Lifecycle and status of entities and domains

The current lifecycle state of an entity or domain is identified by a status, which can change during the lifecycle of the entity or domain to reflect changes in its usage or activity. An entity is deleted automatically when all of its data is aged out. You can also explicitly cause all dismissed entities to be deleted by emptying the Dismissed entities folder.

The following table lists the possible status:

Status	Description	UI representation
AUTO	The entity is new; it has just been automatically imported by an ETL task and has not been associated with a domain yet.	Newly discovered folder
ACTIVE	The entity is a child of one or more domains.	Domains, Services & Applications folder
INACTIVE	The entity is not associated with a domain but data may still be collected.	Unassigned folder. The entity may be made invisible. For more information, see INACTIVE.
DISMISSED	The entity is not associated with a domain and new data may not be collected anymore. Existing data may still be viewed and analyzed until it is aged out.	Dismissed folder

Example lifecycle of a system

A system from which you just started collecting data is imported into BMC Helix Continuous Optimization (status: AUTO).
The system is assigned to a specific domain (status: ACTIVE).
After some months, the system is removed from the domain because it is not used anymore, though it may be used again in the future (status: INACTIVE).
After some time, you stop collecting data from the system altogether, because it is no longer relevant (status: DISMISSED).

AUTO - Newly discovered systems and business drivers

Data is imported into BMC Helix Continuous Optimization by Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) tasks using external monitoring tools as sources of information. In most cases, ETL tasks can detect if monitoring instruments are collecting data for new systems or business drivers and create new entities automatically. These newly created entities are placed in the Newly discovered folder. They are not yet children of any domain and are in the AUTO status.

ACTIVE - Currently used systems and business drivers

A system or business driver is said to be ACTIVE when it is a child of one or more domains under the Domains, Services & Applications folder. An AUTO entity can become ACTIVE in the following ways:

A hierarchy rule automatically makes it a child of a domain because a connector asserts a parent-child relationship.
You manually import the entity into a domain.

A system can be associated with two or more domains when the two domains represent a different logical view of systems. For example, one groups systems by operating system, the other by datacenter location.

A business driver can be associated with two or more domains when the two domains represent a different logical view of business drivers.

For more information about hierarchies, see Hierarchies.

INACTIVE - Unassigned systems and business drivers

A system or business driver is said to be INACTIVE when it is not currently a child of any domain, but its metrics can still be collected. An ACTIVE entity can become INACTIVE in the following ways:

The hierarchy manager no longer finds any relationship between the entity and any domain under Domains, Services & Applications. This happens because the connector that regularly asserts a relationship between that entity and a domain is no longer asserting it, presumably because the data source no longer contains data about the entity.
You manually break the relationship between the entity and its parent.

When an ACTIVE entity becomes INACTIVE, BMC Helix Continuous Optimization automatically places it in the Unassigned folder.

If an entity becomes INACTIVE because of a temporary gap in data at the data source, then as soon as the connector finds data on it again, the relationship is reasserted, and the hierarchy manager places the entity back under a domain, making the entity ACTIVE again. BMC Helix Continuous Optimization will no longer show this entity under the Unassigned folder.

Similarly, if you manually import the entity under a domain, then the entity is moved from the Unassigned folder back into the hierarchy under Domains, Services & Applications, making it ACTIVE again.

Tip

If systems are being deleted in your environment, you can expect the Unassigned folder to grow because connectors no longer find these systems and they are marked INACTIVE. This is common in a virtualized environment where virtual machines are deleted on a regular basis.

Otherwise, an INACTIVE entity remains in the Unassigned folder until it is deleted.

For more information about hierarchies, see Hierarchies.

DISMISSED - Dismissed systems and business drivers

You can explicitly dismiss a system or a business driver by marking it as DISMISSED. It then appears in the Dismissed folder. BMC Helix Continuous Optimization does not allow any data to be collected for this entity, although existing data can still be viewed and analyzed until it ages out.

To delete all the dismissed entities from the Dismissed folder, click Clean up all dismissed objects. The Entities Cleaner task will delete all the related resources, lookup, and metrics of the dismissed entities.