Searching your data

Introduction to searching your data

You can search for information in the BMC Helix Discovery datastore by using the Search box that is displayed at the top-right of each page. Click the magnifying glass icon for search options. You can run a quick search, or a basic search directly from the Search box and panel. You can also perform an advanced search, and access the following more advanced searches from links on the search panel:

• Visual Query
• Generic Search Query (Search service)

This topic provides instructions on using the quick search and basic search that can be performed directly from the search panel. 

To perform a quick search

In the top search box, enter the keyword or text string you want to search for, and press Enter.

To search for a phrase, enclose it in quotation marks (for example "apache webserver"). 

To limit the kinds of nodes found by the search, prefix the search terms with the node kind followed by a colon; for example, host: Windows Server, which will find "Windows Server."

The node kind is case insensitive. You can use any node kind defined in the taxonomy, plus the following abbreviations:

To perform a basic search 

A basic search enables you to search for keywords or text strings occurring anywhere in the BMC Helix Discovery datastore. The following screenshot displays the various search options available.

1. In the top search box, enter the keyword or text string you want to search for.
2. Click the magnifying glass icon to display the search options.

3. Under Section, choose an option that you want to search:

   • Administration
   • Applications
   • Discovery
   • Infrastructure 

   The Any option searches all modules. See Notes on Searching for a list of the objects in each module.

4. Under Match, choose the type of search you want to run:
   
   • Exact Match—Requires an exact match for an entire attribute. This search is case-sensitive.
   • Word Match—Searches for entire words (separated by spaces or punctuation) and does not find partial words or substrings. For example, if you search for "Windows," the system returns Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2 or Microsoft Windows Phone 7.5 and so on. However, if you are searching for a person called Robertson, the search does not find details if you enter "Robert." This search is not case-sensitive.

5. If you need to view the data completeness for all items, select the Show Data Completeness check box, which indicates whether the Data Completeness indicator will be shown for each returned object.

   Note

   The default setting permits faster searching when large numbers of objects are involved, as the system does not need to calculate data completeness values.

6. Click Search.
   • If objects of more than one kind are found, a page is displayed, listing the number of objects of each kind found.
     Click any entry in this list to display the list of objects of this kind.
   • If objects of only one kind are found, the matching objects are listed immediately. The list shows summary attributes only, and it is possible that the text you searched for does not appear in these attributes.

7. Click any entry to display details of the object.

   Tips on searching

   If your search returns too many matches, you can refine it by running a further search on the items.