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Data servers

Introduction to data servers

The Brinqa connector framework formalizes the common ways of interconnection between systems via APIs, database extracts and structured formats like CSV, JSON, and XML. The Brinqa connector library includes connectors to more than 100 systems covering CMDB, Asset Management, Vulnerability Monitoring, Threat Intelligence, Patch Management, Configuration Management, IDP, IPS, Security Ratings, Ticketing, Task Management and more. With Brinqa connectors, organizations can automate, simplify and streamline the process of extracting data for analysis while simultaneously accomplishing critical goals transformation, normalization and contextualization.

The Brinqa connector agent (data server) is a secure and high-performance gateway to connectivity between on-premise data and the Brinqa cloud server. The connector agent opens several secure channels to the Brinqa cloud to sync data and perform various actions. The connector agent establishes an outbound connection to the Brinqa cloud, and upon the first data sync will download any requred connector framework data.

The Brinqa system can have multiple data servers, dependent on the number of on-premise data sources that need to be synced.

Navigating to Administration > Data Integration > Data Servers will take you to the Manage Data Servers page, which displays a list view of servers and allows for the creation of new ones.

Table 1: List view contents

Columns Description
State Whether the server is online or offline. The connector server/agent sends a ping message to the cloud based on a configurable frequency. If the ping is not received within the expected window of time, the data server/agent is considered to be offline.
Title Title of the data server
Interval (secs) Frequency at which the data server/agent sends a ping message to Brinqa cloud
Max. Connections Maximum number of simultaneous connections to the server. Default is 10 connections.
Last Connected Last time the agent connected to the Brinqa cloud
Last Updated Last time the server information was updated

Create a new data server

Data servers are created for each on-premise location that will sync data to Brinqa cloud. Creating a new data server instance within Brinqa generates a configuration file that is used by actual data server to associate it with the Brinqa system. Upon establishing an connection to the Brinqa system, a connection tunnel is made to allow for two-way data transfer.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to Administration > Data Integration > Data Servers
  2. Click Create Data Server
  3. Fill in the properties below and click Create.
  4. Upon successfull creation, click the Actions button that appears to the right on mouseover of the entry on the list view and download the configuration file.

Table 2: New data server properties

Field Description
Title Title of the data server. The title will be displayed wherever the data server appears in the UI.
Name Reference name for queries and scripts. The name can contain only letters, numbers, and underscores.
Description Description of the data server.
Interval (secs) How frequently the data server/agent sends a ping message to Brinqa cloud. Default setting is 30 seconds.
Max. Connections Maximum number of connections the data server maintains in a pool
Skip SSL Verification Skips SSL verification between data server and Brinqa cloud

Note

The configuration file configures the connection for the local agent, as well as defining the download location for connectors.

Edit or delete a data server

Existing data servers can be edited or deleted by clicking the Actions button that appears to the right on mouseover of the entry on the list view.

Note

Any changes on Brinqa cloud will not be reflected on the connector agent until a new configuration file is loaded.

TUTORIAL: Install connector agents and configure data servers

Data servers are created in Brinqa applications in order to generate a config file that can be placed on the on-premise connector agent server, which passes on-premise data securely to the Brinqa cloud. The presence of the config file on this server associates it to the Brinqa system. This tutorial will cover installing the connector agent, creating a data server, and placing the config file. For more information on getting data into the system, see the Getting Data In article.

Procedure

  1. Install the Brinqa Connector Agent on an on-premise server by unzipping the connector agent file to any directory on the server. The connector agent file can be obtained from Brinqa.
  2. Navigate to Administration > Data Integration > Data Servers in your Brinqa application
  3. Click Create Data Server
  4. Enter a Title for the data server. The reference name for the data server will be automatically populated, but must be unique.
  5. Enter a Description for the data server, e.g. a list of the service or file data it will provide
  6. (Optional) Modify the Interval and Max. Connections properties. The interval determines how frequently the data server will ping the Brinqa cloud and max. connections determines how many connections the data server maintains in a pool. The default settings should be adequate for most situations.
  7. (Optional) Check the Skip SSL verification box. This setting should be used only when initially testing connections.
  8. Click Create
  9. Navigate to Administration > Data Integration > Data Servers
  10. Mouse over the entry for the data server you created and click the Actions button that appears to the far right
  11. Select "Download conf"
  12. Place this file in the /conf folder in the directory where you installed the Brinqa Connector Agent, replacing the existing "agent.conf" file