Event Integration From 3rd-party Monitoring Tools - Part 6: SNMP trap adapter installation

SNMP trap adapter is another way to integrate events from your 3rd-party monitoring software into a BPPM/BEM cell. About 90% of monitoring software out there can send SNMP traps when alerts are raised. SNMP trap adapter is a perl-based adapter provided by BMC to translate SNMP traps to events in BAROC format, a format that BPPM/BEM cell can understand.  By default, SNMP trap adapter listens on port 162.

SNMP trap adapter is part of BMC ProactiveNet Event Adapters. It is often installed on the same server where BPPM/BEM cell is installed.  However, it is not required to have SNMP trap adapter and the BPPM/BEM cell it connects to co-locate on the same server.

Although BMC talks about SNMP trap adapter all the time and barely mention msend API, I personally prefer msend API whenever possible and use SNMP trap adapter only if the 3rd-party monitoring software is not capable of executing an OS script when an alert is raised. When buffer mode '-j' is used, events sent using msend API will be guaranteed to arrive at the BPPM cell.  If the cell is down or unreachable when your 3rd-party monitoring software is calling msend API, msend will buffer the unsent events and keep trying until the cell is up.  If SNMP trap adapter is down or unreachable when your 3rd-party monitoring software is sending SNMP traps, all SNMP traps will be lost.

Before starting SNMP trap adapter, edit mcxa.conf.  Locate [Snmp] section.  If you use SNMP version 3, locate [SnmpV3] section. Remove the word 'DISABLE'.  Add the following lines to maximize SNMP trap throughput.

PollInterval     = 1

ReadsPerEngine   = 200

SnmpRcvbuf       = 262144

If ServerName is not set to your cell name under [default] section, you also need to set ServerName to your cell name under [Snmp] section.

Now you can start your SNMP trap adapter.  Check the adapter status again after a couple of minutes and verify it stays up.  If you need to go back and change mcxa.conf and restart SNMP trap adapter, wait for a couple of minutes between stop and start the adapter to give it enough time to release port 162.

We will discuss configuration, execution, mapping, and conversion in the next few posts.