Normalization

The normalization engine in BMC Helix CMDB provides a centralized, customizable, and uniform method of overcoming data consistency problems. This consistency in CMDB data allows applications to consume data to make good decisions. For example, BMC Helix ITSM: Asset Management can use the normalized data from CMDB to correctly report on software license usage.

When multiple sources and discovery tools provide data to BMC Helix CMDB, data consistency problems might occur, such as:

  • Inconsistent categories and naming of configuration items (CIs)
  • Duplicate configuration items (CIs)

Related topics

Normalization-process

Configuring-the-Normalization-Engine

Preparing-for-normalization

Overview-of-normalization-modes

The normalization process ensures that product names and categorization are consistent across different datasets and from different data providers.

The following figure gives an overview of the normalization process :

Normalization example.jpg

 

Use the Normalization Engine to normalize data before or after it is written to a dataset in BMC Helix CMDB. You can also specify the normalization rules. For example, you may want to normalize a specific dataset, such as BMC.ADDM. You can enable or disable normalization for each dataset, as well as configure other normalization features. Similarly, you can select a specific class to normalize, such as BMC_Product. 

However, you cannot normalize specific classes in different datasets. You can only configure classes across all datasets.

 

 

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