Glossary

This topic defines the terms commonly used in BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management documentation.

Application Administration Console — The console used to create tenant companies and users for BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management. The Application Administration Console is installed with BMC Service Request Management and is part of the foundation module for BMC Remedy IT Service Management. This console is launched when you click the Manage Company, People icon from the Tenants workspace.

BMC Analytics for Business Service Management — An application that provides analysis tools and reporting features that enable you to analyze the application data from BMC Remedy IT Service Management, BMC ProactiveNet, BMC Performance Manager Portal, and BMC Impact Portal and create ad hoc reports.

BMC AR System Server – Cloud Portal and Database (Cloud Portal and Database) — Subset of components from the BMC Remedy ITSM Suite Preconfigured Stack that are installed on the administrator server. Out of the box, includes BMC AR System server, BMC AR System Mid Tier, AR System clients, BMC Atrium CMDB and other Atrium Core products, and BMC Server Management.

BMC Atrium Core — A suite of products that form the Business Service Management platform, facilitating the alignment of IT with the business. BMC Atrium Core provides a CMDB coupled with common user, programmatic, and reporting interfaces to accelerate attainment of BSM. This set of enabling technologies provides tighter integration across management tools used in your IT environment.

BMC Atrium Orchestrator — A peer-to-peer infrastructure-based application that provides fault tolerance, load balancing, auto discovery, and authentication. It enables the design, scheduling, and automation of operational activities and processes. The BMC Atrium Orchestrator suite is composed of the following components: Access Manager, a grid, Grid Manager, BMC Atrium Orchestrator Development Studio, BMC Atrium Orchestrator Operator Control Panel, a data repository, run books, and modules.

BMC Network Automation — A multi-vendor solution for managing change, configuration, and compliance of network assets. It provides out-of-the-box support for routers, switches, firewalls, intrusion detection systems, load balancers, and other devices.

BMC Server Automation — A suite of components that enables IT organizations to automate the management of enterprise-class data centers.

BMC Capacity Management — Capacity Optimization — An application that automatically tracks, analyzes, and forecasts performance and capacity across the entire physical, virtual, and cloud infrastructure.

BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management — A BMC solution that defines and manages the complete lifecycle of resources used by and provisioned into a cloud. It includes customer-facing service requests and a portal for your customers to virtually manage their cloud resources.

BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management Administration Console — A user interface that enables cloud administrators to configure cloud resources, services, and the automation required to provision services and cloud resources for cloud end users.

BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management My Cloud Services Console — A user interface that enables cloud end users to view and request services in the cloud.

BMC Dashboards for Business Service Management — An application that provides a single graphical view that consolidates critical metrics for multiple IT processes.

BMC PATROL Agent — A component of BMC Performance Manager used to monitor and manage host computers and that can communicate with a PATROL console.

BMC Performance Manager for Virtual Servers — A BMC Performance Manager component that enables you to monitor your virtual environment and resources in the VMware and Citrix XenServer environments so that you can determine how to effectively use those virtual resources.

BMC ProactiveNet Performance Management — A BMC solution that combines event management and data analytics. In the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management environment, BMC ProactiveNet provides the monitoring functionality for hypervisors and virtual machines created using the hypervisor.

BMC Remedy Action Request System — An application that enables you to automate many business processes without learning a programming language or complex development tools. It provides a professional development environment that leverages the best practices of the IT Infrastructure Library and provides a foundation for Business Service Management solutions.

BMC Remedy IT Service Management — A suite of products that provides out-of-the-box IT Information Library service support functionality. It streamlines the processes around IT service desk, asset management, and change management operations.

BMC Remedy IT Service Management Foundation — Module in BMC Remedy IT Service Management that contains the common forms, workflow, and data that are needed to support the applications. 

BMC Service Request Management — An application that provides a consistent user interface where users can request a service or report an incident. Users or service desk staff can select services that IT or other departments support from a service catalog.

cloud computing — A model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (such as networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. (See also hybrid cloud, private cloud, and public cloud.)

community cloud — A cloud infrastructure that is shared by several organizations and supports a specific community that has shared concerns, such as mission, security requirements, policy, and compliance considerations. It can be managed by the organizations or a third party and can exist on premise or off premise.

compute resource pool — A logical grouping of similar compute resources provisioned into the cloud. Compute resource pools are mapped to network containers. Compute resource pools are used by the Service Governor when placing workloads into the cloud. Compute resource pools are also referred to as compute pools in the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management Administration Console.

compute resources — Infrastructure resources in the cloud that provide processing capabilities. For example, virtual clusters, virtual resource pools, and physical servers are compute resources.

Configuration Management Database (CMDB) — A database that stores information about your IT configuration, including configuration items and the relationships between them.

cost — The financial cost to an IT organization for delivering or maintaining a service. (See also price.)

entitlement package — A group of requestable offerings that can be mapped to tenants.

hybrid cloud — A cloud infrastructure composed two or more clouds (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability, such as load-balancing between clouds. (See also community cloud, private cloud, and public cloud.)

hypervisor — A software program that enables multiple operating systems to run concurrently on a host computer. Virtualization software products, such as VMware and Xen, use a hypervisor to create virtual machines (VMs). Hypervisors are also called virtual machine monitors (VMMs).

infrastructure blueprint — A category of cloud blueprints that represent how infrastructure resources construct a cloud. BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management includes two types of infrastructure blueprints: pod blueprints and network container blueprints.

network container blueprint — A cloud construct that represents virtualized network segmentation based on a specific pod configuration. Each network segment can include multiple zones (each with a load balancer and firewall), and each zone can include one or more networks. (See also network container.)

network resources — Infrastructure resources in the cloud that are capable of transferring data. For example, a virtual network is a network resource.

network zone — A layer-3 network domain that represents workload execution environments used to isolate workloads based on specific policies and rules. Typically, network zones are arranged for security and performance requirements.

onboard — In the context of BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management, the process of making something available to use in the cloud. For example, a cloud administrator onboards network pods from BMC Network Automation.

pod — Represents a physical level-2 portion of the cloud bound by a set of physical network equipment, such as routers, firewalls, and load balancers. Pods contain one or more network containers. Onboarding pods adds capacity incrementally to a data center.

pod blueprint — A cloud construct that represents a physical network topology. This is the layer-2 model of a physical pod, and it is defined in BMC Network Automation.

post-deploy action — A type of requestable offering that represents an action that a cloud end user can take on a service instance after it has been provisioned. For example, after a LAMP stack has been provisioned, the user might request a different amount of memory or CPU. Post-deploy actions are not required, and the cloud administrator can create any number of post-deploy actions per service offering.

price — The financial price that a user is charged for a service. (See also cost.)

private cloud — A cloud infrastructure that is operated solely for an organization. It can be managed by the organization or a third party and can exist on premise or off premise. (See also community cloud, hybrid cloud, and public cloud.)

provider — See resource provider.

provisioning — The process of selecting, reserving, or creating an instance of a service offering. Service offerings are selected from the service provider's service catalog and are then provisioned into service instances. Provisioning is also the process of selecting or reserving service resources from available pools, assembling them, and configuring them based on the service blueprint.

public cloud — A cloud infrastructure that is made available to the general public or a large industry group and is owned by an organization selling cloud services. (See also community cloud, hybrid cloud, and private cloud.)

requestable offering — An aspect of a service offering that can be requested by users. BMC Cloud Service Management enables the following general types of requestable offerings: request definitions, through which users request the implementation of a service, and post-deploy actions, through which users request additional functionality for a service.

request definition — A type of requestable offering that describes the details of the service offering, including the name, description, and one-time delivery price. The cloud administrator can define only one request definition for a particular offering, and a request definition must be created for the service offering to be available in the BMC My Services Cloud Console. Request definitions can be added to entitlement packages.

resource — A term for the physical, virtual, and conceptual objects that enable cloud operations. BMC Cloud Lifecycle management recognizes the following general categories of resources: infrastructure resources (the compute, network, and storage resources that are combined to deliver services) and cloud resources (the conceptual objects, such as servers and compute pools, that organize infrastructure resources and shape services offered in the cloud).

resource provider — Within BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management, a software program that supplies and manages resources consumed by the cloud. For example, BMC Server Automation supplies compute resources for clouds created using BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management.

resource set — A collection of resources required for normal operation of a functional element of a service offering.

server — In the context of BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management, a conceptual object associated with a compute resource. A server enables cloud administrators to manage the underlying resource without knowing the exact details of that resource. For example, a server might be associated with a physical server or a virtual machine.

service blueprint — A model that defines the software, hardware, and deployment options that deliver requested functionality from the Service Catalog to the user. For example, a blueprint can define a simple server with an operating system or a complicated multi-tier business application. A service blueprint is composed of 1 service definition and 1 or more service deployment definitions.

Service Catalog — In BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management, the Service Catalog enables centralized management of business services across BMC products. It enables you to define a common list of services that IT provides. The Service Catalog enables you to set clear expectations for service delivery, rationalize data across IT processes based on a business context, and provide a service-oriented approach to enable management reporting.

Service Catalog option — An item that users can select during service request creation to refine the request. Options modify service and requestable offerings. For example, the cloud administrator might enable options for the amount of memory available to cloud end users when they request a virtual machine.

service definition — A cloud construct that defines the functional components in a service blueprint and the relationships between those components. Each service blueprint has one service definition. (See also service blueprint.)

service deployment definition — A cloud construct that defines the deployment needs and constraints in a service blueprint. Each service blueprint has one or more service deployment definitions. (See also service blueprint.)

Service Governor — The combination of policies and tags that enable cloud administrators to manage and automate placement policy in BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management.

service level agreement — A contract between a service provider and a purchaser that defines the level of service.

service model — A logical model that defines the resources that deliver business services, models their behaviors and functional relationships, and manages the delivery of the resulting services.

service offering — The way an IT organization makes a service available to its customers. Any service can have one or more service offerings, representing different ways in which the customer may consume the service, such as different warranty levels or different delivery mechanisms.

service request — A request to the IT organization for a service. For example, service requests can be requests for change or requests to resolve incidents that impact users.

service request definition — Provides the characteristics required to facilitate the selection of a service offering and the execution of delivery for that service offering. This includes attributes, such as categorization, effective start and end dates, pricing information, approval and service level management criteria, as well as the definition of application objects that will support the delivery of a service.

storage resources — Infrastructure resources in the cloud that enable you to allocate physical storage space with a service request. For example, a NetApp storage system is a storage resource.

tag — A method of annotating an object in BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management. For example, a compute pool can be tagged to indicate its service level. Tags assist in the development of automated placement.

tag group — A collection of tags with the same context. For example, you might create a tag group called Service Level, and in that tag group have the tags Gold, Silver, and Bronze. Tags are always evaluated in the context of their tag group. Tag groups are used in assigning tags and in creating Service Governor policies.

virtual disk repository — A virtual space into which disks are provisioned. VMware datastores and Citrix Xen storage repositories are both examples of virtual disk repositories.