Viewing drift reports

After you run a comparison job, view drift reports and the associated drift details in the Drift Console. Each time you refresh the Drift Console, any new drift reports created by running comparison jobs are displayed.

The Drift Console is the primary interface for viewing and taking actions to manage or resolve drifts. The Drift Console is also used to view the details of a drift displayed in the Drift Dashboard.

The Drift Console provides drift information at a more detailed level than the Drift Dashboard. It lists detailed information about each drift such as the type and priority of the drift and the number, name, and attributes of the CIs affected by the drift.

Related topics

Creating-a-comparison-job

Drift-management-overview

Remediating-drifts

Use the following methods to view the details of a drift report:

  • Select an entry in Drift Reports.
    Additional details about the Drift Report are displayed in the smaller panes at the bottom.
  • Click the View Details button.
    The Drift Report Details for the highlighted Drift Report are displayed.

Drift types

A detected drift is classified as one of the following types:

  • Added - CI exists in the target dataset of CIs but does not exist in the baseline. A drift of this type can be the result of the addition of new hardware to the network, addition of memory added to a computer, or the addition of new software.
  • Modified - CI in the target has a different attribute value as compared with the attribute value in the baseline. A drift of this type can be the result of the change in an attribute value.
  • Removed - CI does not exist in the target set of CIs but does exist in the baseline, for example, the removal of hardware or memory.
  • RelationshipDrift - A change in the relationship between CIs in the target set as compared with the relationship between the same CIs in the baseline set.
    In addition, each Relationship Drift has an associated Drift Type of added, modified, or removed to show exactly what caused a drift in the relationship.

To search or filter drift reports and drift report details

Search for or filter specific drift reports and drift report details on the Drift Console. The search categories are populated from data stored in the AR System tables. For example, the baselines displayed in the search selection list are the same baselines displayed in the Authoring > Baselines > List of Items table.

  1. Perform a following action to search for specific reports:
    • On the Drift Console, from the Search Drift Reports By menu, select a search category
    • On the Drift Report Details pane, from the Search Drift Details By menu, select a search category.
  2. From the displayed Selection list dialog box, select a specific search item and click Search.
    If you are searching for a change or incident request, you are prompted for the change or incident ID number.

To view CI details detected in drift

  1. In the Drift Reports pane of the Drift Console, select an entry.
    The CIs showing drift are displayed in the Configuration Items (CIs) pane.

  2. On the Drift console, click View Details.
    The Drift Report Details for the selected Drift Report is displayed, showing an expanded view of the CIs showing drift.
    The following table describes the columns and associated data for the CIs:

    Column

    Description

    Name

    Name of the CI showing drift.

    Computer System Name

    Name of the parent computer system. For example, if a product CI is reflecting drift, this tells you which computer the product is on.

    Drift Type

    Determined by comparing the target CI or attribute with the baseline CI or attribute. The types of drift are:

    • Added--CI is present in the target but not in the baseline.
    • Removed--CI is present in the baseline but not in the target.
    • Modified--An attribute value on the target does not match the value in the baseline.
    • RelationshipDrift--One or more relationships between CIs has changed.

    CI Instance Class Id

    Data model class type of the drifted CI. If a Drift Report shows two CIs named Setting, this column tells you which class the CIs belong to. For example, one CI belongs to the Class Apache Setting and the other CI belongs to the Class VMWare Setting.

To view a CI in BMC Helix CMDB

You can view additional details about the CI for which drift is detected. Select a CI, and click View CI in CMDB.

To view CI attributes

When you define the Baseline, if you specify CI attributes to be included in the comparison by using the Include set, only those attributes showing drift are displayed. If you use the Exclude set, only those attributes that are not excluded are shown if drift is detected. If you do not specify an Include or Exclude set, all attributes that show a drift are displayed.

  1. In Drift Console, select a Drift Report.

  2. Click View Details.
    The Drift Report Details pane is displayed. From the CI Attributes tab, the CI attributes showing drift are displayed.

    The following table describes the columns for attribute data:

    Column

    Description

    Name

    Name of the CI attribute that has changed.

    Baseline Value

    Expected or correct value of the CI attribute.

    Operator

    The comparison operator used to compare attributes. This operator was defined by you in the include set. If an include set was not defined, then the default operator (EQ) is shown.

    Observed Value

    Value of the CI attribute detected by the comparison job.

    Status

    For each CI attribute showing drift, the status can be one of the following values:

    • New - The drift is new and cannot be correlated to a change request created from Drift Management. If the drift is correlated to a change request created outside of Drift Management, the results are shown in the Change Requests tab.
    • Addressed - The change request correlated with the drift was created, within Drift Management, to resolve the drift when found in a previous comparison job.
    • Acknowledged - The drift is acknowledged using the Drift Console Acknowledge option. For more information about acknowledging drifts, see Remediating-a-drift-for-an-unapproved-change.


To view relationship drifts

You can view details about the change in the relationships between CIs. 

  1. In Drift Console, select a Drift Report.

  2. Click the View Details button.
    The Drift Report Details pane is displayed. From the Relationships tab (lower left), the CI relationships showing drift are displayed.

    Important

    The View Details button for relationship drifts is active only when Modified relationship drift type is selected. For information about Drift types, see Drift types.

    The following table describes the columns for relationship data:

    Column

    Description

    Source Name

    The name of the source CI.

    Source Class Id

    The class to which the source CI belongs.

    Destination Name

    The name of the destination CI for which a relationship has been added, modified, or removed.

    Destination Class Id

    The class to which the destination CI belongs.

    Relationship Name

    The name of the relationship added, modified, or removed.

    Relationship Class Id

    The class to which the relationship belongs.

    Drift Type

    The type of drift detected: Added, Modified, Removed, and RelationshipDrift.

To view business services affected by a drift

In Drift Console or the Drift Reports Detail screen, click the Business Services tab.

To view change requests correlated to a drift

  1. On Drift Console or the Drift Reports Detail screen, select Change Requests.
    The following table describes the columns for change request data:

    Column

    Description

    Change ID

    The ID of the change request.

    Correlation Type

    When a change request is correlated with a drift, the change request can have one of the following correlation types:

    • Manual-Change request was submitted, within Drift Management, to take action on the drift.
    • Automatic-Change request (submitted independent of Drift Management) is related to as the possible cause of the drift.

    Status

    The status of the change request used by Drift Management to filter the display of correlated change requests. For more information, see Filtering-displayed-change-requests.

  2. To view the change request, click Details. For more information about correlating a drift to a change request, see Correlating-a-drift-with-a-change-request.


Important

To view Change Request details, in addition to Drift Management permissions, you must have Change Master or Change User permissions.

To view incident requests correlated to a drift

  1. On Drift Console or the Drift Reports Detail screen, select Incidents.

    The Incident Number and Correlation Type are displayed.

  2. Click Details.

Important

To view the incident details, in addition to Drift Management permissions, you must have Incident Master or Incident User permissions.

Customizing the Drift Console

You can customize the panes in the Drift Console by: 

  • Sorting by a column
  • Rearranging the column order by dragging and dropping


Warning

You can customize the form using the BMC Remedy Developer Studio, but do so at your own risk. Do not remove existing columns due to underlying associated workflow.

To delete a drift report

From the Drift console, select the Drift Report and click Delete.

Important

Deleting a drift report also deletes all job runs, and the associated drift information for that report.


 

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