Defining CI Outage service targets

CI Outage service targets record the outages or unavailable instances for a specific CI. CI Outage service targets also track the availability of configuration items (CIs) by consuming outage records from a configured form. BMC Service Level Management (BMC SLM) is shipped configured to use the AST:CI Unavailability form to track availability of CIs defined within the CMDB. 

The Configure Service Target Data Source page in the Administration Console shows that the default fields used from the AST:CI Unavailability form are Actual Start Date+ and Actual End Date +. If you use a customized form, you must select two Date/Time fields to hold the start date and end date. 

You can view the metrics of the CIs related to a service target in BMC SLM Dashboards and Reports. 

The tracking of CI Outages using the AST:CI Unavailability form is different from availability service targets, which are tracked by monitoring changes in state on a specific record on a form.

After you configure your CI Outage service target, you can use the service target wizard to define your service targets by specifying general information, costs, measurement criteria, and milestones and actions for the service target. 

The wizard contains four steps that allow you to input this information by using both basic and advanced modes:

1. Defining general information for CI Outage service targets
2. Defining costs for CI Outage service targets
3. Defining measurement criteria for CI Outage service targets
4. Defining milestones and actions for CI Outage service targets

Rules for CI Outage service targets

The following rules apply to CI Outage occurrences:

• Only one outage can be open at a time.
• When an open outage exists, you cannot submit a complete outage record that overlaps the existing open outage.

The following figures describe possible outage scenarios:

Legend:

• Black line: Existing outage
• Red line: New outage
• Blue line: Resulting outage