Components and component template overview

A component is a collection of configuration settings that encapsulates a business or infrastructure service, application, or security policy.

Components can simplify many data center management tasks because a component provides a higher level of abstraction than do the servers and server objects that make up the component. For example, a component can group the files, configuration entries, and registry values needed to support an Apache server, Oracle WebLogic, or an Oracle database. A component can also specify a collection of configuration settings that your organization must implement, such as Center for Internet Security (CIS) recommendations for a particular operating system.

To create a component, you must first define a component template, which establishes rules and provides necessary information for the component, and then associate the template with a server. A component template consists of the following:

• Template parts — Server objects that constitute the component. You can parameterize template parts to accommodate variations between servers, departments, and networks.
• Signature — A set of conditions that must be satisfied on a server for a component template to be associated with that server. A Component Discovery Job compares a signature to the configurations of designated servers. When the Component Discovery Job finds that a server satisfies a component signature, the Job associates the component template with the server and creates a component.
• Allowed operations — Decisions about what operations can be performed using this component, such as browsing, snapshots, audits, deployments, and discovery.
• Compliance rules — A collection of one or more rules that express corporate policy about some or all of the parts included in the component template. For example, compliance rules can specify security requirements or test for an application's required configuration. If a component does not satisfy a compliance rule, you can specify remediation in the form of a BLPackage that can be deployed to correct the component's configuration.
• Local properties — A set of properties that are assigned to the component template. Using local properties, you can define multiple instances of a component on the same server.