Exporting data

BMC Discovery Export enables you to publish data from BMC Discovery directly into relational databases and into all systems that can accept CSV files. BMC Discovery data is exported by creating an exporter, which is a combination of a mapping set with an adapter configuration. These concepts are explained later in this section.

Export does not delete any BMC Discovery data from BMC Discovery, or from the export target.

Exporters

An exporter is the combination of a mapping set and an adapter configuration.

• The mapping set is a set of mapping files. These allow you to determine which data to extract from BMC Discovery and how to transform it according to the target data model.
• The adapter configuration is used to determine where to publish the data.

Mapping files and sets

When performing an export, the exporter needs to know which data to read from the BMC Discovery datastore and where to place it. It does this with mapping files. A mapping file is an XML document that contains the following information:

1. A BMC Discovery datastore query specifying which data to export
2. Information on how BMC Discovery Export must restructure (or transform) the query result in order to make it usable by the system being exported to (that is, to comply with the remote system's schema)

A mapping set is a set of mapping files that are used to carry out the export. In order to perform an export using a mapping set, the exporter will run the query from each one of the mapping files in the set. A typical export requires more than one query of the datastore. For example, one query to get hosts, another to get Business Application Instances (BAIs), and so on.

For further information about mapping file formats, see The Mapping File Format.

Adapters and adapter configurations

BMC Discovery Export supports the following adapters:

• RDB — populates relational databases
• CSV — generates CSV files

An adapter configuration typically contains the information needed to connect to the target destination:

• Target host
• Port
• User name
• Password

You can create multiple adapter configurations. For example, if you needed to export data from BMC Discovery to two relational databases ("development" and "production") then you would create two adapter configurations for the RDB adapter, one for each destination.

To permit users to edit the adapter configuration

The cmdb-export-administrator user group gives permissions for users to edit the adapter's configuration. To add a user to this group:

1. From the BMC Discovery appliance UI, log in to BMC Discovery.
2. From the main menu, click the Administration icon. The Administration page displays. 
3. From the Security section, click Users.
4. Edit the profile of any user that you want to administer BMC Discovery Export. Add the user to the cmdb-export-administrator group. The user must be a member of the public group.

Related topics

• Using
• Setting up and configuring an export