Setting up service context to share business service CI information with other applications

Within companies, different departments maintain and track different aspects of the business. For example, one department might be responsible for incident management, and another might handle service requests for providing access to all business applications within the company. However, people working in the IT service request department might not have access to incident management information. Without correct information about services and service owners, the different departments might find it challenging to determine the health of a particular business service or the negative impact on the overall business if the service is out of order.

Related topics

Service-Context-configuration-settings

Service-Context-plug-in

Troubleshooting-the-Service-Context-plug-in

Configuring authentication for BMC Atrium Service Context

Product-overview

Key concepts: Service Context

Example

Within Apex Global, different departments maintain and track different aspects of the business. For example, one organization might be responsible for incident management, and another might handle service requests to provide access to all business applications within the company.

However, people working in the IT service request organization might not have access to incident management information. Without correct information about services and service owners, the different organizations might find it challenging to determine the health of a particular business service or the negative impact on the overall business if the service is out of order.

The configuration managers at Apex Global use

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to easily view critical information about a business service and its performance. This information, such as related incidents, changes, and configuration items, is displayed in a summarized format that employees across the organization can access.

image2018-11-14_14-17-0.png

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enables you to easily view critical information about a business service and its performance. This information, such as related incidents, changes, and configuration items, is displayed in a summarized format that employees across your organization can access.

icon-play.pnghttps://youtu.be/dtlbEfiqMuo

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architecture

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is installed as an adapter (or plug-in) with , as shown in the following figure. This adapter collects attributes and data from compatible BMC applications by using web services published by these applications in a web services registry. 

Attributes are collected from various BMC applications appear in the Service Context Administration window. In this window, the attributes can be configured for display in the Service Context Summary window. The Service Context adapter contains its own cache that helps to manage the flow of attributes and data to the user interface. 

The Service Context adapter cache accesses attributes and related data as an internal Service Context user. This user can be any  user with administrator permissions and a fixed license. 

When you install a BMC application or suite, you can provide information needed by

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. In this case, the installer program registers the web service and configures the

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user for you. You can also perform these steps after installation. For more information, see Service-Context-for-BMC-Helix-ITSM-applications or the online documentation for your BMC application, located at http://docs.bmc.com. 

Diagram showing the Service Context architecture

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components

The following components are required for 

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to function. Service context architecture shows the relationships among these components.

Note

To start using the

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in

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you must first configure the  and  configuration steps. Also, for

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to behave as expected in BMC applications, you must complete the setup process required for these applications.


Process for service context

The following table lists the required process, in the order they must be completed:



Process to enable 

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in  applications

Perform the following tasks to enable 

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in the  applications, 

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applications, and  applications:

Task

For more information, see...

Set up  components required by

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.
Note: You can ignore this step if the  is already configured in the .

Register web services.

Set up a user with administrative permissions identified with

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.

Set up users who access the Service Context Summary window in  and have the correct permissions.

In the context of B, the

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permissions are rolled up in the  permissions.

Configure the

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to display the information you want.

Troubleshooting the

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plug-ins.

If you have problems configuring

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, see Troubleshooting-the-Service-Context-plug-in

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permissions

To configure and use

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, you must have the appropriate assigned permission roles.

For more information about assigning  permissions, see BMC-Atrium-Core-permission-roles-within-applications.


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permission roles

Applications that interact with 

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BMC applications provide data to

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, and also enable users to launch the Service Context Summary window. These applications include:

  •  (), including:

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Important

To use

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with BMC applications, the most recent versions of these applications must be installed. For more information about versions, see http://www.bmc.com/support/product-availability-compatibility.

For more information about the data provided by each application or suite, see Attributes that are displayed in Service Context.

Troubleshooting

When you launch the Service Context page, and if you see the following error, click OK and proceed: 

Error in plugin :
BMC.ARDBC.ATRIUM.SERVICECONTEXT
Cannot invoke
"net.sf.ehcache.Cache.get(java.io.Serializabl e)"

This error occurs if the Atrium plug-in pod has restarted after a zero-downtime upgrade and Service Context is started within 10 minutes of the restart.



 

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