Enabling or disabling reconciliation engine services

As a configuration manager, you must ensure that the resources used for the reconciliation process are efficient, accurate, and fast, especially when working with a large number of configuration items (CIs).

To improve performance and manage resource usage more effectively, BMC Helix CMDB runs the following Reconciliation Engine (RE) services on separate Kubernetes pods by default. This separation frees up the main reconciliation pod to handle other related tasks, allowing all tasks to run faster and more reliably.

Reconciliation Engine Services	Description
Reconciliation Engine Identification (RE ID) Service	The RE ID Service filters duplicate CIs from the source dataset to optimize the identification activity. This exclusion accelerates the reconciliation process by optimizing the resources required to process a large number of CIs. By default, RE ID Service is enabled and handles identification activities. If you disable it, the identification activity runs on the same Kubernetes Pod as the reconciliation job.
Reconciliation Engine Merge (RE Merge) Service	RE Merge Service is used when the Merge Order is set to By Class in Separate Transactions in the merge activity. By default, RE Merge Service is enabled.
Reconciliation Engine Miscellaneous (RE Misc) Service	The RE Misc Service handles the following activities: Delete: Removes outdated or irrelevant CIs based on qualification rules. Purge: Removes soft-deleted CIs from BMC Helix CMDB. Copy: Copies CIs from one dataset to another. Supports both identified and unidentified CIs. Compare: Compares CIs between datasets, generates a report, or executes workflows based on the workflow execution rule.

Scenario

Chris, a configuration manager at Apex Global, wants to run reconciliation jobs with identification, merge, delete, purge, copy, and compare activities. He expects the number of CIs to be processed to be around 13 million. Hence, he wants to make sure that the reconciliation process is efficient and fast.

Before running the reconciliation job, he logs in to Mid Tier, opens the Centralized Configurations product console, and confirms that the following parameters are enabled:

RE-Enable-IDService
RE-Enable-MergeService
RE-Enable-MiscService-Delete
RE-Enable-MiscService-Purge
RE-Enable-MiscService-Copy
RE-Enable-MiscService-Compare

He also configures thread and polling parameters under com.bmc.cmdb.recon.miscservice > * to optimize performance.

Next, from the CMDB Portal, Chris runs the reconciliation job.

With the RE ID, RE Merge, and RE Misc services, Chris benefits in the following ways:

The Identify and Merge activities run on a separate Kubernetes Pod, which speeds up the process.
The Identify activity initially searches for duplicate CIs in the source dataset and excludes them from the identification process against the target dataset. This filtering enhances the efficiency of the identification process by reducing the probability of errors caused by duplicate CIs.
The Miscellaneous Service automatically deletes and purges stale or irrelevant CIs based on defined activity queues. It copies CIs from one dataset to another by supporting both identified and unidentified CIs. It also runs the comparison checks for differences between datasets and creates a report. This service runs efficiently and securely, in accordance with retention and qualification policies configured by administrators.

To enable or disable the RE ID Service

Log in to Mid Tier.
Select Applications > AR System Administration > AR System Administration Console > System > General > Centralized Configuration.
From the Component Type list, select com.bmc.arsys.other.
Select reconciliation pod name.
In the Setting Name column, if the RE-Enable-IDService parameter is not present, click Add to add the setting.
This parameter is enabled by default and is not displayed in the Setting Name list.
In the corresponding Setting Value, enter either of the following values:
- F (False) to disable the RE ID Service feature.
- (Default) T (True) to enable the RE ID Service feature.

Important:
The RE ID Service is enabled by default. If you disable the RE ID Service, the identification activity runs on the same pod as the reconciliation job.

For information about modifying the default configurations for the RE ID Service, see Reconciliation-Engine-configuration-settings.

To enable or disable the RE Merge Service

Log in to Mid Tier.
Select Applications > AR System Administration > AR System Administration Console > System > General > Centralized Configuration.
From the Component Type list, select com.bmc.arsys.other.
Select reconciliation pod name.
In the Setting Name column, if the RE-Enable-MergeService parameter is not present, click Add to add the setting.
This parameter is enabled by default and is not displayed in the Setting Name list.
In the corresponding Setting Value, enter either of the following values:
- F (False) to disable the RE Merge Service feature.
- (Default) T (True) to enable the RE Merge Service feature.

Important:
The RE Merge Service is enabled by default. The RE Merge service is applicable only if the Merge Order is set to By Class in Separate Transactions in a Merge activity.

For information about modifying the default configurations for the RE Merge Service, see Reconciliation-Engine-configuration-settings.

To enable or disable the RE Misc Service

Log in to Mid Tier.
Select Applications > AR System Administration > AR System Administration Console > System > General > Centralized Configuration.
From the Component Type list, select com.bmc.arsys.other.
Select reconciliation pod name.
In the Setting Name column, if the following parameters are not present, click Add to add the setting.
- RE-Enable-MiscService-Delete
- RE-Enable-MiscService-Purge
- RE-Enable-MiscService-Copy
- RE-Enable-MiscService-Compare
  These parameters are enabled by default and are not displayed in the Setting Name list.
In the corresponding Setting Value, enter either of the following values:
- F (False) to disable the RE Misc Service feature.
- (Default) T (True) to enable the RE Misc Service feature.

For information about modifying the default configurations for the RE Misc Service, see Reconciliation-Engine-configuration-settings.

To view reconciliation logs

The Log locations depend on the activities executed in the reconciliation job.

The log files have a .log extension.

For example, if a reconciliation job contains Identity, Merge, and Purge activities, the Identity activity logs are created in the ID service pod, the Merge activity logs in the Merge service pod, and the Misc activity logs in the Misc service Kubernetes Pod.

If the reconciliation job name does not contain spaces, the logs are displayed in the Mid-Tier in the AR System Management Console > AR System Server Group Console > Logs > View Logs.

If the job name contains spaces, the logs are generated in the /opt/bmc/ARSystem/db folder.

Settings in a reconciliation job

For a better job performance, use the following settings:

Setting	Description
Disable Progress Bar on UI During Job Execution	Select this option to run the reconciliation job without displaying the progress bar on the UI.
Ignore Failed CIs	Select this option to exclude the CIs that failed to reconcile in the previous run of a reconciliation job. Important: If the RE ID, RE Merge, or RE MISC services are not enabled, the respective activities (Identification, Merge, Purge, Copy, and Compare) do not function correctly.

Where to go from here

Creating-a-standard-reconciliation-job

Creating-a-custom-reconciliation-job

Improving performance of reconciliation by troubleshooting

Reconciliation Engine configuration settings