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Creating a New Discovery Instance

You must create at least one discovery instance to pull in metrics data for each integration.

You can choose to subscribe for metric collection, which is performed at the cluster level. So when you subscribe, you subscribe to obtain metrics from all nodes in the cluster. If you have insufficient licenses at the time of sub­scription then the subscription will fail to complete.

About This Task

After you configure and subscribe to the integration instance, IPM adjusts the appropriate Wisdom Pack license count to reflect additional license consumption.

Prerequisites

  • Ensure you have satisfied all of the Installation Prerequisites

  • If subscribing for metrics collection, you must have activated a sufficient number of Isilon Integration licenses to cover all nodes in the cluster being subscribed.

  • A Dell EMC Isilon REST API user and password must be configured and available.

Steps

  1. From the Settings page, click Integrations in the Probes and Integrations section.

    image15.png
  2. Click View for the licensed integration you want to configure.

    • If this is an initial configuration: You are directed to the New Integration page to configure the first integration.

    • If there are existing configurations: The Integration page opens, displaying a list of all existing licensed and unlicensed configurations.

  3. Complete the connection details so Virtana Infrastructure Performance Management can collect metrics from the device.

    • Enter the device hostname or IP address.

      It is recommend that you use a smart‐connect DNS name instead of an IP address to provide fault‐tolerance and load balancing to the integration. Otherwise, if the node for the given IP goes down the integration will be unable to collect any data.

    • Optional: Enter the IP port number.

      Default is 8443

    • Enter a username and password for device access.

    • Optional: Select an SSL certificate.See below for more information about SSL certificate handling.

      If the SSL certificate on the Isilon node cannot be validated through the normal Java certificate path, then the public certificate for the Isilon system must be uploaded.

  4. Click Next.

    The integration performs a quick discovery to verify the user permissions, to identify statistics generation frequency, and to list the identified nodes. The Configuration tab displays.

    The Licenses Used field displays zero (0) until the systems are subscribed.

  5. Ensure that the Subscription status is Subscribed to collect metrics.

  6. Select a Metrics Polling Interval.

    A polling interval less than or equal to 5 minutes is recommended.

  7. Check the Enable Shares/Quotas checkbox if desired and the NFS, SMB, and Quota permissions are granted.

  8. Check the Enable Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) Protection to enable session-based authentication. If checked, then for each discovery/poll cycle, a request is made to the /sessions end point to authenticate and receive a token, which is used for authentication of all additional requests in that collection cycle.

  9. Optional: Enable scheduled discovery and select the discovery Frequency and Start Time.

    A nightly discovery once a day is recommended, because the properties fields on the entities, as well as new nodes and ports and state changes to ports, power supplies, etc. are only updated during discovery.

  10. Click the Isilon Nodes tab and verify the nodes that were found in your environment.

  11. Click Start Discovery if you want to start a discovery immediately.

    You can start discovery now, or wait to start at a later time.

    When discovery starts, status information displays under Collection Status on the Configuration page.

SSL Certificate Handling

This integration requires a secure connection to the target device, which can be achieved automatically if the device has a certificate that has been signed by a root certificate authority. If this is the case, you may complete the form and click the Next button to proceed to the next page of the configuration.

If your device does not have a properly signed certificate, you may associate a certificate (for example, a self-signed certificate) with the device using one of the two following methods.

  1. Automatically fetch the certificate from the target system. A valid IP address and port number are required.

  2. Upload the certificate from your local system. Please note: at this time, certificates must be in PEM (plain text) format.

The first page of an integration configuration might look something like this:

vwi-scrn-tls-1.png

Note

SSL Certificate might called something different depending on the integration being configured. The Subject, Issued By, and Expires On fields are initially blank, which means that there is currently no stored certificate. This is also the case when connecting to a system with a certificate issued by a root certificate authority.

Some integrations with per-device configurations, the SSL certificate controls are seen when adding a new device. The functionality of the control is the same regardless.

Using Verify to Automatically Fetch a Certificate

Clicking on the Verify button will trigger an action that will automatically fetch the certificate from the target system. There are two cases:

  1. If the fetched certificate has been signed by a valid root certificate authority you will see a popup window with the details of the certificate as shown below. Press OK to continue configuration. Note: properly signed certificates will not be stored locally and the Subject, Issued By, and Expires On fields will remain empty. Fill in the Name and authentication fields and click the Next button in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

    vwi-scrn-tls-verify-1.png
  2. If the fetched certificate is, for example, a self-signed certificate, you will see a popup window with the details of the certificate as shown below. You may either Accept and Trust the retrieved certificate or you may Cancel. If you accept, the Subject, Issued By, and Expires On fields will be updated with a summary of the issuing authority and you may continue configuring the integration. Fill in the Name and authentication fields and click the Next button in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

    vwi-scrn-tls-verify-2.png

Uploading a Certificate

Clicking on the Browse... button will prompt you to upload a certificate from your local system. Once uploaded, you'll see a popup window with the details of the certificate as shown below. You may either Accept and Trust the retrieved certificate or you may Cancel. If you accept, the Subject, Issued By, and Expires On fields will be updated with a summary of the issuing authority and you may continue configuring the integration. Fill in the Name and authentication fields and click the Next button in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

vwi-scrn-tls-browse-1.png

It's a good idea to validate the uploaded certificate by clicking on the Verify button.

Viewing the Locally Stored Copy of a Certificate

Click on the View button to display the contents of the locally stored certificate.

Removing a Locally Stored Copy of a Certificate

Click on the Clear button to remove the locally stored copy of your certificate if, for example, you have updated your system certificate with one that is signed by a root certificate authority.