Services Business Process in Assets
This subsection shows the list of Business Process Services created and monitored in WOCU. In addition, from this single interface it is possible to add new elements and duplicate, edit and permanently delete the Business Process Services shown in the list.
Monitored Business Process Services List Fields
Host Name
This field contains the formal identifier of the Business Process Host(s) to which the Business Process Service in question is associated.
Description
Descriptive text relating to the Business Process Service, added by the operator at the time of its creation.
Business Rule definition
This field contains the defined rule (logical expression), which establishes the checks that WOCU will perform on the constituent elements to determine the status of the Business Process.
Business impact
This field reports the criticality or significance of the Business Process defined in WOCU. The impact is represented using 0 to 5 stars, with 0 being the least vital and 5 being the most critical.
None: 0 stars
Low : 1 star
Medium: 2 stars
High: 3 stars
Very High: 4 stars
Review: 5 stars
Actions from the Business Process Services list
Because of their significance, the Actions applicable to each Business Process Service in the inventory are described below in a separate section.
Duplicate
This action allows the duplication of a specific Business Process Service, generating an exact copy of it.
Before the duplicate becomes effective, the following form will appear with the configuration parameters of the original Business Process Service, for possible editing and updating.
Once you have modified the data in the corresponding fields, click on the blue button Duplicate Service BP to save and generate this new element.
Note
The fields to be edited match those described in Add Services Business Process (Add SBP).
Delete
The delete option allows you to permanently delete a specific Business Process Service.
After selecting the Delete action, the following message will appear:
Delete Active Service BP (Delete active service BP): Are you sure you want to delete the Service BP with ”[information added in Service Description]” as service description?
Finally, by selecting the red button Delete Service BP, the element will be deleted.
Detailed Host Information
By clicking on the name of a specific item, the corresponding detail view will pop up with the configuration values of the different attributes of the Business Process registered in the system.
The fields in the information window are described below:
Host Name: identifier name of the Business Process.
Service Description: supplementary text relating to the Business Process Service in question, added by the operator at the time of its creation.
Use: tags related to the configuration of the monitoring profile (Monitoring Packs) assigned to a Host.
Business Rule Definition: this field details the defined rule (logical expression) that establishes the checks and verifications that the system will perform with the constituent elements (Hosts and/or Services) to determine an operational state of the Business Process in question.
Business Impact: this field specifies a value on a six-grade scale (from 0 to 5) indicating the importance or significance of the Business Process defined in WOCU-Monitoring.
Check Interval: The time interval between two scheduled checks.
Editing configuration values
The system allows changes to be made to the configuration of the Hosts from the information modal itself. Through the Edit button, you can access the editable form that allows you to make changes in the different parameters and attributes of the Host.
The following configuration form will then be displayed:
Note
The fields to be edited match the attributes described in Add Services Business Process (Add SBP).
Once you have modified the data in the corresponding fields, click on the Save button to save the new configuration. If you prefer to discard the changes you have made, press the Go back button to return to the previous view without making any changes.
Add Services Business Process (Add SBP)
WOCU offers the possibility for the user to manually enter new elements in the Business Process Services list. To do so, click on the green button + Add Service BP:
Next, the new Business Process Services registration form will appear, with the following configuration fields:
Realm name: informational field of the name of the Realm on which the new Business Process Service will depend.
Host or Host BP name: selection field of the Business Process Host or Hosts, to which this new service will be associated. The definition of this field is mandatory.
Service description: optional field where the user may include descriptive text related to the Business Process Service.
Business rule definition: field to define the Business Process as a logical asset whose state WOCU will monitor.
In the Business Definition Rule, the constituents of the Business Process will be established. Additionally, a relationship between the different constituent elements is also established through the use of logical expressions. Having established the Business rule, WOCU will first evaluate the state of each component element of the Business Process (as defined in the rule). Then, taking into consideration these individual states and the logical operators that link and relate the elements of the Business Process, WOCU will calculate and determine their state.
The definition of a Business Rule shall always start with the command bp_rule!. The names or identifiers of the assets whose status WOCU shall examine when executing the rule shall then be entered.
If you want to create a Business Process that will be composed of a single element, the Host with name HostOne, the Business Rule will be the following: bp_rule!(HostOne).
Business Process Services (BP Services) will be identified in the Assets tab with the following icon:
Examples
To include a Service in the rule, enter the name of the Host and the name of the Service separated by a comma (,).
In professional environments it is common to find scenarios where elements are redundant to ensure the availability of the services they provide. Imagine a website hosted on two redundant web servers, one as the active server and the other as the backup server. A Business Process designed to ensure the availability of the website, consisting of two web servers, WebServerActive and WebServerBackup, which examines whether at least one of the web servers is serving, will have a rule like the following:
bp_rule!(WebServerActive|WebServerBackup)
In this case, as can be seen, the logical operator OR (or) has been used, represented by the character ”|”, which gives a positive value if at least one of the elements of the logical relationship is positive.
You can add even more complexity to the Business Rules with the use of other logical operators and expressions. Let’s suppose that, in the web of the previous example, there is a DB hosted in two DB servers, DBServerActive and DBServerBackup, so we want the Business Rule to determine the availability of the web according to the availability of at least one of the web servers and at least one of the DB servers. The rule would then be:
bp_rule!(WebServerActive|WebServerBackup) & (DBServerActive|DBServerBackup)
As can be seen, in this case the logical operator AND (and) has been used, represented by the character ”&”, which gives a positive value if both elements of the logical relationship are positive.
Let us now look at the use of another logical operator. Let’s consider a scenario in which there is a router, Router, that gives Internet connection to a site through two independent dedicated lines (ADSL and ISDN) through two interfaces. You want to monitor the availability of the connection through the main line with a Business Rule. Taking into account that the interface connected to the ISDN backup line (if_ISDN) will only be active when there is a drop in the main ADSL line (if_ADSL), the Rule to create would be:
bp_rule!(Router,ifADSL & !Rourter,ifISDN)
On this occasion, the logical NOT operator is used, represented by the ”!” character, which changes the value of the preceding element.
Let’s consider the following scenario: to provide a web service there are three web servers (WebServer1, WebServer2 and WebServer3) and three DB servers (DBServer1, DBServer2, DBServer3). You need to create a rule that determines that the web service is working correctly when at least two of the three web servers are working correctly and two of the three DB servers are working correctly. The rule would look like this:
bp_rule!(2 of: WebServer1 | WebServer2 | WebServer3 ) &
(2 of: DBServer1|DBServer2|DBServer3)
Using the operator of: preceded by a number or a percentage, a minimum number of elements that must meet the condition is set. Business Rules can integrate other Business Rules as elements:
bp_rule!(BusinessProcessWeb & BusinessProcessDB & BusinessProcessInternet)
They can even integrate different elements, such as Hosts, Services and other Rules within the same Business Rule:
bp_rule!((BusinessProcess & Host1,Service1 & Host2)
Business impact: field in which the criticality of the defined Business Process is established on a scale of six values. By clicking on the drop-down list, the degree of criticality that best suits the Business Process created must be selected from the list. This criticality will serve as a reference for WOCU users during the operation and treatment of Alarms.
The criticality scale is ascending, from None to Critical, through Low, Medium, High and Very High. The degree of criticality chosen will be reflected in the Business Process Services List, in the Business Impact column. The different levels will be represented by stars (★):
None: 0 stars
Low: ★
Medium: ★★★
High: ★★★
Very High: ★★★★
Critical: ★★★★★
Interval check: field to define the time interval (minutes) that must elapse between two programmed checks, for the evaluation of the defined rule.
Finally, to save the configuration and register this new Business Process Service, click on the blue button Add Service BP or cancel the operation by clicking on the cross at the top right of the form.