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  This documentation supports the 20.02 version of BMC CMDB.To view an earlier version, select the version from the Product version menu.

Building a service model using BMC Impact Designer

Service models can be created using the following BMC products:

  • BMC Impact Model Designer
    This tool is used when leveraging CIs that have been maintained in BMC CMDB.
  • administration console
    The Administration Console is used to create simple service models, which are typically not large in scale and maintained manually.

BMC Impact Model Designer is leveraged from BMC Atrium Explorer and uses the same UI as that of BMC Atrium Explorer. You can use both of these products to create service models. However, BMC Impact Model Designer contains the following unique functionality that is not available in BMC Atrium Explorer:

  • Creating schedules and timeframes for CIs
  • Editing impact management attributes of CIs using the GUI

When you build a service mode in BMC Impact Model Designer and publish it to Infrastructure Management, the CIs are stored in CMDB which is the database used by other BMC products also.

Before you begin

You must first launch BMC Impact Model Designer from BMC Remedy AR System:

  1. Open a browser and enter the URL in the format 
    http://<AR server mid-tier hostname>:<mid-tier port>/arsys.
  2. Log in to BMC Remedy AR System.
  3. In the Home page, click the Atrium Core Console link on the left side.
  4. In the BMC Atrium Core Console page, click Impact Model Designer.

BMC Atrium Core Console is displayed. BMC Impact Model Designer is a part of BMC Atrium Core Console.

atrium_core_console.JPG

To create configuration items (CIs) in BMC Impact Model Designer

If BMC Discovery and Dependency Mapping is present, CIs can be exported directly to CMDB.

Otherwise use the Classes drawer in BMC Impact Model Designer to create service CIs.

  1. When you open BMC Impact Model Designer, asset view opens automatically.
  2. Drag the component type from the Classes drawer to the asset view. When you drag a component, click Yes in the Convert View to Sandbox View dialog box to convert the asset view to sandbox view.
  3. In the sandbox view, right-click the new component icon and select Edit.

To specify attributes for configuration items

  1. Access the General tab.
  2. In the Short Description text box, enter a component description that is meaningful to your enterprise.
  3. In the Name text box, replace the default name for the CI with a specific CI name that is meaningful to your enterprise and that you want to use as the label of the CI in a view.
  4. (Optional) In the Owner Name text box, enter the name of the individual responsible for the CI.

  5. (Optional) In the Owner Contact text box, enter a contact method, such as a phone number or e-mail address, for the individual.

    Note

    A CI is displayed in the sandbox view with the short description attribute instead of the name attribute as its label. You can configure this label to display the name of the CI instead of the short description. To do this, you need to edit the BMC.CORE.CONFIG:BMC_UIComponent form using BMC Remedy Action Request System User (BMC AR User). For more information, see the BMC Atrium Core online documentation.

To specify Infrastructure Management specific attributes for CIs

  1. In the Cell list, select the cell on which the selected CI gets published. BMC Impact Model Designer retrieves the list of cell names from the BMC CMDB. If the cell that you need is not listed, you will need to add a cell. See Managing-cells for information about adding a cell.
  2. In the Publish to Infrastructure Management Performance Manager (BPPM) area, select:
    • Inherit if this CI is not selected by a Publication Filter. The CI may get published as a provider of a CI that is selected to be published with its providers. In this case, if even one of the consumers of the CI is set to Yes and Propagate, the CI is also published. Inherit is selected by default. See Service Model terms and concepts for explanations about the service model relationship between providers and consumers.

    • Yes and Propagate to publish not only the CI but also all the providers of the CI to the cell through the OOB Atrium - Myself and My Providers publication filter.

      Note

      Ensure that you select this option for at least the top-level consumer CI in your service model.

      If you are creating a discrete service model, select Yes and Propagate for the cell of the top-level CI. If you are creating a distributed service model, select Yes and Propagate for the cells of the top-level CIs of the submodel that resides on the Child Server.
      If you are creating a distributed service model, ensure that all the Infrastructure Management Servers on which the service model is distributed are mentioned in the pserver.conf file.

    • Yes, Only Me to publish only the currently selected CI to the cell through the OOB Atrium - Only Myself publication filter.
    • No to not publish the CI to the cell and to not publish the CI's providers. This setting is applicable to all publication filters, that is, to the OOB Atrium publication filters and to user defined publication filters.
  3. On the Status and Alias tab, perform the following tasks:
    1. In the Status Computation list, select a status computation model. The default selection is Standard, which is acceptable for most CI definitions. For details about status computation models and slot values, see Service Model terms and concepts.
    2. In the Aliases text box, click Add Alias.
      Each CI must have a unique alias; if more than one CI has the same alias, publishing fails. Cell aliases define another name for a cell so that data can be sent to more than one cell. A cell can have multiple cell aliases. For more information about aliases see Service Model terms and concepts.
      • In the Alias text box, enter the alias and click OK.
      • (Optional) Enter additional aliases (one for each event that can potentially affect the status of the CI) by clicking Add Alias.
        Each alias that you enter is listed in the Aliases box.
  4. On the Permissions tab, assign the proper permission to each of the roles listed for this CI

To define relationships between configuration items

Impact relationships define how status propagation is passed from the provider CI to the consumer CI.

An active relationship is an impact relationship and indicates that the status of the CI depends on the status of the connected provider instance.

An inactive relationship means that no dependency exists or that the dependency is irrelevant to the model; in either case, an impact relationship does not exist.

Whenever the status of the provider instance changes, it is propagated to the connected consumer CI.

For each CI for which you are creating relationships, you must know:

  • whether it is a consumer or a provider for the related component
  • its relationship state value (active or inactive)
  • its status propagation model value (relationship policy)

To assign schedules to configuration items

After you have created relationships, test them to verify that they function in the way that you intended.

You can assign one or more components to service schedules by using the Schedule and Priority tab in the Edit Component Properties dialog box.

Service schedules are a combination of a defined schedule with a specific service model component that indicates when the component must meet availability or performance goals. Each component is assigned a service schedule (but it can be a schedule shared with other components).

  1. Access the Schedule screen by editing a CI.
  2. In the Schedule area, assign the appropriate service schedules information to the CI.
  3. In the Priority area, from the Propagate Priority to Providers list:
    • Select Yes to have the selected components propagate their self-priority to their causal components
    • Select No (default) if you do not want the self-priority to be propagated.
  4. In the Self Priority Function list, select a base priority for the CI.
  5. In the Priority and Cost by Timeframesarea:
    • Select a base priority for the high demand and low demand timeframes.
    • Enter the cost per second of the high demand and low demand timeframes in the Cost text boxes and the currency of the cost in the Cost Unit text box.
  6. The Other tab displays more information about the CI you created. Enter or edit values.
  7. Click OK to save the CI in BMC CMDB.

To promote the service model and publish objects to cells

Verify the following configurations before promoting the service model:

  • Each CI is assigned to a cell
  • All target cells that are registered in Infrastructure Management are running and have a live connection with the publishing server.
  • The publishing server is running in automated mode.
  • The Infrastructure Management class definitions are in sync. The publishing server validates the class definitions and establishes a live connection with Infrastructure Management, the BMC CMDB, and the cells before submitting the publication.
  1. On the toolbar, click the Promote Sandbox Changes icon to start the promotion.
  2. In the Promotion Preview dialog box, in the Instances to be Promoted area, you can filter the list of objects according to CIs, or relationships, or both. When you filter the list, it only affects what is visible, not what will be promoted. All items are promoted. You can click a CI to view its details in the right pane.
  3. In the right pane, review the list of attributes for the selected CI.
    You can use the Show list to view only those attributes that have been edited or all attributes.
  4. Click Promotion. When you submit a promotion, the Promotion Preview dialog box offers the opportunity to compare your unpromoted sandbox service model CIs and relationships with those that have already been promoted so that you can verify the work done in the current editing session. When you click Promotion, service model objects (CIs, impact relationships, and management data) shown in the preview are promoted (and subsequently automatically published). After a successful promotion, the publication of the service model is triggered. Publication may take some time depending on the size and load of the service model.
    A service model object is successfully promoted when it is moved from the sandbox to this dataset in the BMC CMDB.
  5. Run the pshowlog command from the system in which the publishing server is installed to check if publication is a success or a failure.
    From the CLI, run the following command:
    pshowlog [ -i User/Password[@Host[/Port] requestId | -h
    where
    -i User/Password[@Host[/Port] authenticates the specified user name and password with the Infrastructure Management Server running on the specified host computer and port; you can specify multiple hosts and ports
    RequestID is the ID of a specific publish request
    -h displays help information
    Example: pshowlog Z00000e8mu7xw9Xpa1ZfsMZeg4v1Z

Related topics

Creating-basic-service-models-from-the-administrator-console

Designing-a-service-model

Understanding-a-service-model

Publishing-Server-architecture

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