Orientation
Refer to the information in this topic for an understanding of the BMC Change Automation solution.
Overview
BMC Change Automation is a solution that integrates BMC Server Automation system and BMC Change Management to allow creation of Change records for the relevant automation job that needs to be executed. Both the systems talk to each other using BMC Atrium Orchestrator. This solution enables you to automate the Change creation and approval process thus enabling efficient coordination between the two systems.
The following are the highlights of BMC Change Automation:
- Ensures compliance to the process of creating Change record.
- Eliminates the need to manually create change records thus reducing implementation effort.
- Reduces the risk of unauthorized and unplanned changes.
- Provides easier-to-follow documentation of all changes within the solution.
- Enriches the change record with meaningful and relevant data. Having meaningful data within the Change record expedites the implementation process and reduces the efforts involved.
- Provides automated change records that facilitate better change tracking. This enables the Change Approval Board (CAB) to better understand the impact of the Change and the risks involved.
Product roles
Refer to the following table to understand the roles and responsibilities of each product involved in this solution:
Role of BMC Server Automation | Role of BMC Atrium Orchestrator | Role of BMC Remedy Change Management |
|---|---|---|
Efficiently enable running of automation jobs to perform operations on one or more servers
| Serve as a transport layer and ensure effective bidirectional communication between BMC Server Automation and Change Management system. BMC Atrium Orchestrator is responsible for enriching and mapping data, implementing a retry mechanism to ensure guaranteed delivery of data, and facilitating bidirectional communication.
| Provide governance over change processes in IT environment
|
Scenario
Consider a scenario where Ajay, the data center operator at Calbro services needs to run a job. As per ITIL standards, every job execution must have a Request For Change (RFC) created and that RFC must be approved for the successful execution of the job.
Ajay therefore manually creates and submits an RFC, and waits for the approval of the RFC. Periodically, Ajay checks the approval status of the RFC and after the RFC is approved, goes ahead and runs the job.
Ajay follows this process almost every day and often times, he forgets to submit an RFC and runs a job without approval. This leads to several unauthorized and undocumented changes in the system. Changes are not tracked and often this poses a challenge to Change managers in assessing the risks involved.
David, the VP of operations at Calbro services, identifies that this kind of use of the system is against the norm and involves risks. David decides to invest in a solution that adheres to the ITIL standard practices wherein every change in the IT Infrastructure and its configuration items is authorized and documented.
David uses BMC Change Automation solution to tackle these challenges in his organization. BMC Change Automation automates the process of submitting an RFC every time an automation job needs execution. Thus, providing the following benefits:
- Enforces the ITIL standard practice of authorizing and documenting every change in the IT infrastructure or any configuration item.
- Guarantees automatic creation of change record for every automation job
- Ensures automated documentation of all changes
- Reduces the risk of unauthorized and unplanned changes
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