newer version:

• OpenSSL 3.0.13
• Perl 5.38.200

Platform refresh

Operations Agent 12.26 offers you a refresh for many new operating systems versions. Refer to the support matrices for detailed information.

Note: Operations Agent 12.26 release does not support zLinux. The last supported Operations Agent version for the zLinux platform is 12.22. The support will resume in future releases.

What's new in SiteScope 24.2

Custom Message Attributes (CMA) for SiteScope enhancement

The SiteScope server has been enhanced to support an unlimited number of custom message attributes. Additionally, the names of custom message attributes can now be customized.

Dynamic Docker Swarm monitoring enhancement ​ 

Metric collection has been expanded to include worker nodes. For more information, see Dynamic Docker Monitor.

Simplified validation of SiteScope integration with the OPTIC Data Lake

The integration of SiteScope with the OPTIC DL can now be validated using a post-integration validation tool. For more information, see Validate SiteScope integration using configuration checking tool.

URL Sequence monitor enhancement

Previously, the URL Sequence monitor and URL monitor displayed only the first certificate for the Certificate days remaining threshold. With this release, SiteScope provides details for all certificates within the threshold for each URL in the URL Sequence monitor. For more information, see URL Sequence monitor.

MYSQL unified content

SiteScope now supports out-of-the-box unified content for MYSQL. For more information, see Unified content.

What's new in RUM 9.60

RUM 9.60 now supports TLS version 1.3 and allows you to upload certificates during the installation process making it secure by default.

Figure 8. Upload certificates during RUM installation

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 Operations Bridge Video Library and blogs.

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

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

Events

• On-demand webinar: OpenTelemetry Changes Everything
• On-demand webinar: Operations Bridge 24.2 Release Readiness Webinar

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