Exporting and importing objects

Importing a BMC Server Automation object is a complex operation that requires some understanding of the underlying structure of the exported object. An exported object can contain several types of objects, such as jobs, BLPackages, component templates, and so forth. When importing, most objects are inserted into the system as new objects. Related objects such as servers and groups are not re-created during import. Instead, you must map these objects to corresponding objects that already exist within the BMC Server Automation system.

For example, when you import a job, the import process must save the job inside a job group. Consequently, you must map an imported job to an existing job group within BMC Server Automation. If you do not map the job to a job group, the import process will try to map the job group described in the imported object to an existing job group. If this mapping fails, the import fails.

When importing an object, there are several types of objects that always need mapping:

• Servers
• Server groups
• Properties
• System package types (used for provisioning)
• Grouped objects
• Grammars

You can map each of these objects to an existing object, or let the import process try to assign default mappings.

Importing objects by using the BLCLI has certain limitations that do not apply when importing objects through the BMC Server Automation GUI.

Grouped objects mapping: For top-level objects such as jobs, component templates, and any other object that is stored directly under a group, you must provide the type and name of the object to map. This means that if you export an object containing two top-level objects of the same type and name, you must import that object through the BMC Server Automation GUI. For example, if an exported object contains two component templates with the same name, then you cannot import that exported object through the BLCLI.

For more information about mapping, see Mapping file.