This documentation supports the 18.08 version of BMC Atrium Core.

To view the latest version, select the version from the Product version menu.

BMC Atrium Core includes the BMC Configuration Management Database (BMC CMDB) and BMC Atrium Integrator. Use BMC CMDB to store and manage the configuration items (CIs) that represent your IT environment. Use BMC Atrium Integrator to transfer data between an external datastore and BMC CMDB.


Release notes and notices
updated 21 Nov
Learn what’s new or changed for BMC CMDB 18.08.01, including new features, urgent issues, documentation updates, and fixes or patches.

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Date

Title

Summary

November 29, 201818.08.01 patchThis patch consolidates the hotfixes delivered for BMC CMDB version 18.08 and later into a single patch.
August 31, 201818.08 enhancements

This 18.08 release provides enhancements to the new CMDB user interface to include the following features:

  • Options to configure Integrity and Completeness KPIs displayed on the CMDB dashboard.
  • Additional roles that you can define to control access to various features in the new CMDB UI.

Related topics

Known and corrected issues

Support information

BMC Remedy ITSM Suite components and installers Open link


Using

 

As an end user, access and navigate the CMDB user interface and Atrium Integrator.

Developing

 

As a developer or application programmer, develop interfaces and toolkits and customize BMC CMDB.

Managing the Common Data Model

 

Information and best practices for managing the Common Data Model.

Administering

 

As an administrator, configure the core CMDB components and archive the CMDB data, configure BMC Atrium Core Web Services, and manage the Product Catalog.

Integrating

 

As an administrator, set up integrations with other BMC products or third-party software.

Troubleshooting

 

Resolve common issues or errors, review logs, or contact Support.

Planning

 

(On-premises only) Plan an installation or upgrade based on recommended deployment architecture, best practices, sizing, and system requirements.

Installing

 

(On-premises only) Install and perform initial system configuration.

Upgrading

 

(On-premises only) Upgrade based on the latest system requirements and software.


PDFs and videos

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Videos

The following table lists topics that contain videos that supplement or replace the text-based documentation.

These videos are valid for BMC CMDB version 18.08.

Video titleDuration (in minutes)Description
CMDB Overview2:32

https://youtu.be/70DCJ_unZ7M

This video provides an overview of the features in the CMDB Version 18.08 release.

Searching and viewing CIs and relationships using the CMDB Explorer2:20

 https://youtu.be/iy3IzVgNQrg

Searching CIs using the advanced search custom query1:45

 https://youtu.be/43KYCqXj0Qs

CMDB Dashboard7:55

https://youtu.be/CzKaHz_md44

This video takes you on a quick tour and familiarizes you with the new CMDB dashboard components.

CMDB Datasources5:39

https://youtu.be/09c1wPC6m-E

This video provides an overview of the new Datasources component in the dashboard.

Configuring Key Performance Indicators for CMDB


 https://youtu.be/kxaTvW9T4mo

This video provides an overview of configuring KPIs for CMDB.

CMDB Normalization6:19

https://youtu.be/eN13Qw4HEy8

This video provides an overview of the Normalization component in the dashboard.

CMDB Reconciliation7:11

https://youtu.be/3QB6D2WqIrk

This video provides an overview of the Reconciliation component in the dashboard.

 

 

 

 

FAQs and additional resources

This section provides answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs) about BMC CMDB components.

CMDB Search

The options available are Quick Search and Advanced Search. Quick Search is the basic search, which helps you search for CIs quickly, based on the parameters you specify. With Advanced Search, can use template queries or build your own custom query.

Yes, you can search for CIs that are Marked As Deleted, by performing the following steps:

  1. On the Search Widget, select Quick Search.
  2. Select the dataset and class.
  3. In the Attribute field, select MarkAsDelete.
  4. In the AttributeValue field, enter 1, to show all CIs that have the MarkAsDelete attribute set as True.

Yes, Wildcard % is supported in search.

To search for a parameter type the string. By default, the wildcard character % is appended automatically to the end of the search string, while is the search is being run. The search returns all values starting with the search string you entered. For example, if you enter the string as Comp, the search returns values like Computer, Comp12, ComputerSystem, and so on.

However, if you want to search for CIs containing a particular string, you can place % anywhere in the search string to use as a wildcard.  For example, %system returns results like ComputerSystem, Computer_System,  AdminSystem, and so on.

CMDB Explorer

This error is displayed if you click a CI's link to view its details, but the CI has already been deleted. However, you can still view the details of a deleted CI. An example of the Integrity page from which the link to the CI details can be accessed is shown in the following figure.

When large datasets are displayed on CMDB Explorer, the canvas may look cluttered with too many CIs. You can group all the CIs that you do not want to view into a custom group. Then you can view only those CIs of your interest. A custom group can contain CIs of different classes.

Perform the following steps to create a custom group.

  1. Click Drag Mode to switch to Select Mode.
  2. Hold your left mouse button on the canvas and draw your selection to include CIs that you want to group.
  3. Click Group Selected CIs. The Custom group is created.
  4. Click Drag Mode again.
However, there are restrictions for including a CI as part of a custom group, which are listed as follows:

a. You cannot add an already existing group of CIs to a custom group.
b. CIs that are children of another group cannot be added to a custom group.

Yes, you can use Filters to include or exclude CIs from being displayed in CMDB Explorer.

In BMC CMDB 9.1 and earlier versions, there were separate options to show or hide the selected classes.

In the new CMDB UI, filtering is simplified and you can achieve the same results by checking only those classes and relationships that you want to view on the Explorer canvas. The Filtering options are as shown in the following figure.


When you create a filter, you can also determine whether that filter can be used by others or only by you.

If Is Global is ON, the filter is saved as a shared filter and is available to everyone. If Is Global is OFF , the filter is saved as a Personal filter and it is available only to you.

No, you cannot collapse an expanded node. However, you can either group similar CIs or group CIs of your interest by creating a custom group. Use Drag Mode on CMDB Explorer to create a custom group.

  1. Click Drag Mode to switch to Select Mode.
  2. Hold your left mouse button on the canvas and draw your selection to include CIs that you want to group.
  3. Click Group Selected CIs. The Custom group is created.
  4. Click Drag Mode again.

BMC CMDB Reconciliation Engine FAQs

Reconciliation Engine is a component installed with the BMC CMDB. The main function of the Reconciliation Engine is the creation of a production dataset that contains accurate data from all available sources. Data in the production dataset is then used by consuming applications.

For more information, see the following resources:

Before you run a Reconciliation Engine (RE) job, perform the following:

  • Perform CDM metadata diagnostics - Run the CDMChecker utility to:
  • Perform data diagnostics
  • Perform Reconciliation Engine-specific data diagnostics
  • Perform manual checks for RE jobs
    • Make sure that all the classes and attributes used in standard or custom rules of all the RE jobs exist in your CDM data model. If a certain job is imported in your CDM, the job might fail.
    • Make sure that the data sets (source, target and precedence data set) referred in all the RE jobs also exist in the BMC_Dataset class.
  • Check whether indexes are set
    • During upgrade, for optimal RE performance, ensure that the out-of-the-box indexes set up on BMC.CORE:BMC_BaseElement and BMC.Core:BMC_BaseRelationship forms.Discrepancies, if any, are logged in the Atrium Installer log file. The following image displays an example message:


Watch the video on Reconciliation Engine best practices:

Configure recommended settings

Ensure that the System-level settings and Job-level settings are configured as per the recommendations. See the following images for recommended settings:

System-level settings


Job-level settings

For more information, see  Configuring Reconciliation Engine system parameters .

You should consider changing the default configuration settings in the following scenarios:

  • If you are dealing with large volume of data, increase the value of the Definition Check Interval field.
  • If you need specific log details, ensure that you change the log level to Debug. (Change the default log value only when you need and reset it back to default log level when you are done). Additionally, set the Maximum Job Log File Size value to 50000 KB.
  • If the RE Job is not responding for a long period, set Job Idle Time value to the desired time other than the default value (0).

Standard identification and precedence rules simplify the process of creating reconciliation jobs. Standard rules use defaults for Identify and Merge activities and automate the creation of reconciliation jobs.

The standard rules work with all classes in the Common Data Model (CDM) and BMC extensions. They identify each class using attributes that typically have unique values, and they merge based on precedence set for BMC datasets. Standard reconciliation jobs always use these standard rules, but you can also use standard rules when you create your own reconciliation job.

You must use standard rules:

  • When configuration items are published into the CMDB or when the data is pulled from the CMDB.
  • To uniquely identify attributes of the discovered configuration items.

A set of rules that are created as per your specific business requirements and are not part of the standard rules are termed as custom rules. You can use custom rules for CI classes.

The following is an example scenario in which you might want to create custom rules:

If you have extended the Common Data Model by adding a new attribute, which is specific to your requirement and which might not be populated by any discovery tool. You might want to define custom rules to identify your assets based on this attribute.

For more information about using custom rules, see Creating an identification ruleset for reconciliation.

Standard identification and precedence rules simplify the process of creating reconciliation jobs. A reconciliation job is provided with a standard rule sets of identification and precedence rules.

These standard rules work with all classes in the Common Data Model (CDM) and BMC extensions. They identify each class using attributes that typically have unique values, and they merge based on precedences set for BMC datasets. Standard reconciliation jobs always use these standard rules, but you can also use them when you create a custom reconciliation job.

For more information, see Standard identification and precedence rules for reconciliation jobs.

Watch the following video:

For more information, see Configuring standard precedence rules for reconciliation .

  • Do not set a Reconciliation Engine ID manually in any dataset.
  • Do not manually delete data, which is marked as soft delete.
  • Do not delete datasets manually. You must also need to clean up dataset references from Reconciliation Engine, Normalization Engine etc.

For most reconciliation activities, you can specify a qualification set for the purpose of restricting the instances that participate in an activity. Qualification sets, which are reusable between activities, are qualification rules that each select certain attribute values. Any instance that matches at least one qualification in a set can participate in an activity that specifies the qualification set.

For example, you might create a qualification set that selects instances that were discovered within the last 24 hours and have the domain "Frankfurt" if your company just opened a Frankfurt office and you are reconciling its discovered CIs for the first time.

The CMDB Data Analyzer is a collection of tools that enable you to perform data analysis and also identify  data inconsistencies  in any CMDB dataset.

For more information, see  Using CMDB Data Analyzer to Investigate CMDB Data Issues .

As a best practice, BMC recommends that you must reconcile only those CIs that have been normalized or those that do not require normalization. To reconcile the appropriate CIs, enable the Process Normalized CIs Only option in the Job Editor.

To reconcile manually created CIs, perform the following steps:

  1. Create a custom job.
  2. Define the job for the classes in which you populate the data.
  3. Identify the CIs. 
    1. Ensure that you adhere to the identification rules for the discovered jobs so that your CI matches with the discovered CIs.
    2. Ensure that you populate at least those columns/attributes correctly that are defined in the identification rules (This helps in correct identification of the CI with the existing CI)
  4. Set a lower precedence value for the manual dataset, but set a highest precedence to the manually edited columns/attributes of the dataset.

CIs are partially merged when the merge process fails due to data issues.

See the following flowchart that explains the checks to be performed if the CIs are partially merged:

 Run the CMDB Data Analyzer utility to find duplicate CIs. See  Using CMDB Data Analyzer to Investigate CMDB Data Issues .

Run Reconciliation Engine's (RE) Identification activity across multiple datasets. For example, open the BMC.CORE:BaseElement form and enter the RE ID value and search. If a CI having the same RE ID is found in multiple datasets, it means that the same CI exists in those datasets.

Run the CMDB Data Analyzer utility to find orphan CIs. See  Using CMDB Data Analyzer to Investigate CMDB Data Issues .

The following table lists the common RE issues and provides access to relevant resources and workaround to these issues.

Issue

Resolution

Duplicate CIs in discovery/source datasets. This error message is logged in the RE Job log.

See Reconciliation Engine multiple CI match issues.

ARERR[120092] The dataset ID and Reconciliation Identity combination is not unique.

  • Check the instance or data of the source dataset
  • Check whether the instance is duplicate
  • Check if your identification rules are correct (by using multiple attributes)

Multiple instances found in target dataset.

This error message is logged in the RE Job log.

  • Check if your identification rules are correct
  • Check the instances or duplicate data in the target dataset

ARERR[101049] Dataset <> does not exist.

Aborting... Activity ended with error.

This error occurs when you delete or rename any dataset and it does not get updated on all required places such as precedence sets etc.

Perform the following:

  1. Check all existing precedence sets and do a cleanup of dataset in question.
  2. Create a dataset with the same name which RE is looking for
Cannot find the endpoint of relationship.

This error occurs if you manually modify a CI and fail to modify its relationship, causing data integrity issues.

 

For more information, see Troubleshooting reconciliation based on error messages.

To migrate the RE jobs, you must:

  1. Export the RE job data using the Reconciliation Console. See Exporting reconciliation definitions.
  2. Import the ARX data using BMC Remedy Data Import tool. See  Enabling the Data Import utility Open link in the BMC Remedy AR System online documentation.

The Reconciliation Engine process terminates because:

  • The AR System server or database is busy and is unable to process the requests coming from RE.
  • The AR System server is either not responding or not reachable.

In the above scenarios, RE awaits for a response from the AR System server and then terminates itself.

For more information, see the Knowledge Article.

Perform the following:

  • Check whether the job schedule is deleted or modified.
  • Check whether the Application Pending form has an entry for that job.
    • If there is no entry for that job, enable the AR API, SQL and Filter logs.
    • If the entry exists, check the AR Dispatcher log.
  • Check whether RE is registered with the AR Dispatcher.
  • Check the number of entries in the Application Pending form.
    • If there are many entries in the form and if you do not need them, delete those entries from the form.
  • Check whether the RE job entry is in the Queued state in the RE job run. If yes, delete the entry from the Queued state.
  • If you are using RE in a server group environment, ensure that the Reconciliation-Engine-Suspended flag is set to False (F). Note: You cannot set this value manually.

Perform the following:

  1. Enable server-side logs.
    1. Edit the log4j.properties file located in the <AR_Installation_Home>\midtier\WEB-INF\classes folder. Add the following lines:

      log4j.rootLogger=DEBUG, atrium
        log4j.appender.atrium=org.apache.log4j.RollingFileAppender
        log4j.appender.atrium.File=C:/Program Files/BMC Software/ARSystem/midtier/logs/atrium-ui.log
        log4j.appender.atrium.MaxFileSize=25MB
        log4j.appender.atrium.MaxBackupIndex=10
        log4j.appender.atrium.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
        log4j.appender.atrium.layout.ConversionPattern==%d[%t] %-5p %C{1} - %m%n

      and

      log4j.logger.com.bmc.atrium=DEBUG
        log4j.logger.com.bmc.bsm.atrium= DEBUG
        log4j.logger.com.bmc.atrium.flex.ds= DEBUG

    2. (BMC Atrium Core 7.6.04 or earlier): Edit the <AR_HOME>\ARSystem\midtier\WEB-INF\flex\services-config.xml file.

      (BMC Atrium Core 8.0 or later): Edit the <AR_HOME>\ARSystem\midtier\WEB-INF\AtriumWidget\flex\services-config.xml file.

      In the services-config.xml file, modify the logging level from Warn to Debug. 

      For example, change the following line:
      <target class="flex.messaging.log.ConsoleTarget" level="WARN">
      To
      <target class="flex.messaging.log.ConsoleTarget" level=“DEBUG">
  2. Enable client-side logs.
    For information about enabling client-side logs, see BMC Atrium Core Console client-side logging.

 See this  knowledge article .



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