As organizations embrace cloud-native technologies, and adopt hybrid or multi-cloud environments, system architecture is becoming more complex and distributed than ever. With this, IT teams are under constant pressure to detect and resolve issues faster — so they can keep services reliable and business operations running smoothly.

To address these challenges, IT teams are turning to observability solutions to manage complex systems and proactively identify and resolve issues. Observability plays a critical role in modern IT Operations Management (ITOM), offering real-time visibility across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. With the observability tools, teams can understand what’s happening across their infrastructure, detect anomalies early, and resolve incidents quickly – keeping systems efficient, stable, and resilient.

HPE GreenLake Flex Solutions includes a cloud-based hybrid observability service, powered by HPE OpsRamp Software, an AI-powered command center that simplifies and optimizes IT operations.

Hybrid observability in HPE GreenLake Flex Solutions is a SaaS-based ITOM solution and AIOps monitoring and observability service. It is designed to handle the complexity of hybrid multi-cloud environments. By leveraging the hybrid observability service powered by HPE OpsRamp, you will have visibility and control to centrally monitor and manage the physical infrastructure resources (servers, storage, network equipment) that comes within the HPE GreenLake Flex Solutions.

You can also expand your observability capabilities by purchasing additional subscriptions to provide coverage of logical resources such as virtual machines, containers, and workloads, including those running on public clouds or non-HPE infrastructure.

Let’s get started with the journey to set up the hybrid observability service powered by HPE OpsRamp Software.

Prerequisites

To enable monitoring and observability of physical devices in HPE GreenLake Flex Solutions, there are some requirements that must be fulfilled:

1. Create an HPE account, sign in to HPE GreenLake cloud and create a workspace for your organization. The workspace is the fundamental access management control boundary for HPE GreenLake resources. When you create a workspace, you are automatically assigned the role of Workspace Administrator.

   Note: If you haven’t already set up your HPE account and workspace, refer to the HPE GreenLake Cloud User Guide to create them.

2. Ensure you receive the hybrid observability subscription key by email as part of the HPE GreenLake Flex Solutions contract.

3. Provision and activate hybrid observability service on the HPE GreenLake workspace.

4. Create a client account.

5. Install a gateway collector appliance in a virtual environment as prerequisite to enable discovery of physical resources before they can be monitored.

6. Install integration modules to discover physical resources and enable monitoring and management of these resources.

7. Apply monitoring configuration to manage and track the health, performance, and availability status of the discovered resources components.

In this blog post it is assumed that you have created an HPE account and a workspace. You will then learn how to:

• Provision the hybrid observability service powered by HPE OpsRamp Software in the HPE GreenLake workspace.
• Activate the associated subscription key.
• Assign appropriate access role to desired users in the HPE GreenLake workspace.
• Launch the hybrid observability service in HPE GreenLake Flex Solutions to begin your hybrid observability journey.

In the subsequent blog posts of the series, I will walk you through setting up the hybrid observability service through the HPE OpsRamp user interface to monitor, manage, and control your physical infrastructure resources.

Provisioning the hybrid observability service powered by HPE OpsRamp Software in HPE GreenLake Flex Solutions

To activate the hybrid observability service in HPE GreenLake Flex Solutions and the associated subscription key on your workspace, you need to:

1. Provision the hybrid observability service powered by HPE OpsRamp Software in a desired region in your workspace using your HPE account with the Workspace Administrator role.

2. Activate the subscription key for your workspace.

3. Grant the OpsRamp Access role to the desired users in your workspace.

4. Launch the HPE OpsRamp Software from the workspace to use and configure the hybrid observability service.

Let’s get started with this sequence of steps!

Step 1 – Provision the HPE OpsRamp Software service in your workspace

Log in to your HPE GreenLake cloud workspace using your Workspace Administrator account. Provision the HPE OpsRamp Software to your workspace and select a deployment region. You can provision the HPE OpsRamp Software before adding the subscription key.

• Click Services > Catalog.

• Under Management & Governance, select OpsRamp.
• Click Provision.
• Select a Deployment Region from the drop-down. You can add more regions once the service is installed.
• Click Terms of Service to review the terms, and then select the checkbox to confirm your agreement.
• Click Deploy.

Step 2 – Activate the subscription key in your workspace

As the Workspace Administrator, add the hybrid observability subscription key that you received via email for your workspace. A subscription key is needed to launch the service in your workspace:

• In your HPE GreenLake workspace, click Services and then Service Subscriptions.
• Click Add Service Subscription.
• Enter the Subscription key you received by email.
• Click Add.
• Click Next.
• (Optional) You can assign tags to the subscription key or manage tags later. Tags allow you to categorize resources based on purpose, owner, location, or other criteria. Click Assign if you add a tag, then click Next.
• Showback rates are optional. Skip this step. Clear the Add showback rates checkbox.
• Click Next.
• Click Finish. The subscription key is automatically applied to the workspace and the hybrid observability service powered by HPE OpsRamp.

Step 3 – Assign the OpsRamp Access role to the desired users

After you provisioned the HPE OpsRamp Software to your workspace, you must give the desired users permission to access and run the hybrid observability service. Users must be granted the built-in Opsramp Access role. Once users are assigned this role, they have the authorization they need.

• In your workspace, on the Home page, select Manage Workspace from the Quick Links.
• Click Workspace identity & access.
• Click Users.
• Select the desired user or select the ellipsis (...) on the right of the user.
• Click Assign Role.
• Select the OpsRamp service.
• Select the Opsramp Access role.
• Do not slide the Limit Resource Access toggle to the right.
• Click Assign Role.
• Click Change Role Assignment.

Step 4 – Launch the hybrid observability service

With the HPE OpsRamp Software deployed in a region and attached to a valid subscription, users are ready to take advantage of the hybrid observability operations management solution.

• Click the Launch button to access and use the hybrid observability user interface powered by HPE OpsRamp. The hybrid observability service provides a unified view of observability across multi-cloud and on-premises infrastructure devices, resources, and services.
• The first time you access the service user interface, you must accept the End User Agreement.

The service has now launched. You log in to the service as Partner Administrator role.

By default, Partner’s advanced monitoring Add-ons are not enabled. It is recommended to enable the Add-ons for the Product Packages at the Partner organization level. To enable the advanced monitoring Add-ons, select Setup > Setup > Accounts > Partner details. Click Edit button at the top right, select the Add Ons tab and check all the Add-ons, then Save. To learn more about the Add-ons, see the HPE OpsRamp Hybrid Discovery and Monitoring documentation.

Note: This feature will be made available under Setup > Account in an upcoming HPE OpsRamp release.

Note: To enable Partner’s Add-ons, ensure your HPE GreenLake workspace details (name, address) do not contain any special character.

The hybrid observability in HPE GreenLake Flex Solutions uses a multi-tenant model. As a Partner Administrator, you can manage multiple client accounts, each client account representing an individual organization, business unit, or customer environment. You’ll start setting up your hybrid observability service by:

• Defining a client account.
• Assigning specific access roles to users.
• Installing a virtual appliance, called a gateway collector appliance, that discovers and manages your on-premises physical devices.
• Applying integration modules and monitoring configurations to resources.

These steps will be explained in the subsequent blog posts of the series.

Summary

This blog post helps you get started provisioning of the hybrid observability service powered by HPE OpsRamp Software and activating the subscription key in your HPE GreenLake cloud workspace. For more information about the provisioning of the service and subscription key activation, check out the HPE GreenLake Cloud User Guide.

Stay tuned for my next post of the series, where I’ll delve into the hybrid observability service integration setup activities to discover infrastructure resources. I’ll create a tenant, also referred to as client account, for the Partner organization. I’ll also install and configure a gateway collector appliance as a prerequisite to enable the discovery of physical infrastructure devices included in the HPE GreenLake Flex Solutions contract.

There’s also a series of video tutorials on the Hybrid observability in HPE GreenLake Flex Solutions landing page that walks you through the contents described in this blog series for readers who prefer an audio-visual learning experience.

To resolve issues with HPE GreenLake Flex Solutions or hybrid observability service powered by HPE OpsRamp, contact the support team. While logged in to your HPE GreenLake workspace:

1. Click Help & Support.
2. Under Help, select OpsRamp or HPE GreenLake Flex Solutions.
3. Click Create New Case.