Install Centreon MBI extension
Centreon MBI is a Centreon extension that requires a valid license key. To purchase one and retrieve the necessary repositories, contact Centreon.
Four major steps to installing Centreon MBI:
- Check the system prerequisites.
- Install the Centreon MBI interface in the Centreon application (Centreon MBI Server).
- Install the reporting server (Centreon MBI Reporting Server).
- Configure Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) in the Centreon MBI.
Architecture
This chapter describes the Centreon MBI architecture and provides an overview of how the extension is integrated into Centreon monitoring software.
The information is addressed to administrators who will be installing or configuring Centreon MBI.
Dedicated reporting server
This architecture and prerequisites apply to:
- Test environnements
- Pre-production environments
- Production environments.
The diagram below shows the main components of Centreon MBI:
The monitoring database can be installed on a server other than the Centreon server.
- ETL: Process that extracts, transforms and loads data into the reporting database.
- CBIS: Scheduler that manages job execution and publication.
- Reporting database: MariaDB database that contains reporting data and some raw data extracted from the monitoring database.
Network flow table
The table below presents the different types of flow, by default, between the dedicated BI server, Centreon server and databases:
| Application | Source | Destination | Port | Protocol |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ETL/CBIS | Reporting server | Centreon Database | 3306 | TCP |
| SSH | Reporting server | Centreon | 22 | TCP |
| CBIS | Centreon | Reporting server | 1234 | TCP |
| CBIS | Reporting server | Centreon | 80 | HTTP* |
| Widgets | Centreon | Reporting server | 3306 | TCP |
*Only required for Host-Graph-v2 and Hostgroup-Graph-v2 reports that use Centreon API to generate graphs
Packages information
Centreon MBI installation requires two RPM packages:
- Centreon-bi-server: Installs the Centreon MBI interface integrated into the Centreon front end and must reside on the Centreon Web Server.
- Centreon-bi-reporting-server: Contains all the components needed to run the reporting server -- report scheduler, ETL, standards reports -- and must reside on a dedicated server for reporting processes.
You should install the MariaDB database at the same time. We highly recommand installing the database on the same server for performance & isolation considerations.
Prerequisites
Centreon central server
Software
Centreon 20.04
Check that the parameter
date.timezoneis correctly configured in/etc/opt/rh/rh-php72/php.ini(same timezone displayed with the commandtimedatectl status)Avoid the usage of the following variables in your monitoring MariaDB configuration. They halt long queries execution and can stop the ETL or the report generation jobs:
- wait_timeout
- interactive_timeout
Users and groups
| User | Group |
|---|---|
| centreonBI (new) | apache, centreon, centreonBI |
| apache (existing) | centreonBI |
Description of users, umask and home directory
| User | umask | home |
|---|---|---|
| centreonBI | 0002 | /home/centreonBI |
Reporting dedicated server
Hardware
| Monitored services | CPU | RAM |
|---|---|---|
| < 4 000 | 2 CPU ( 3Ghz ) minimum | 12GB minimum |
| < 20 000 | 4 CPU (3GHz) minimum | 16GB minimum |
| >= 20 000 and < 40 000 | 4 CPU (3GHz) minimum | 24GB minimum |
| > 40 000 and < 100 000 | 8 CPU (3GHz) minimum | 32GB minimum |
| > 100 000 | > Contact Centr | eon |
Storage space: Use the following storage estimation file
File system
| File system | Size |
|---|---|
| / | 5GB minimum |
| /var (containing MySQl data) | Use the result of the above disk-space simulation file MariaDB data) |
| MariaDB temp folder | We recommand keeping it in /var |
| Volume group* | 5GB minimum of free space on the Volume group hosting the MySQL/MariaDB DBMS data |
To check the free space use the command below, replacing vg_data by the Volume group name:
vgdisplay vg_data | grep -i free
Software
- OS : CentOS 7 / Redhat 7
- SGBD : MariaDB 10.3
- Firewall : Désactivé
- SELinux : Désactivé
We advise to tune your MariaDB database server on your reporting server in order to have better performance. You will need at least 12GB on your reporting server to run the configuration file provided below. Add the following file on your reporting server in /etc/my.cnf.d/.
Make sure to have a tmp folder in /var/lib/mysql.
Do not set these MariaDB optimizations on your monitoring server.
Users and groups :
| User | Group |
|---|---|
| centreonBI | centreonBI |
Description of users, umask and home directory:
| User | umask | home |
|---|---|---|
| centreonBI | 0002 | /home/centreonBI |
Install the extension on Centreon
The tasks explained in this chapter must be performed on the Centreon central server.
Install the Centreon MBI repository, you can find it on the support portal.
Run the following command: :
yum install centreon-bi-server
Activate the extension
The menu Administration > Extension > Manager of Centreon enables you to install the different extension detected by Centreon. Click on the "Centreon MBI" card to install it.
Upload the license sent by the Centreon team to be able to start configuring the General Options.
Configure the general options
Set the following parameters in the General Options menu Reporting > Monitoring Business Intelligence > General Options :
| Tab | Option | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduler Options | CBIS Host | Reporting server IP Address |
| ETL Options | Reporting engine uses a dedicated MariaDB server | Yes |
| Reporting Widgets * | Reporting MariaDB database | Reporting database IP Address (default = same as CBIS Host) |
* The connection test will not yet work at this stage of the installation process.
Centreon central databases access
Case #1: MariaDB monitoring database is hosted on the Central monitoring server
Launch the command below to authorize the reporting server to connect to the monitoring server databases. Use the following option:
@ROOTPWD@: Root MariaDB password of the monitoring databases server.If there is no password for "root" user, don't specify the option root-password.
/usr/share/centreon/www/modules/centreon-bi-server/tools/centreonMysqlRights.pl --root-password=@ROOTPWD@
Case #2: MariaDB monitoring database is hosted on a dedicated server
Connect by SSH to the database server, and the run the following commands: :
mysql -u root -p
mysql> CREATE USER 'centreonbi'@'$BI_ENGINE_IP$' IDENTIFIED BY 'centreonbi';
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON centreon.* TO 'centreonbi'@'$BI_ENGINE_IP$';
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON centreon_storage.* TO 'centreonbi'@'$BI_ENGINE_IP$';
$BI_ENGINE_IP$: IP address of the reporting server.
If you're using MariaDB replication for your monitoring databases, certain views are created during installation of Centreon MBI. You need to exclude them from replication by adding the following line in the my.cnf file of the slave server.
replicate-wild-ignore-table=centreon.mod_bi_%v01,centreon.mod_bi_%V01Then, create the views manually on the slave server by launching the following command line:
#mysql centreon < view_creation.sql
Please go to the next chapter to continue the installation.
Install the dedicated reporting server
Install the packages
You need the following information available before proceeding with the installation process:
- IP/DNS of the monitoring database
- IP/DNS of the Centreon web interface
- IP/DNS of the reporting database (localhost highly recommanded)
- Access (user/password) to the reporting database
- Knowledge of the SSH password (after defining it) for the Centreon BI user on the central monitoring server (to publish reports on the interface).
To start installing the reporting server, install the MBI repository, you can find it on the support portal.
Then execute the following command:
yum install centreon-bi-reporting-server MariaDB-server MariaDB-client
If you installed your reporting server using a fresh CentOS image you need to add the following GPG key: :
cd /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/
wget http://yum.centreon.com/standard/20.04/el7/stable/RPM-GPG-KEY-CES
Reporting server configuration
MariaDB optimization
Make sure you have installed the MariaDB configuration file provided in the pre-requisites before starting the MariaDB service following file
systemctl restart mysql
For installation, it is necessary to modify LimitNOFILE limitation. Setting this option in /etc/my.cnf will NOT work.
mkdir -p /etc/systemd/system/mariadb.service.d/
echo -ne "[Service]\nLimitNOFILE=32000\n" | tee /etc/systemd/system/mariadb.service.d/limits.conf
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl restart mysql
Then start the service MariaDB. If this service cannot start, remove the ib_log files before restarting MariaDB (be sure MariaDB is stopped):
rm -f /var/lib/mysql/ib_logfile*
systemctl restart mysql
If you are using a custom MariaDB socket file, modify the /etc/my.cnf file
and in the [client] section, add the following variable:
socket=$PATH_TO_SOCKET$
Start configuring
First check that the reporting MariaDB is running. Then launch the following command, answering the questions:
/usr/share/centreon-bi/config/install.sh
The script handles the SSH exchange key between the monitoring and reporting servers and configures the default SFTP publication rule in order to publish reports on the Centreon web interface. Finally, it activates the backup and starts the CBIS service.
Once installation is complete, go to the next chapter to configure the ETL.
ETL: Configuration
Centreon MBI integrates its own extract, transform, load (ETL) capabilities to:
- Synchronize raw monitoring data with the reporting server.
- Calculate availability and performance statistics on the reporting server.
- Manage data retention on the reporting server.
Before following the next steps, you should have read the best practice parts to ensure that the Centreon objects (e.g., groups and categories) are configured according to Centreon MBI requirements.
In the Reporting > Business Intelligence > General Options > ETL options menu of the Centreon server, specify the following options:
| Options | Values |
|---|---|
| General options | |
| Reporting engine uses a dedicated dedicated MariaDB server | Yes. You must use a reporting server |
| Compatibility mode to use report templates from version of Centreon MBI prior to 1.5.0 | No (deprecated) |
| Temporary file storage directory on reporting server | Folder where dumps will be stored on the reporting server |
| Type of statistics to build |
|
| Use large memory tweaks (store MariaDB temporary tables in memory) | Activated only if your MariaDB configuration and allocated physical memory on the server permit. |
| Reporting perimeter selection | |
| Hostgroups | Select only host groups for which you want to aggregate data. |
| Hostcategories | Select only host categories for which you want to aggregate data. |
| Service categories | Select only service categories for which you want to aggregate data. |
| Availability statistic calculation | |
| Live services for availability statistics calculation | Select required time periods. |
| Performance and capacity statistic calculation | |
| Granularity required for performance data statistics | Select level of granularity required to run the desired performance reports (1). |
| Live services for performance data statistics calculation | Select required time periods. |
| Capacity statistic aggregated by month | |
| Live services for capacity statistics calculation | Select the “24x7” time period. |
| Service categories related to capacity data monitoring | Select the service categories that have been associated with capacity-type services. |
| Exclude metrics from service categories that do not return capacity USAGE information | Concerns the metrics linked to services which return capacity data. Select the metrics that do not return capacity usage information. but a maximum or total value. (e.g., the metric “size”). |
| Centile parameters | |
| Calculating centile aggregation by | Select the desired aggregation level. The standard percentile report provided with BI 2.1 uses Month data. |
| Select service categories to aggregate centile on | Filter on relevant service categories for centile statistics (e.g., Traffic). |
| First day of the week | Select the first day of the week for Week aggregation. |
| Centile / Timeperiod combination | Create a new centile/timeperiod combination on which to perform the calculation. |
(1) Reports requiring a precise value per hour of performance data are listed below. If you do not use the following reports, disable the statistics calculation per hour:
- Hostgroup-Host-details-1
- Host-detail-v2
- Hostgroup-traffic-Average-Usage-By-Interface
- Hostgroup-traffic-by-Interface-And-Bandwith-Ranges.
ETL: Data retention
The reporting server contains statistics tables specific to Centreon MBI in the database "centreon_storage". The storage space used by these tables increases every day. It is possible to control the size of these tables by setting data retention rules.
Under Reporting > Monitoring Business Intelligence > General options > Data retention, data retention can be managed by:
- Type of data (availability, performance).
- Precision of data (raw data, hourly, daily or monthly values).
Before enabling the data retention options, check that the Reporting engine uses a dedicated MariaDB server option is correctly set to "Yes" in the Reporting > Business Intelligence > General options ETL options menu.
Enable data retention management by selecting "Yes", then set the options in the configuration (example below).
To activate automatic purge of old data, edit the cron file
/etc/cron.d/centreon-bi-purge on the reporting server, then uncomment the following line:
#0 20 * * * root @CENTREON_BI_HOME@/*etl*/dataRetentionManager.pl >> @CENTREON_BI_LOG@/dataRetentionManager.log 2>&1
Avoid periods scheduled for statistical calculations with Centreon MBI ETL and report generations.
You can run this cron daily or weekly, depending on the execution time of the batch and the load generated on the server.
Then restart the service cron:
systemctl restart crond
BEST PRACTICE: Select different retention periods according to the granularity of the statistical data:
- Hourly aggregated values are used to analyze a metric over a short period, they take a lot of space on the disk. You may not need to keep these statistics more that two or three months.
- Beyond five or six months, you may only need to view the trend for availability or performance statistics. You could then keep the daily aggregated data for a maximum of six months, for example, and configure the retention of monthly aggregated data for a period of several dozen months.
Please go to the next chapter to continue the installation.
ETL: Execution
Before continuing, be sure that you have installed the MariaDB configuration file as specified above in the prerequisites. Configure and activate data retention so that only the required data is imported and calculated.
Rebuilding statistics using historical data
Run the following command on the REPORTING server, it will:
Delete all existing data from the reporting server.
Import raw monitoring data from the monitoring server to the reporting server (based on retention parameters).
Populate the tables containing the availability statistics for hosts and services.
Populate the tables containing the performance and capacity statistics.
/usr/share/centreon-bi/bin/centreonBIETL -r
Activating daily execution (of the script)
Once the rebuild process is finished, you can activate the daily statistic calculation. On the reporting server, edit the file /etc/cron.d/centreon-bi-engine and uncomment the following line:
#30 4 * * * root /usr/share/centreon-bi/bin/centreonBIETL -d >> /var/log/centreon-bi/centreonBIETL.log 2>&1
Restart the service cron::
systemctl restart crond
Make sure that the batch centreonBIETL starts only once the batch eventReportBuilder has finished on the monitoring server (see the cron file * /etc/cron.d/centreon* on the monitoring server).
Centreon MBI installation is now complete, check the tutorial