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MGT - Metering Gateway Application

This section contains the following topics:

Functional Overview

Boundary

Operation

Implementation

Notes

Open Source and Third Party Software used Inside the Application

Functional Overview

The MGT (Metering Gateway Application) provides a point for metering data aggregation for all grids within a single datacenter and communicates to the CA basic metering server (BMS) publicly over a single HTTPS connection.

For installations that cannot communicate to the BMS, the MGT provides a gateway through which grids running in a single datacenter can report license and metering data to BMS. This is useful for datacenters that are private or isolated from publicly routed networks, such as the Internet or where business or security policies restrict the SSH protocol from traversing a firewall.

The MGT provides an input interface which allows grids in the datacenter to use SSH or HTTPS to report their metering data. In addition, it implements an output interface through which it reports metering data to the BMS over HTTPS though port 443.

Metering data is reported once a day at a specified time parameterized through a property. If the MGT fails to report the metering data at the specified time, it retries sending the data every hour and logs a message to the grid dashboard. Once the metering data is successfully reported to BMS, the MGT archives and retains the data for a parameterized amount of time. When that time is exceeded, the MGT permanently deletes the metering data.

The MGT serves a single metering account. If multiple accounts need to be operated in the same datacenter, you must run multiple MGT applications.

The MGT is configured with the account name as well as the SSH public key required for grids to report their data. A simple menu-driven interface is provided for managing the SSL certificate used for communicating with the BMS. You access the interface by logging into the running application.

For additional information on integrating the MGT application and metering server commands, refer to the Metering Service Reference.

Boundary

Resources

User Volumes

The application uses a single data volume to store and retain the metering data received from grids that report to MGT. This volume is part of the application and configured into the appliance instance that uses it.

However, the volume should be resized before the application is started for the first time. You should resize the volume to ensure the volume can hold at least 30 days of metering data for all grids that report their metering data to MGT. This should be approximately 10 MB per grid.

Properties

Note: The IP addresses configured in the

in_ip

Operation

You can install and configure the MGT application, then setup the SSL certificate and configure the grid to use the MGT.

Install and Configure MGT Application

The grid on which the MGT application is running must have access to the internet since MGT communicates with the CA basic metering server.

Follow these steps:

1. Copy the application archive to the impex volume of the grid.
2. Import the application

   app import MGT mgt-version.tar.bz2 
   

3. Resize the data volume to be able to store at least 30 days of metering data for all grids that report to this instance of MGT. This should be approximately 4 MB per grid for 30 days of metering data. For example, to resize the data volume to 3 GB, execute:

   vol resize MGT:data size=3G
   

4. Configure the application by retrieving the set of parameters that may be configured.

   Execute the following command:

   app config MGT --boundary
   

   Configure the parameters.

5. Start the application.

   Execute the following command:

   app start MGT
   

6. Setup the client-side SSL certificate.

Setup the Client-side SSL Certificate

You can setup the SSL certificate that MGT uses to authenticate itself with the metering server.

Follow these steps:

1. Login to the MGT application

   app login MGT
   

   The following simple text menu with options to manage the SSL certificate displayed.

   Metering Gateway Maintenance Utility 
      A. Set Client SSL certificate
      B. Delete current SSL certificate
      C. Display current SSL certificate
      D. Test notifications
      Q. Exit
   

2. Select from the following options:
   • Set Client SSL Certificate - displays a prompt to paste the contents of the client certificate for the account that was provided by CA. If an SSL certificate already exists, a prompt displays before overwriting the existing certificate. If you do not already have a client certificate, please contact CA technical support
   • Delete Current SSL Certificate - deletes the client SSL certificate from MGT. This renders the MGT unable to communicate with the metering server.
   • Display Current SSL Certificate - displays the contents of the currently configured client SSL certificate.
   • Test Notifications - verifies a message can be written to the dashboard of the grid controller. A prompt displays asking to verify the dashboard displays the message and that any recipients of email notifications received the email from the grid controller.
3. Configure the grid to use MGT.

Configure Grids to use MGT

You must configure new and existing grids to report their metering data to the MGT application.

Follow these steps:

1. In the command line, configure the account_srv parameter in the default conf file to the value of the in_ip property of the running MGT application.

   The account_srv parameter is a backbone setting that affects all grids.

2. When complete, exit the command line.

Dashboard Messages

MGT may log the following messages to the dashboard of the grid. In addition, a message is logged to the system log of the grid controller and the system log of the Metering Gateway appliance (MGT:main.mgt).

Implementation

Application Architecture

This is a reference design for the Metering Gateway Application

It has the following components:

• one firewalled input gateway with SSL support (INSSLR)
• one port switch (PS8)
• a Metering Gateway Server (MGT)
• firewalled output gateway to CA's central metering server (NET)
• a data storage appliance (NAS)

The application infrastructure displays below:

Application Volumes

The MGT application has the following volumes:

Notes

• MGT does not provide support for local queries over the metering data, such as meter dump. If you need to query your metering data, access the CA basic metering service directly. For additional details, refer to the Metering Service Reference Guide.
• MGT is designed to run on CA AppLogic 3.1.x and greater.

Open Source and Third Party Software used Inside the Application

The following open source and third party packages are used in addition to that software found on the MGT appliance base class WEB5.