Discovering Runtime Data

Runtime Event Manager enables you to discover runtime data from your event brokers and upload the collected data into Event Portal. You can then use the runtime data to compare your runtime event brokers with a modeled event mesh and add or update objects in Designer that represent the applications and events in your event flows. For more information, see Auditing and Importing Runtime Data.

This section includes the following tasks:

For information about auditing the collected data and importing objects into Designer, see Auditing and Importing Runtime Data.

Setting Up Runtime Data Discovery

You must be an Administrator or an Event Portal Manager to set up runtime data discovery. Before you can discover runtime data from an operational event broker, you need to complete several tasks. These tasks include:

  1. Create a modeled event mesh in Runtime Event Manager. For more information, see Creating a Modeled Event Mesh.

  2. Add a model event broker that represents the operational event broker in your modeled event mesh. For Solace modeled event meshes, you can add more than one event broker. For more information, see Adding an Event Broker to a Modeled Event Mesh.

  3. Depending on your event brokers and your security requirements, set up a connection to Event Portal. For more information, see Setting Up Event Broker Connections.

Setting Up Event Broker Connections

How you enable event broker connections with Event Portal depends on the event broker:

  • For event broker services in a Public Region in the same PubSub+ Cloud account, the connection is set up automatically when you select an event broker service to add to a modeled event mesh and you don't need to take additional steps to enable it.

  • For event broker services in Dedicated Regions or Customer-Controlled Regions in the same PubSub+ Cloud account, Solace recommends connecting event broker services with Event Portal using a PubSub+ Cloud connection to the datacenter containing the event brokers. For instructions, see Connecting Event Broker Services to Event Portal With a PubSub+ Cloud Connection

  • For external event brokers, or if your security requirements don't allow a direct connection between your event brokers and Event Portal, you can install one or more Event Management Agents to connect your event brokers to Event Portal. Event Management Agents support connections to the following additional event brokers:

    • PubSub+ Cloud event broker services in other PubSub+ Cloud accounts.

    • Solace software event brokers and appliances

    • Kafka event brokers and Confluent schema registries

    For instructions, see Setting Up External Event Brokers with an Event Portal Connection.

After you've completed the connection setup, you can start discovering and auditing runtime data. If the environment has runtime configuration enabled, you can also send application and queue data to the operational event brokers connected to your model event mesh. For more information, see Configuring Event Brokers in Event Portal.

For more information about Event Portal connections, see Connecting Event Brokers to Event Portal.

Running Discovery Scans

After you've set up an Event Management Agent, it can run discovery scans on all of the runtime event brokers that it has a connection to. The Event Management Agent collects the following data:

  • Queue and subscription configuration data for Solace event brokers

  • Topic and consumer group configuration data for Kafka clusters

  • Subject data if the Event Management Agent is configured to connect to a Confluent Schema Registry

You can view the raw data and collection logs for each discovery scan and view the audit results comparing the data from a runtime event broker with the corresponding model event broker. You can also use the Event Portal REST API to get configuration and configuration type details from the collected data.

You can run a new discovery scan to collect the most recent data at any time. New scans are not incremental. Each scan collects the full set of data from the event broker.

If your Event Management Agent uses Upload Scan File mode, see Running and Uploading a Discovery Scan for instructions to run discovery scans and upload the data to Event Portal.

To run a discovery scan from Runtime Event Manager using Scan from Event Portal mode, perform these steps:

  1. On the navigation bar, select Runtime Event Manager .
  2. At the top-left, select the environment containing the modeled event mesh that you want to collect runtime data for.
  3. Click the name of the modeled event mesh.
  4. Select the Event Broker Connections tab.
  5. Select the event broker that you want to collect runtime data for.
  6. Click Run Discovery Scan.

    For Solace event brokers, the scan starts.

  7. For Kafka event brokers perform the following actions:
    1. To scan both the event broker and the schema registry, select Scan All to start the scan.
    2. To scan only one of the event broker or schema registry, select Custom Scan.
    3. Select Broker or Confluent Schema Registry.
    4. Click Collect Data.

Viewing the Collected Data

You can view the raw data collected from a discovery scan in Runtime Event Manager.

To view the raw data:

  1. On the navigation bar, select Runtime Event Manager .
  2. At the top-left, select the environment containing the modeled event mesh that you want to view the runtime data for.
  3. Click the name of the modeled event mesh.
  4. Select the Event Broker Connections tab.
  5. Click More Actions for the discovery scan that you want to view the data for and select View Collected Data.

Viewing the Collection Logs

You can view the data collection logs in Runtime Event Manager to help troubleshoot connection issues.

To view the collection logs:

  1. On the navigation bar, select Runtime Event Manager .
  2. At the top-left, select the environment containing the modeled event mesh that you want to view the collection logs for.
  3. Click the name of the modeled event mesh.
  4. Select the Event Broker Connections tab.
  5. Click More Actions for the discovery scan that you want to view the logs for and select View Logs.

Deleting Discovery Scan Data

You can delete older discovery scan data from Runtime Event Manager when it is no longer useful.

To delete discovery scan data:

  1. On the navigation bar, select Runtime Event Manager .
  2. At the top-left, select the environment containing the modeled event mesh that you want to delete discovery scan data for.
  3. Click the name of the modeled event mesh.
  4. Select the Event Broker Connections tab.
  5. Click More Actions for the discovery scan that you no longer need the data for and select Delete.
  6. Click Delete.