Creating service models

Before you begin

Before you create a service model, perform the following tasks:

• Identify the source of configuration item (CI) data and topology for the services in the service model. BMC Helix AIOps interacts with the following BMC and third-party products to gather configuration item (CI) data for services:
  • BMC Helix Discovery

  • Sources supported by BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations

• Determine whether you want to use service blueprints in the service model that you can use while adding dynamic content to the services. If yes, verify whether the out-of-the-box service blueprints meet your business requirements. If not, create your own blueprints. For more information, see Understanding-service-blueprints.
• Identify the metrics (for example, Network Utilization or CPU usage) for each service that indicate the service availability. You might want to add these metrics as health indicators. For more information, see Health indicators.
• Determine whether you need to use balancing profiles. These profiles provide the capability to set a threshold for the resources that are part of a cluster, thus ensuring optimal service performance. For more information, see Balancing profiles.
• Make sure the services you plan to include in the service model accurately reflect the application and supporting infrastructure such that the services are monitorable.

To create a service model

You can use existing services that are created in BMC Helix AIOps or BMC Helix Discovery or create a new service for a service model.

1. Click Services and then click Create Service.
   By default, New Business Service  is displayed.
   
2. To add an existing service, click the service in the Add Existing Service pane.
3. Click the existing service or click New Business Service and specify the following details in the Define Service pane:
   1. Specify the service name.
   2. Select the kind of service that you want to create.
      By default, a business service is created. For more information about service kinds, see Business services, technical services, and business applications.
   3. (Optional) Select service criticality from the list to mark the importance of the business service.
      By default, no default criticality is assigned to a service.

   4. Click Add Dynamic content to add dynamic components such as blueprints to a service.
      For more information, see To add dynamic content to a service.

      Important

      Either dynamic or static content is essential for defining a service, although you can define both for the same service.

   5. Click Add Static content to add static components such as configuration items (CIs) to the service.
      For more information, see To add static content to a service.
   6. Click Show Labels and select from the list or create one or more labels and assign the key-value pairs to the service.
      Labels act as filters to cater to multiple purposes ranging from monitoring a specific group of services to understanding the system-wide impact of some services, and so on. For example, services can be labeled by the regions they are located in or the departments they belong to.
      You can add a maximum of 10 labels. These labels are added to the Advanced filter list on the Services page.
   7. Click Save and Close.

4. (Optional) Click Health Indicators, click the service, and then click Add Health Indicator to add the metrics that you want to consider for the service health computation. Also, define alarm policies for those metrics.
   For more information, see Adding-health-indicators.

   Important

   Defining health indicators is mandatory for service predictions.

5. (Optional) Click Events, and then click the service to define the rules according to which events are considered for the service health computation.
   If you do not add event rules, BMC Helix AIOps considers all events to compute the service health. For more information, see Adding-event-rules.
   
   You can define both health indicators and event rules for a service to consider them for the service health computation. For information about how service health is computed when you define both of them, see Understanding-service-health-score.

1. (Optional) Click Health Profile, and then click the service and perform the following tasks:
   1. Specify whether you want to propagate the health score from the child services to the current service.
      For more information, see To stop propagating the health score.
   2. Add balancing profiles.
      For more information, see Adding-balancing-profiles.
   3. Customize the health score and health status.
      If you don't define the health score and health status, BMC Helix AIOps displays the service health based on the default values. For more information, see To customize health score for a service.
   4. (Optional) View content.
   5. Save and close.
2. (Optional) Click + Add Service to add more services as part of the service model and repeat step 2 to step 6.
3. Establish the parent and child relationship between services:

   1. Do one of the following: 

      • Use drag and drop (Use this method when you have a small number of services):
        1. Click and hold the service node that you want to indicate as a parent service.
           An arrow appears.
        2. Drag and drop the arrow on the service node that you want to indicate as a child service.
      • Use pop-up menu options (Use this method when you have multiple levels of service hierarchy)
        1. Right-click a service and select Connect to parent Service to add the service as a child to an existing service. 
        2. From the list of existing services, select the service that you want to assign as a parent service.
           Or
        3. Right-click a service and select Connect to child Service to add the service as a parent to an existing service. 
        4. From the list of existing services, select the service that you want to assign as a child service.

      The relationship between the parent and child service is indicated by a dotted arrow line with the Add icon.
      You can also change the relationship later while editing the service.

   2. Click Save.
      The service is added to the hierarchy.
4. Hide or unhide a service from the service hierarchy view.
   • To hide a service, right-click it and select Hide from view.
     The hidden service name appears in Advanced filter and its child services appear as a separate hierarchy. 
   • To unhide a service, perform the follow steps:
     1. In Advanced filter, expand Hidden from view.
     2. Clear the check box for the service.

     3. Click Apply filters.
        You can also unhide the services later while editing the service.

        Tip

        To clear all the check boxes at once, click Remove all.

The following image shows the service model at Apex Global that Susan has created to represent different business services in her organization:

To add a child or parent service to a service model

1. From the Services page, search and select a service you want to edit. 
   

   Important

   • The service that is created in BMC Helix Discovery by using blueprints can be edited in BMC Helix AIOps.
   • The services that are defined as groups in BMC Helix Operations Management and published as service models in BMC Helix AIOps cannot be edited in BMC Helix AIOps.
2. From the action menu,  select Edit Service.
   The Edit Service page shows the service model.
3. Hover over a service for which you want to add child or parent services, right-click, and select Add Child Service or Add Parent Service.
   The relationship between the parent and child service is indicated by a dotted arrow line with the Add icon.
4. Click Save.
   The service is added to the hierarchy.

To view the service details

1. Click Services.
2. In the search field, type the name of the service you want to view and click Search.
3. Click the service tile to view the following details:
   • Service name and severity level
   • Health score
   • Total events
   • Impacting events
   • Impacting sub-services
   • Health timeline
   • CI topology
   • Service hierarchy
   • Health indicators
   • Situations
   • Root cause
   • Service insights
     For information about the displayed service details, see Monitoring service health.

To view child or parent services of a service

1. From the Services page, search and select a service for which you want to see the child or parent services.
   The service details are displayed.
2. From the action menu, select Edit Service.
3. Click the service. 
   The Dependencies section in the Define Service pane shows all the parent services and child services of the selected service.
   
4. Click one of the dependencies to view the service name and CI kinds for the parent and child services.

To edit a service

1. From the Services page, search and select a service you want to edit.
   

   Important

   • The service that is created in BMC Helix Discovery by using blueprints can be edited in BMC Helix AIOps.
   • The services that are defined as groups in BMC Helix Operations Management and published as service models in BMC Helix AIOps cannot be edited in BMC Helix AIOps.

2. From the action menu, select Edit Service.
   On the Edit Service page, all other services except the service being edited are grouped under the Additional Services node. Use Disable grouping by Service Hierarchy to ungroup the services and view the entire hierarchy.

   Tip

   If you have a large number of services in the service hierarchy, use the search box to locate a particular service. When the service is located, it is highlighted and all other services are grouped under the Additional Services node at different levels of the hierarchy.

3.  Change the relationship between services. 

   1. Right-click the arrow that represents the relationship between two services.

   2. Click Flip Direction.
4. Hide or unhide a service from the service hierarchy view.
   • To hide a service, right-click it and select Hide from view.
     The hidden service name appears in Advanced filter and its child services appear as a separate hierarchy.    
   • To unhide a service, perform the follow steps:
     1. In Advanced filter, expand Hidden from view.
     2. Clear the check box for the service.

     3. Click Apply filters.

        Tip

        To clear all the check boxes at once, click Remove all.

5. Edit the other service details such as its kind, dynamic content, or static content as required.
6. Save and close.

To remove a service and its child services from a service hierarchy

1. From the Services page, search and select a service that you want to remove from the service hierarchy.
   The service details are displayed.
2. From the action menu, select Edit Service.
3. Perform one of the following actions:
   • Right-click the service that you want to delete along with its child services and select Remove element from hierarchy.

   • Right-click the arrow above the service that you want to delete along with its child services and select Remove child element and structure from hierarchy.
     The relationship between the parent and child service is indicated by a dotted arrow line with the Delete icon.

     Tip

     Right-click the dotted arrow and select Undo Deletion to undo the delete action.

4. Click Save.
   The service is removed from the hierarchy. 

To delete a service

1. On the Services page, search and select a service you want to delete.
2. From the action menu, select Delete Service.
3. Click Proceed to delete.