Adding a relationship between CIs

In BMC CMDB, most relationships between configuration items (CIs) are created in bulk discovery applications, such as BMC Discovery.

However, you can use the CMDB Explorer to create relationships manually between CIs. For example, you might enhance your service model by relating business service CIs to physical CIs. You might also create relationships between CIs that were created manually through the CMDB Explorer.

Best practices for CI relationships

We recommend that you add impact relationships between CIs. In Remedy with Smart IT, a change coordinator can perform an impact analysis to determine the impact of a change, as described in Determining the impact of changes in Smart IT.

When you create CI and relationship instances, follow the recommendations outlined in Representing-CIs-and-their-relationships-in-the-Common-Data-Model. If you do not follow these recommendations while creating CI and relationship instances, the out-of-the-box queries might ignore these instances while displaying the results list.

To add a relationship between CIs

Perform the following steps to add a relationship between CIs:

Click the triangular icon just below the CI.
Extend the arrow from the circled CI to the other CI on the Explorer canvas.
Connect the two CIs.
The Select Relationship dialog box is displayed. Only the relationships that are available between the two CIs are displayed in the drop-down list.
Select the relationship between the CIs. Specify a name and a short description.
Click OK to save the relationship details.