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DemoSim Installation

Prerequisites

  • Google Chrome browser

  • BigPanda Employee: BigPanda's Okta authentication

  • Partner/Guest: User account at https://bpSalesEngineering.com

  • BigPanda Demo/Test Org (account)

  • You'll need an API Key from your BigPanda organization with Admin permissions. Reference BigPanda API Key Management documentation.

  • At least 8 inbound integrations in your BigPanda organization; these should represent the following monitoring domains: application, cloud, cluster, infrastructure, log, metrics, network, and synthetic alerts.

  • At least one REST Change integration in your BigPanda organization.

Create a New Demo Config in Demo Admin

  • Log into https://bpSalesEngineering.com  If you don't have an account, email [email protected] for help.

    • BigPanda Employee: Choose the Okta button.

    • Partner/Guest: Provide your username and password.

  • Navigate to the Demo Admin page

  • Type a name for your new Demo Config into the Demo Config Selector and press Enter.

    This can be anything; for now, we suggest that you just give it the same name as your BigPanda organization.

  • In the Add a New Demo Config dialog, enter your BigPanda organization's API Key and your BigPanda email address, then the Add button.

Configure Your New Demo Config

In order to post scenarios to BigPanda via DemoSim, you need to map integration types, configure variables, and attach some scenarios to your new Demo Config.

The SETTINGS Tab

After you've first created a DemoSim Org configuration, you start at the SETTINGS tab.  This shows the name of your Demo Config, the API Key and name of the linked BigPanda organization, the Single Point of Contact (SPOC) for this Demo Config, and the bpSalesEngineering accounts that share ownership of this configuration.  There are also buttons for deleting this Demo Config or for cloning it.

The INTEGRATIONS Tab

DemoSim scenarios send alerts and change events to multiple BigPanda integration endpoints, according to their "Integration Type".  So you first need to map each integration type to one of your BigPanda organization's integrations.  These all should be "inbound alert" type of integrations, with the exception of the "change-man" type (which should be mapped to a change integration, as shown here.)  When you are done choosing your integration type mappings, click the green SUBMIT CHANGES button to save your choices.

The VARIABLES Tab

The VARIABLES tab allows you to customize the alert and changes events of your scenarios so that the scenarios can work for multiple Demo Configs.  For example, you can change the company URL domain from "acme.com" to "mycustomername.com".  Variables are randomized if there are more than one value, so that each time you play the scenario you might get different values.  For now you don't need to make any changes to the variables.

The SCENARIOS Tab

Let's create a new DemoSim scenario and test it.

  • Navigate to the SCENARIOS tab and click CREATE NEW SCENARIO.

    This will pop up the Create New Scenario dialog.

  • Give your scenario a name, category (i.e. what type of scenario this will be), and description.

  • Press NEXT and then PUBLISH

  • You should see a green notification pop up in the lower-left corner, telling you that the scenario was successfully published to the Scenario Store.  Click CLOSE.

  • You should now see your new scenario listed. Click the title of the scenario to expand the Scenario Editor.

For now we don't need to make any changes to this scenario, but let's test it to see if it will post the scenario alert and change events to your BigPanda organization.

  • Click TEST SCENARIO

  • In either the Events or Changes tables, click REFRESH VARIABLES and confirm that the data in your event and change records are updated.

  • Click the blue POST button (top of the screen).  This button will be named to show that it will post your scenario to your BigPanda organization (e.g. "POST MY FIRST SCENARIO EVENTS AND CHANGES TO MY_NEW_DEMOSIM_1")

  • If you've correctly configured your Org, Integration, and Variables tabs, you should see green pop-up alerts that report successful post of change and alert events.

  • Press the escape key or CLOSE (lower-right corner of the Scenario Tester dialog).

  • This will return you to your list of scenarios.  You can click the title of your scenario to collapse the Scenario Editor.

You now have your first DemoSim Org configured and populated with your first working scenario.  Now install the DemoSim Chrome Extension so that you can trigger your scenario(s) while showing the BigPanda application.

Install the DemoSim Chrome Extension

The Demo Config that you just created is used primarily with the DemoSim Chrome Extension.  This enables you to "play" a scenario, consisting of alert and change events, while interacting with the BigPanda console.

  • Ensure that you are logged into Google Chrome with your BigPanda email.

  • Install the DemoSim Chrome Extension from the Google Chrome Extension Store

    Note: You can also find this by clicking the link at the bottom of the Demo Admin page.

  • When you've added the extension, navigate to chrome://extensions

  • In the upper-left corner, select the menu (three horizontal lines) and choose "Keyboard shortcuts"

  • In the Extensions Keyboard Shortcuts page, select the keyboard actions:

    "Activate the extension" will open the extension popup, same as clicking the extension icon with the mouse.

    "Resume scenario from pause" will cause a multi-step scenario to continue on to the next step.

  • Pin the extension to your Chrome Bookmarks bar

  • Click the DemoSim Extension (BigPanda icon); this will first open the DemoSim popup but then immediately open an authentication dialog just like the one you used to log into https://bpSalesEngineering.com.

    Once you have authenticated your DemoSim extension, click it to open the DemoSim popup.

  • If you've successfully authenticated, you should see a drop-down selector named "Select Demo Config" and "...Getting org choices".

Now let's try posting your scenario to your BigPanda organization.

  • Log into BigPanda at https://a.bigpanda.io

  • Open the DemoSim extension and select the DemoSim org that you created earlier in DemoSim Admin.

  • Expand the category (e.g. APP) to show your new scenario.

  • Click your scenario to trigger it.

At the bottom of the DemoSim extension you should see status, showing that changes have been posted and, after a few moments, that DemoSim has posted a number of alerts.  In a few moments you should see your new incident appear in BigPanda!

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