Viewing the system taxonomy

The system taxonomy defines all kinds of data objects in the system and the relationships between them. The BMC Discovery Administrator can examine all of these objects, including their attributes, roles, and relationships.

To view the system taxonomy

1. From the main menu, click the Administration icon.  
   The Administration page opens.
   
2. In the Model section, click View Taxonomy.
   All base taxonomy objects are listed, along with the following information:
   • Object Name—The name of the object kind. The superclass of this object is displayed in brackets as a hyperlink.
   • Description—A description of this object type.
   • Subclasses—Subclasses of this object type.
   • Attributes—Attributes of this object type.
   • Known relationships—Known relationships for this object. The object to which this relationship refers is displayed as a hyperlink at the end of the relationship name. Relationships with impact information also display arrows denoting the impact direction. For example:
     • → Contained:Containment:Container:Cluster [Cluster]
       Containing Cluster
     • ← Container:Containment:Contained:ClusterMember [Cluster Members]
       Cluster Members contained in this Cluster

The Files tab shows the taxonomy files that are installed on the appliance, and download links to those files. From the Files tab, click the link to the 00taxonomy to download the base taxonomy, or links to other taxonomy extensions that you have installed. The download is a zip file of directories containing the JSON files that make up the taxonomy.

Further details of the data model can be found in the BMC Discovery taxonomy. To view the taxonomy on the BMC Discovery UI, from the main menu, click the Administration icon. The Administration page displays. From the Model section, click View Taxonomy. A link to the current, full-size version of the diagrams below is also available in the online documentation.

The following diagrams show the BMC Discovery Default Data Model with its different nodes, attributes and relationships between different parts of BMC Discovery. It is split across the following diagrams:

• Main Diagram—contains all the core entities used in the modeling and discovery of hosts.
• Network and Printer Diagram—contains entities used in the modeling and discovery of network devices and printers.
• Mainframe Diagram—contains entities used in the modeling and discovery of mainframe computers.
• Storage and Load Balancers—contains entities used in the modeling and discovery of storage entities and load balancers.

It is important to note that the model itself is not in separate sections, the separate diagrams exist in order to more clearly convey information.

You can also download a pdf file here which includes all of the diagrams above.

Storage and modification of the taxonomy

Taxonomy definitions are configured using JSON files which are held directories beneath the following:

1. /usr/tideway/data/installed/taxonomy/
2. /usr/tideway/data/custom/taxonomy/

Previously, the taxonomy definitions were configured using xml files in the installed and custom directories. The new JSON formatted taxonomy files take precedence over the xml files of the same name.

The directories are parsed in the order given (installed before custom), and the files contained in these directories are parsed in alphabetical order, with numbers before letters. This order is important as later definitions for the taxonomy override those loaded earlier.

The standard base taxonomy files are contained under the /usr/tideway/data/installed/taxonomy/00taxonomy directory.

To add additional details to a node, you should use a detail node rather than extending the taxonomy. For more information, see Detail node.

The Telco taxonomy extension

A Telco taxonomy extension is provided for users of BMC Helix for CSP, the IT service management platform for telecommunication service providers. The taxonomy extension simply provides a model for BMC Helix for CSP to use. BMC Discovery does not populate or modify this model in any way. To enable the Telco taxonomy extension, see Telco nodes.