IPVS and ServiceNow Integration

Input and output integration overview

The IPVS plugin is designed to collect metrics related to IPVS virtual and real servers on Linux systems.

This output plugin streams metrics from Telegraf directly to a ServiceNow MID Server via HTTP, leveraging the nowmetric serializer for efficient integration with ServiceNow’s Operational Intelligence and Event Management.

Integration details

IPVS

The IPVS plugin gathers metrics about IPVS virtual and real servers using the Linux kernel netlink socket interface. As a component specifically designed for Linux, it tracks performance related to IP virtual servers, allowing users to monitor various attributes such as active connections, packet statistics, and byte counts. Key metrics include those for both virtual and real servers, facilitating a comprehensive view of server performance. The plugin also requires the Telegraf process to run with appropriate permissions, typically as root or a user with specific capabilities for proper operation.

ServiceNow

Telegraf can be used to send metric data directly to a ServiceNow MID Server REST endpoint. Metrics are formatted either using ServiceNow’s Operational Intelligence (OI) format or JSONv2 format, enabling seamless integration with ServiceNow’s Event Management and Operational Intelligence platforms. The serializer batches metrics efficiently, reducing network overhead by minimizing the number of HTTP POST requests. This integration allows users to quickly leverage metrics in ServiceNow for enhanced observability, proactive incident management, and performance monitoring, with ServiceNow’s operational intelligence capabilities.

Configuration

IPVS

[[inputs.ipvs]]
  # no configuration

ServiceNow

[[outputs.http]]
  ## ServiceNow MID Server metrics endpoint
  url = "http://mid-server.example.com:9082/api/mid/sa/metrics"

  ## HTTP request method
  method = "POST"

  ## Basic Authentication credentials
  username = "evt.integration"
  password = "P@$$w0rd!"

  ## Data serialization format for ServiceNow
  data_format = "nowmetric"

  ## Metric format type: "oi" (default) or "jsonv2"
  nowmetric_format = "oi"

  ## HTTP Headers
  [outputs.http.headers]
    Content-Type = "application/json"
    Accept = "application/json"

  ## Optional timeout
  # timeout = "5s"

  ## TLS configuration options
  # tls_ca = "/etc/telegraf/ca.pem"
  # tls_cert = "/etc/telegraf/cert.pem"
  # tls_key = "/etc/telegraf/key.pem"
  # insecure_skip_verify = false

Input and output integration examples

IPVS

1. Load Balancing Performance Monitoring: Use the IPVS plugin to monitor the performance of a load balancing setup in a Linux environment where IPVS is implemented. By collecting metrics such as byte counts, packet rates, and active connections, administrators can gain real-time insights into server performance, allowing for proactive adjustments to load distribution strategies and ensuring that no individual server becomes a bottleneck.

2. Automated Alerting for Connection Thresholds: Integrate the metrics collected by the IPVS plugin with an alerting system to automatically notify administrators when active connections exceed or fall below specified thresholds. This use case enables dynamic scaling of backend resources, optimizing application performance and resource utilization, while minimizing the risk of sudden service disruptions.

3. Historical Performance Trend Analysis: Store the metrics gathered by the IPVS plugin in a time-series database for historical analysis. By analyzing trends over time, organizations can identify patterns in server performance, correlate them with application usage spikes, and make informed decisions regarding infrastructure upgrades or maintenance schedules to better handle peak loads.

ServiceNow

1. Proactive Incident Management: Utilize the Telegraf and ServiceNow integration to stream infrastructure and application metrics in real-time to ServiceNow Event Management. Automatically trigger incidents or remediation workflows based on thresholds, significantly reducing incident detection and response times.

2. End-to-End Application Monitoring: Deploy Telegraf agents across multiple layers of an application stack, sending performance metrics directly into ServiceNow. Leveraging ServiceNow’s Operational Intelligence, teams can correlate metrics across components, quickly identifying performance bottlenecks.

3. Dynamic CI Performance Tracking: Integrate Telegraf metrics with ServiceNow’s CMDB by using this plugin to push performance data, allowing automatic updates of Configuration Item (CI) health states based on live metrics. This ensures an accurate and current state of infrastructure health in ServiceNow.

4. Cloud Resource Optimization: Collect metrics from hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructures using Telegraf, streaming directly to ServiceNow. Leverage these metrics for real-time analytics, predictive capacity planning, and resource optimization, enabling proactive management and reduced operational costs.

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