IBM Tivoli Monitoring > Version 6.3 Fix Pack 2 > Installation Guides > Installation Guide > Pre-deployment phase > Agent deployments > Background information about agent autonomy
IBM Tivoli Monitoring, Version 6.3 Fix Pack 2
Event forwarding from autonomous agents
By incorporating the Event Integration Facility (EIF) into the autonomous agents, they can forward events directly to Netcool/OMNIbus via the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol. Available for the Windows, Linux, UNIX, and z/OS platforms, this integration provides another event emitter (similar to the SNMP trap emitter) that can emit EIF-format events directly from an autonomous agent to the event-management facility your site uses.
Currently, EIF event notification is supported only for locally defined private situations—those defined via a private configuration file local to the monitoring agent. (Events for enterprise situations must still be forwarded from the hub Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server.) These EIF events provide similar function and format to those provided by the event forwarder on the hub monitoring server, including the ability to send situation status. There is no support for dynamic refresh of changed EIF events (that is, event maps and event destinations); for such changes to be effective, you must recycle the agent.
You can customize agent-generated EIF events via a product-provided or user-defined event mapping file, which specifies these elements:
- The attributes included in the event.
- Custom message slot text with variable substitution.
- Map by situation name.
- Map by attribute group used in the situation.
Events generated will have a source slot value of...
ITM Agent:Private Situation
...to distinguish them from events originated at the monitoring server, which have a source slot value of ITM.
You can enable or disable event forwarding by setting IRA_EVENT_EXPORT_EIF to either Y or N in the event mapping file. Event forwarding is disabled automatically when no valid EIF event destination is defined. Note that a single event can be sent to up to five different destinations; these can be a mixture of both TEC and non-TEC event receivers.
A heartbeat function lets you use the event-forwarding feature to send events to either Tivoli Enterprise Console or Netcool/OMNIbus that notify you if the agent is online and running. The heartbeat interval determines how often the agent generates this event; it is configurable via the event mapping file. These EIF events, whose classname is ITM_Heartbeat, contain a slot called interval whose value is the heartbeat interval. You can customize the IBM-provided heartbeat rules or write your own to handle heartbeat events as your site's needs dictate.
For complete information about defining your own event mapping file, see the IBM Tivoli Monitoring Administrator's Guide.
Existing TEC and OMNIbus event-synchronization rules function as usual, but bidirectional interactions with IBM Tivoli Monitoring are not possible, as the events do not originate with the Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server. However, the TEC and OMNIbus event receivers will still be able to update event status for events sent from autonomous agents.
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Background information about agent autonomy