This documentation supports the 21.05 version of BMC Helix CMDB.To view an earlier version, select the version from the Product version menu

Installed software model

Each unique software or application installed on the server, workstation, laptop or desktop is modeled as a distinct BMC_Product Configuration Item (CI) instance.

The BMC_Product class is used to model commercial and custom software installed on servers, desktops and laptops. However, the BMC_Product class can also be used to model other types of software, such as software suites, software bundles, plug-ins, components, and patches. In such cases, the ProductType attribute can be used to differentiate the software type.

Related topics

Software-and-application-models

Default CDM mapping


Best practice
Even though patches can be modeled by using the BMC_Patch class, we recommend that patches be federated rather than imported into the CMDB.

Basic installed software on a single server

The following diagram shows three BMC_Product Configuration Item (CI) instances that are connected to the computer system through the BMC_HostedSystemComponent relationship with Name=INSTALLEDSOFTWARE. 

The BMC_HostedSystemComponent relationship is a weak relationship. A weak relationship means that the destination CI cannot exist without its source CI, the computer system. When the computer system is deleted or marked as deleted, all the weak destination CIs are also deleted or marked as deleted, only if CascadeDelete option is enabled for the relationship. Another important aspect of this model is that the product CIs are not shared among the different computer systems even if the product CIs represent the same software.

 server_product 1.png

Same software installed on a second server

The following diagram shows a second server that has the same three products installed on it. For example, even though Oracle Java Platform is installed on both servers, and both servers have the same version installed (1.4.2), each installation is modeled as an independent CI.

Installed software is modeled in this manner due to incident, change, license management, and impact use cases. For example, a change record should be directly related to the precise CI being changed. If there were a single shared CI representing instances of the same software on multiple computer systems, then change and impact modelling would not show appropriate results. Licensing use cases also count the number of product CIs in the infrastructure and require that each be modeled distinctly.

 server product 2.png

Two versions of installed software

In some cases, there may be two versions of the same product installed on a computer. Each of the product versions are distinct CI instances which can differ by market version, version number, or both. The different instances are differentiated by the MarketVersion and VersionNumber attributes.



 

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