Best practices for implementation
This topic provides a library of the best practices for BMC Change Automation 2.0. Consider the following best practices when implementing BMC Change Automation solution.
Configure change templates
Change templates populate the required or missing data in a change record. BMC recommends that you configure change templates to expedite the process of creating a change record.
You can associate a process flow to the change template, which gets automatically applied to the change record. This further automates and expedites the change process and reduces manual intervention.
For information about configuring change templates, see Configuring change templates in BMC Remedy Change Management 9.1 online documentation.
Configure change template selection rules
Change template selection rules enable you to apply the right template by filtering for a template with the best match to your input criteria. The template is then applied to the change record. BMC recommends that you define these rules with different criteria that suit your business needs.
For information about configuring and using the rules, see Managing-change-template-selection-rules.
Ensure automation devices are in sync
Ensure that the devices in BMC Server Automation are identified as valid CIs in CMDB. For more information about integrating with the CMDB, see Configuring BMC BladeLogic Atrium Integrationin the BMC Server Automation 8.9 online documentation.
Use workflow customization windows
BMC Atrium Orchestrator is a highly customizable product where you might want to perform any customizations that you deem important in a particular phase of a workflow execution. For example, you might want to share updates to another tool or you might perform customizations to enrich a Request For Change (RFC) with more information.
In BMC Change Automation, wrapper workflows are provided to enable you to tailor the RFC without modifying the workflow.
Benefits:
- Without modifying the workflow, you can perform modifications without affection the out-of-the-box settings.
- These customization windows help you debug errors and perform troubleshooting by isolating the exact input and output parameter that led to the error.
BMC recommends that you perform the customizations only in the windows that are provided to you as part of the wrapper workflows. These customization windows represent empty implementations of the workflow in which you can perform your customizations without altering the default behavior.
However, after performing customizations you must set the connection details again for the modified modules to get activated.
The following image depicts these windows in the workflows:
The following table describes the workflow stages:
Stage | Description |
|---|---|
1: At the time of creating or updating a change record | Run CLA_ITSM_Integration:CustomizedProcesses:Window1 to perform an operation before creating or updating a Request for Change. You can use all the available parameters provided in the workflow as input. However, you can use only a few parameters as output. This restriction on output parameters is applied to prevent any impact on the functionality of the solution. |
2: After the ChangeID and TaskID are sent back to the automation system | Run BMC-SA-CLA_ITSM_Integration:CustomizedProcesses:Window2 to perform an operation after the Change ID and Task ID are sent back to the automation system. You can use all the available parameters provided in the workflow as input. However, there are no output parameters available for use. |
3: At the time of polling for updates | Run BMC-SA-CLA_ITSM_Integration:CustomizedProcesses:Window3 to perform an operation before the updates are sent back to the automation system. You can use all the available parameters provided in the workflow as input. However, there are no output parameters available for use. |
Use an external database
BMC recommends the use of external databases for the following use cases:
- If you are using multi-peer environment.
- If you are using BMC Atrium Orchestrator for use cases other than those supported by BMC Change Automation; see use cases.
In a single-peer environment, if there is no external database, you can store the data in the embedded Derby database. However, for a multi-peer environment, the data should be added to an external database.
For information about how high availability is achieved in BMC Atrium Orchestrator, see High Availability at a single locationand High availability for multiple servers at a single locationin the BMC Atrium Orchestrator Platform 7.9 online documentation.
BMC Change Automation solution is certified on the following databases:
- Derby
- Oracle 12c
- SQL Server 2012
For information about creating the database tables required for this integration, see Creating-database-tables.