Upgrading the Inventory reporting configuration from version 8.5 to 8.6

This topic provides information about a scenario with BMC Server Automation version 8.5. In this scenario, a majority of the BMC Server Automation RSCD agents are on versions 8.2, 8.3, and 8.5. You now want to upgrade to BMC Server Automation version 8.6 and BMC Decision Support for Server Automation version 8.6.

Proposed upgrade

In this scenario, the details about the proposed upgrade are as follows:

Components and versions in the existing deployment

In this scenario, components and their versions in the existing BMC Server Automation deployment are as follows:

Existing templates and jobs

In this scenario, the details about existing templates and jobs are as follows:

Steps for configuring Inventory reporting

The following figure illustrates the steps for configuring Inventory reporting:

For configuring Inventory reporting in this scenario, you need to perform the following steps.

Running the Content Installer

Install the Inventory templates by running the Content Installer and following the instructions in Installing Inventory templates and other scripts.

The Content Installer enables you to install Inventory templates, supplied by BMC Decision Support for Server Automation, on the BMC Server Automation Application Server. The templates are installed in the Component Templates/Bladelogic Inventory Templates folder on the BMC Server Automation Application Server. For more information about the templates, see BMC Decision Support for Server Automation inventory templates.

Configuring the Update Server Properties Job

The Update Server Properties Job obtains the most recent property settings from agents and updates these settings in BMC Server Automation.

For more information about creating an Update Server Properties Job, see Creating or modifying Update Server Properties Jobs in the BMC Server Automation documentation.

Configuring Component Discovery Jobs

The Component Discovery Jobs creates components by associating the component template with the server.

Create and run Component Discovery Jobs for all managed servers, based on the operating system of the managed server. For associating templates with servers based on operating system, see BMC Decision Support for Server Automation inventory templates. For more information about creating these jobs, see Creating Component Discovery Jobs in BMC Server Automation documentation.

After the Component Discovery Jobs are complete, verify the job results to ensure that all Discovery Job runs are successful. If any of these jobs fail, you must view the logs for the job, fix the issue causing the failure, and re-run the job. For more information about viewing logs, Managing job logs in the BMC Server Automation documentation.

Configuring Snapshot Jobs

Snapshot Jobs record the configuration of a group of server objects at a point in time. To view Inventory reports, you must run Snapshot Jobs at regular intervals.

To view Inventory reports, you must run Snapshot Jobs on components based on BMC Decision Support for Server Automation supplied Inventory templates. For associating components with Snapshot Jobs, see BMC Decision Support for Server Automation inventory templates.

Create and run Snapshot Jobs for all managed servers, based on the operating system. For more information about creating these jobs, see Creating Snapshot Jobs in the BMC Server Automation documentation.

After the Snapshot Jobs are complete, verify the job results to ensure that all Snapshot Job runs are successful. If any of these jobs fail, you must view the logs for the job, fix the issue causing the failure, and re-run the job. For more information about viewing job logs, see Managing job logs in the BMC Server Automation documentation.

Running ETL

To see the data in the Inventory reports, you must run the extract, transfer, and load (ETL) process to transfer data from the BMC Server Automation database to the reports data warehouse.

Verifying Inventory reports

Run the Server Configuration report to ensure that the Inventory reports are working correctly.

To run the report

1. Log on to the reports server with a valid role having the requisite access rights such as Report Viewer, Report Administrator, GlobalReportAdmin, or GlobalReportViewer.
2. Navigate to Public Folders > BladeLogic > Inventory.
3. Click the Server Configuration report.
4. Select the options as OS, Server, System component as Hardware Information and click Finish.
5. Verify that the generated report shows the correct server configuration for the selected server.