Knowledge management

The Knowledge management page enables you to better understand and use the Knowledge updates and patterns installed on BMC Discovery. You can access the Knowledge management page from the main menu by selecting  Manage > Knowledge.

Key terminology

• Pattern—A sequence of commands written in The Pattern Language (TPL), which contains instructions that identify scanned entities that are then used to create the BMC Discovery data model.
• Module—A text file written in TPL that contains one or more patterns.
• Knowledge uploads—Typically, TKU zip files that include:
  • Zip archives of patterns
  • Hardware Reference Data (HRD) files
  • Device RPMs
  • Product Content RPMs

To view the Knowledge management page

From the main menu, select Manage > Knowledge.

The Knowledge management page provides:

• Toolbar—A toolbar enabling you to create patterns, upload knowledge, download pattern modules, view pattern configurations, and enable automatic knowledge cleanup.

• Knowledge summary—A section showing information on installed knowledge:
  
  • Latest TKU installed, and the number of active patterns.
  • Latest EDP installed
  • Latest Storage TKU installed
  • The Product Content RPM version installed
  • The Network Devices RPM version installed
  • The TPL version in use.
• Pattern modules list—A tree view of all pattern modules installed on the BMC Discovery appliance, sorted by product category. From here, you can view details and the TPL code of pattern modules.

Product categories 

The pattern modules are organized in a browsable hierarchy (for example, Structured Data Management Software > Relational Database Management Systems > Oracle RDBMS) based on the type of product the modules discover. When writing patterns, you can add tree_path metadata to control where the pattern module appears in the hierarchy.

The following non product-related categories are also provided:

• CAM—For modules created using CAM.
• Unclassified—Modules that do not have a specified category; for example, pre-version 10.0 patterns present on an upgraded system, or user-written patterns that do not specify a tree_path.

To choose the pattern modules to display 

You can view pattern modules in the main tree view section of the Knowledge management page. Selection tools enable you to choose pattern modules to display.

To choose the type of pattern module to display using the pattern module name

1. Enter text to search the pattern module name or tree path information in the Pattern modules list.
2. Click Apply to view the chosen pattern modules.

To choose pattern modules using their source or activation state

1. Select any or all of the following check boxes:
   • TKU—To view TKU supplied pattern modules.
   • Custom—To view pattern modules written for your organization.
   • Generated—To view pattern modules produced using the CAM or Generate Software Instance Pattern tools.
2. Choose to view pattern modules to display depending on their Active or Inactive state by choosing one of the following from the Display drop-down list:
   • Active and inactive
   • Only active
   • Only inactive
3. Click Apply to view the chosen pattern modules.

Selecting pattern modules 

You can perform actions on selected pattern modules. The selection options are summarized here:

• To expand a product category branch and show all pattern modules, click the plus icon to the left of the product category.
• To select all pattern modules in a product category branch, click the selection check box to the left of the product category.
• To select individual pattern modules from a product category branch, click the selection check box to the left of the pattern module name.
  The selection options are shown in the Knowledge management screen capture.

The action options are summarized here:

• To activate selected pattern modules, select Activate from the Actions menu. You are asked for confirmation.

• To deactivate selected pattern modules, select Deactivate from the Actions menu. You are asked for confirmation.

• To delete selected pattern modules, select Delete from the Actions menu. You are asked for confirmation.

• To download selected pattern modules, select Download Selected Modules from the Actions menu. You are asked for confirmation.

• To download all visible pattern modules, select Download Visible Modules from the Actions menu. You are asked for confirmation.

  Note

  Activating a pattern means that it is loaded and can be used to identify software instances. You cannot activate a pattern with a lower version number than one that has previously been activated. Delete the pattern with the higher version number first. All patterns specify the TPL version number that they use. If a pattern uses TPL language features that are from a later TPL version than specified, you cannot activate that pattern.