Hub and Spoke capability overview

This topic provides conceptual information about the Hub and Spoke capabilities of BMC Remedy IT Service Management (BMC Remedy ITSM).

For information about configuring your installation for the Hub and Spoke capability, see Setting up the Hub and Spoke capability .

A Hub and Spoke environment is a logical topology that allows a single service provider company (residing on the hub server) to support multiple operating companies (residing each on their own spoke server).

Note

Service Provider Company and Operating Company have specific meanings in the hub and spoke environment:

A Service Provider Company, created on a hub server, provides services to operating companies on a spoke server. When you create a service provider company, the Company Type attribute, which can contain multiple values, must include the Service Provider company type. It must not, however, include the Operating company type. The Service Provider company type and the Operating company type are mutually exclusive.
An Operating Company that is pushed out to a spoke server consumes the services of a service provider company. When you create an Operating company, the Company Type attribute, which can contain multiple values, must include the Operating company type. It must not, however, include the Service Provider company type. The Operating company type and the Service Provider company type are mutually exclusive.

Tip

When working in a Hub and Spoke environment, when you hear:

Service Provider company, think "hub server".
Operating company, think "spoke server".

Data security ensured

The Hub and Spoke topology ensures data security between the service provider and individual operating companies, because no data passes between the individual spoke servers in the Hub and Spoke topology.

Unlimited spokes

There is no limit to the number of spoke servers that a hub server can support. The Hub and Spoke capability is designed so that all transaction processing is handled on the spoke server. The hub server receives only a subset of data from the spoke server, which allows the hub server to easily scale horizontally when there is a large volume of tickets.

Use case

Using the Hub and Spoke capability, a member of the service provider's support staff can work with records from any of the operating companies with which the support staff person is registered. The hub system receives and stores only a subset of the data from the original record (company name, client name, record type, and record ID number). The rest of the record's data remains securely on the spoke system. The hub system then displays the transactional data in the corresponding application console on a workstation connected to the hub server. There, a member of the support staff can open the record directly from the spoke server, view the record's details, and work the record through its lifecycle.

For example, Francie Stafford is a member of the support staff of Calbro Services, which is a service provider for several operating companies. Francie opens her Incident Management console and sees three newly assigned incident requests, one each from Operating Company A, Operating Company B, and Operating Company C. Because Calbro Services uses the Hub and Spoke capability, only the information shown on Francie's console is actually stored on the hub server. When Francie opens the new incident request from Operating Company B, she is automatically connected to Operating Company B's BMC Incident Management system (which is on the spoke server), where she views the incident request's details and works with the incident request through its lifecycle.

Hub and Spoke architecture

Supported applications

The Hub and Spoke capability is supported from the following applications or consoles:

BMC Change Management
BMC Service Desk: Incident Management
BMC Service Desk: Problem Management
BMC Service Request Management - Work Order application
Overview console