Learning about normalization

The Normalization Engine in BMC Helix CMDB provides a centralized, customizable, and uniform method of overcoming data consistency problems. This consistency in CMDB data allows applications to consume data to make good decisions. For example, BMC Helix ITSM: Asset Management can use the normalized data from CMDB to correctly report on software license usage.

When multiple sources and discovery tools provide data to BMC Helix CMDB, data consistency problems, such as the following might occur:

• Inconsistent categories and naming of configuration items (CIs)
• Duplicate configuration items (CIs)

The normalization process ensures that product names and categorization are consistent across different datasets and from different data providers.

The following figure explains the normalization process clearly:

You can normalize data before or after it is written to a dataset in BMC Helix CMDB. With the Normalization Engine, you can specify the normalization rules. For example, you may want to normalize a specific dataset, such as BMC.ADDM. You can enable or disable normalization for each dataset, as well as configure other normalization features. Similarly, you can select a specific class to normalize, such as BMC_Product. 

You cannot choose to normalize specific classes in different datasets. Instead, you configure classes across all datasets.