Tap In’s event management architecture integrates monitoring data from a variety of sources and technologies. Events are placed on an in-memory publish/subscribe bus on the Tap In Management Server, enabling a high throughput of events. Compared to state-oriented monitoring systems, the Tap In architecture is optimized for monitoring dynamic cloud applications.
Tap In Systems’ Cloud Management Service, including its event engine, configuration and reporting components, operates as a cloud instance. Scripts can be initiated on the Tap In Management Server to perform over-the-Internet monitoring services. Agents deployed on cloud servers combine server metrics with cloud metadata to create cloud server events on the Tap In Management Server. Agents deployed on internal (on-premises) systems can send events to the Tap In Management Server in the cloud over a secure channel. Tap In’s QuickView console, Web viewer and desktop widgets display events processed by the Tap In Cloud Management Server.
Tap In’s event bus architecture (see diagram below) enables any authorized “mediator” to create events on the bus, and any authorized “consumer” to access events from the bus. Events on the bus show current status of infrastructure components.
Tap In provides a set of APIs to simplify creation of consumer and mediator applications. A set of language extensions and Web services enable Perl, Ruby, Java or Powershell scripts to create events on the bus. See examples on the Resources page of how each language can create or read events.
Event attributes
Events are normalized from any source into a common format, which enables consistent processing.
Events contain free-form text and other fields identifying the infrastructure technology affected, the nature of the event, and its relative severity.
Users define rules to determine how events behave. For example, an event can be created to remain on the bus only for a designated time, indicating a temporary situation. Or, a rule could be created to display escalating severity.
Mediators
Mediators that create events on the Tap In Management Server bus include:
Open source or customer-developed scripts designed to detect specific error conditions with hardware, software or network components;
Agents that gather data from systems and periodically send status information, such as CPU, disk, and memory utilization, to the bus;
Application interface modules that select and import selected events from specialized third-party systems management tools. These modules enable users to select and view only those events of interest, reducing system overhead.
Consumers
Applications that subscribe to the Tap In Management Server (consumers) can view all events captured and receive updates when new events occur. All events are stored in a MySQL database, enabling third-party systems to access both real-time and logged event data. Consumer applications include:
Tap In’s QuickView console, which displays real-time events on the bus;
Tap In’s Web viewer, which displays historical event data and both standard and customer-defined reports;
Data logging applications that filter and log events for specialized, customer-specified purposes;
Enhanced processing scripts that can clear events, send email notifications, or forward event data to other management applications, such as problem ticketing or configuration management systems.
Nagios compatibility
Tap In can interpret and create events from any Nagios script that includes an exit code and text output. This enables administrators to use hundreds of open source plugins created for Nagios. Administrators can extend the functionality of these scripts by including other Tap In event attributes.
Configuration
The Tap In Management Server performs the event bus function by processing events from mediator sources, and by scheduling scripts. Configuration of authorized users and scheduled scripts is accomplished via a Web services API in the Tap In configuration tool. The configuration tool can centrally configure a network of Tap In Management Servers for increased capacity and redundancy.
Open source modules
Tap In Systems scripts, code samples, extensions and interface modules are distributed as open source software. This eliminates the need to pay for additional software as customer infrastructures grow, and encourages users to share integration modules.
