IBM CloudPak for Watson AIOps Connectors

• A connector is an integration between Watson AIOps and a particular data source.
• Connectors are packaged as a container image that runs a gRPC client inside and communicates back to the Watson AIOps main cluster via a gRPC channel.
• The preferred programming model is via Open Liberty. However, any other gRPC-enabled programming model (such as Node.js) can also be used - provided it is a supported runtime.

Connector composition

A Connector is composed of below components

• A connector container

  • Container image that runs a gRPC client, running either in-cluster for local deployment or remotely for micro-edge deployment.

• Processor containers(0..* ) (backend processors running in-cluster)

  • Each connector must have at least one component that interacts with its collected data, which we call a processor. There are many types of processors, depending on their purpose.

• A UI tile (ConnectorSchema YAML)

  • If you are creating a connector for a data source that is not yet supported in Watson AIOps you first need to create a ConnectorSchema.
  • The ConnectorSchema CR servers a few purposes:
    • It provides content for the UI to render the corresponding form in the Data and tool integrations section of the product
    • It validates completed UI forms

• Kafka topics (0..* YAMLs)

CP4WAIOps Bundle Manifests

An AIOps Bundle Manifest is a Custom Resource (YAML) that can contribute different types of artifacts into Watson AIOps like connectors, processors etc which can grow in future to include other types.

High level steps to create a new connector and add bundleManifest

• Create a new connector repo using the example template located here
• Rename the connector name from java-grpc-connector-template to your unique connector name in all the applicable places.
• Connector-sdk grpc-java-sdk is published as maven artifact which can be used by 3rd party connector contributors.
• The example template is implemented using open-liberty/grpc-java-sdk will cover below structured data types.
  • Event: Connector template to push Kafka events to Event Lifecycle
  • Metric: Connector template to push Kafka events to Metrics Manager
  • Topology: Connector template for topology bridge which will push kafka events to ASM
• Update the logic according to connector requirements. For example in the example connect path
• Publish the connector image to a docker registry.
• The example template also includes bundle-manifest artifacts for the connector integration and deployment on cp4waiops cluster. Create the bundleManifest artifacts for the connector using the example artifacts.Reference the published image and tag.