Introduction

OpsRamp provides a common platform to integrate different tools and applications used by an organization and provides a single interface to view and monitor all the events arising out of the IT infrastructure.

The main objective of integration is to ingest and integrate third-party events. During the integration process, you can define the integration events that you want to monitor. Integration Events are configured for Monitoring and Collaboration integration types. Using the Outbound configuration, you can define the integration events.

OpsRamp categorizes the tools and applications that are used to generate and monitor the events of a resource in an IT infrastructure.

Viewing supported integrations:

To view the list of supported integrations, from the console:

  1. Click All Clients and select your client.
  2. Select Setup > Integrations > Integrations
  3. From the Available Integrations menu, either:
    • Select a category to view the available integrations.
    • Search for a specific integration.

Client vs Partner integrations

Clients and partners can directly install and configure integrations. However, clients and partners have different access:

  • Clients can install all the supported integrations.
  • Clients can edit integration configurations installed directly by a partner.
    • Every modification creates a separate copy for the client.
    • After modification, the partner configuration does not apply to the client for the modified configuration.
  • Partners can install only some of the integrations for clients (for example, monitoring and collaboration).
  • Custom Integration is an exception where while assigning integration to every client, providing configuration details for every client is mandatory.

Multiple client integration

Partners can install and configure an integration without selecting a client and then apply the same configuration to multiple clients selecting one client at a time. As a result, multiple clients can be assigned the installed and configured integration without repeating the same effort.

In the following scenario, a partner has six clients and wants to install a collaboration integration with the same configuration for five clients, but a different configuration for the sixth client.

Solution: Partner can simply do the following steps:

  1. Install and configure the integration without selecting a client.
  2. Select the name of one client.
  3. Search for the configured integration by name and click to open the integration.
  4. Then, from that integration screen, click the Install button. A click Install takes care of installation and configuration both.
  5. Repeat steps 2-4 for the other four clients. All five clients get integration installed with the same configuration.
  6. Repeat step 2-4 for the sixth client.
  7. Modify configuration as desired. The sixth client receives the same installed integration but with a different configuration.

Authentication type

OpsRamp uses the following industry-standard authentication types to establish a connection between OpsRamp Platform and the third-party tools:

  • OAuth 2.0:
    OAuth 2.0 is a protocol that allows an application to authenticate against the server as a user. OAuth 2.0 relies on HTTPS for security and provides secured delegate access to a resource based on the user. OAuth 2.0 provides security by allowing a token to be issued by the Identity Provider to these third-party applications, with the approval of the user. The client then uses the token to access the resource on behalf of that user.
  • Webhook:
    Webhook is a token-based REST API. Webhook enables third-party services to send real-time updates to OpsRamp. Updates are triggered by some event or action by the Webhook provider and pushed to OpsRamp using HTTP requests. When OpsRamp receives the request and handles with some custom logic, like sending an email or storing the data in a database.

Connection direction

After the connection is established using the authentication type, you need to define the direction of the integration between OpsRamp platform and the third-party tool. OpsRamp supports the bi-directional flow of information between the third-party tool and OpsRamp.

OpsRamp supports the following types of integration directions:

  • Inbound: Information about the events from the third-party tool is absorbed and displayed in OpsRamp.
  • Outbound: Information about the events from OpsRamp is sent to the third-party tool.
  • Inbound-Outbound: Information about the events is sent and received from both third-party tool and OpsRamp.

Select the Integration Direction depending on the integration category.

Attribute maps

The attributes or properties of the third-party tool and OpsRamp are not uniform in nature. They differ in their naming structure and format. To have a uniform structure and to process the information exchange, you need to map the attributes of a third-party tool with those of OpsRamp. Depending on the type of integration, OpsRamp supports an extensive list of attributes and properties which can be configured/mapped as per the requirements.

Once the attributes are mapped, OpsRamp processes the information received from the third-party tool and displays them in the portal.

Integration Events

The main objective of integration is to ingest and integrate third-party events into OpsRamp. During the integration process, you can define the integration events that you want OpsRamp to monitor. Integration Events are configured for Monitoring and Collaboration integration types. Using the Outbound configuration, you can define the Integration Events.

OpsRamp supports creating/adding integration events for ServiceDesk and Resource entities. For each of these entities, you can define the required entity types and for each entity type, you can define an entity type event. For every event, placeholders are defined. You can select these placeholders (attributes) for the API payload.

Example: Concatenate and Substring under Functions attribute of placeholders help to define the entity types. If you want to create an incident,

  • using Concatenate, add two strings in the same string. For example, Subject and IncidentID.
  • using Substring, add a delimiter to the main string. For example, add end to the existing string.

Monitoring

All the events getting ingested from the third-party tool into OpsRamp are monitored based on predefined metrics created by OpsRamp. The related metrics are grouped into a monitor and monitors are grouped to create a template. The created template is applied to a selected resource or uses integration to monitor the events arising from the third-party tool.

Audit logs

OpsRamp captures all the communication events happening between the third-party tool and OpsRamp platform.  Log information provides payloads events and their corresponding status. You can view the event log information.