I have received this question from several people: "I have heard that BMC has eliminated bii4P in BPPM 9.0. Is it true? If it is true, why do I still see bii4P in some BPPM 9.0 architecture diagrams? And what can I use instead to send PATROL events to a BPPM cell configured as high availability?"
The simple answer is yes - it is true that bii4P has been eliminated. But bii4P elimination is related to PATROL agent only regardless of the version of BPPM server, BPPM agent, and BPPM cell. Starting from PATROL agent version 9.0, bii4P is no longer required for a PATROL agent to send its events to a cell. The cell can be a BEM 7.x cell, BPPM 8.x cell, or BPPM 9.x cell. If your PATROL agent version is older than 9.0, you still need bii4P even you are running BPPM cell 9.0. That is why you may still see bii4P in some BPPM 9.0 architecture diagrams.
To send PATROL events from a PATROL agent version 9.x to a BPPM/BEM cell configured as high availability, you need to have the following pconfig variables set: "/EventSetup/Configuration/EventCells", "/EventSetup/Configuration/Format", and "/EventSetup/Configuration/Key". For example:
"/EventSetup/Configuration/EventCells" = { REPLACE = "server1/1828,server2/1828" },
"/EventSetup/Configuration/Format" = { REPLACE = "BiiP3" },
"/EventSetup/Configuration/Key" = { REPLACE = "mc" }
*** where server1 is your primary cell server and server2 is your secondary cell server. If you have a standalone cell, you only need to specify server1/1828. ***
However, bii4P is still supported in PATROL agent 9.x. If you would like to send PATROL events to multiple cells (e.g. a production cell and a testing cell for troubleshooting purpose), bii4P is still the only option. In addition, both bii4P and PATROLAgent-to-cell direct connection can co-exist for the same PATROL agent.
In the new PATROLAgent-to-cell direct connection, PATROL agent initiates the connection with a cell and pushes events to the cell. PATROL agent does not have the capability to push events to two different cells at the same time.
bii4P is a standalone adapter. There are two versions of bii4P: bii4P3 and bii4P7. bii4P3 connects to PATROL agents directly while bii4P7 connects to PATROL agents through PATROL console server. bii4P3 is more commonly used nowadays due to its more stable connection with PATROL agents. bii4P initiates the connection with PATROL agents at one end to receive events and pushes the receives events to a cell at the other end.
To send PATROL events to two cells, you can configure two instances of bii4P, or you can configure PATROLAgent-to-cell direct connection for production cell and configure bii4P for testing cell.
HI Willa,
ReplyDeleteI have BEM 7.2 installed on a windows server and I m trying to send patrol events directly from a 3.9 patrol agent and set the EventSetup variables as described above to connect to the bem server but I do not receive patrol events in the cell. My bem server does not have the patrol integration tools BII4P installed, just bem server. Do I need to configure some mcxp.conf or something related to that, actually I dont have that mcxp.conf in my server. I also do not have BMC support anymore. If needed can I get those bii4p tools somewhere else ? thanks
Luis,
ReplyDeleteYou can only use EventSetup pconfig variables for PATROL agent version 9.0 and above. Since you have PATROL agent 3.9, you will need to use bii4p. bii4p is a separate installation package, but it is included in the license of BEM 7.2. I am not sure if you can download bii4p somewhere else other than BMC. Even you no longer have support, I would suggest you to call BMC first to see if they can let you download bii4p (& doc) because you have already paid for the product and you don't need support to use it.
Best Regards,
Willa