Asset Management processes

You use the processes in BMC Helix ITSM: Asset Management to identify the assets that are used in the company, store the information about these assets, and process the information about these assets.
BMC Configuration Automation for Clients discovers CI types such as computer system, processor, operating system, and software product. BMC Helix Discovery discovers CI types, such as computer system, cluster, application, and business service.

In the Mid Tier interface, BMC Helix Discovery automates the process of populating BMC Helix CMDB. When the IT hardware and software are discovered, it creates CIs and relationships from the discovered data. For example, you can use BMC Client Management or BMC Helix Discovery to populate BMC Helix CMDB.

Discover CI data

Discovery applications discover CI data and store the data in an internal database, which can then be populated into BMC Helix CMDB. These products discover CIs regularly, usually through scheduled jobs. The discovered CIs and the relationships among them are synchronized with CMDB. When these products discover IT hardware and software, they create CIs and relationships from the discovered data.

Example
BMC Client Management or BMC Helix Discovery can be used to populate BMC Helix CMDB. BMC Configuration Automation for Clients discovers CI types such as computer system, processor, operating system, and software product. BMC Helix Discovery discovers CI types, such as computer system, cluster, application, and business service.

Data sync to a dataset in BMC CMDB

The data is transferred from the discovery database to a dataset in BMC Helix CMDB. BMC Helix Discovery syncs discovered CIs and the relationships among them to the CMDB where it undergoes further processes.

Example
BMC Client Management uses the Atrium Integration Engine (AIE) service to transfer discovered data between the Inventory database and BMC Helix CMDB. BMC Helix Discovery stores data in the discovery datastore, after which you create the BMC.ADDM dataset in BMC CMDB. The data is then normalized and reconciled with the existing data in the BMC.ASSET dataset in BMC Helix CMDB.

Normalization of data with the Product Catalog

Normalization improves data quality through consistent and accurate naming of assets. When data is transferred to BMC Helix CMDB, data consistency problems like inconsistent product categorization attributes, and naming conventions can occur. To ensure that the product titles coming into BMC Helix CMDB are consistent and aligned, the data goes through the Normalization Engine.
Normalization is performed by checking the Product Catalog, based on matching attributes. If a match is found the normalization engine fetches the product name from the product catalog. If there is no match, the Normalization Engine updates Product Catalog with any product titles and versions that are not already in the catalog.

Example
Multiple names can be used to represent the Microsoft Office Word products such as MS Word, Word 2003, and Word. If you create appropriate aliases, the Normalization Engine can determine that these differences represent the same product. If the approved product name that you have specified in your Product Catalog is Microsoft Word, the Normalization Engine can change these different names to Microsoft Word. If different titles for a product are discovered (for example, Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft 2007.0.01, Microsoft 2007.1), specific normalization rules can be defined to handle them as one product because normalization rules for the market version might not be the same as they are for the manufacturer.

In the Normalization Engine, you can choose which CIs to normalize based on their datasets, or classes. When all rules are in place, and all CIs are in sync with the Product Catalog, the normalization process makes sure that product names and categorization are consistent across different datasets and from different data providers.

Reconciliation jobs

Discovered data is imported to BMC Helix CMDB in an import dataset specific to the discovery product. Discovered data must be reconciled from the import datasets into the production dataset, which is BMC.Asset. Reconciliation combines the data from multiple datasets into the production BMC.Asset dataset where the data can be consumed by applications such as BMC Helix ITSM: Asset Management.

BMC Helix CMDB stores the discovered data from Discovery into the import dataset. The reconciliation job reconciles the data from the import datasets to the production dataset that is BMC.ASSET. The reconciliation job combines the data from multiple datasets into the production dataset. For example, when working with the BMC Configuration Import and BMC.ADDM datasets, the reconciliation job uses the following jobs to consolidate data from the two datasets into the BMC.Asset dataset:

Configuration Discovery Reconciliation Process — Reconciles the BMC Configuration Import dataset with the BMC.Asset dataset
BMC Helix Discovery Reconciliation Process — Reconciles the BMC.ADDM dataset with the BMC Asset dataset

BMC Helix CMDB enables you to create datasets, each of which holds a distinct set of configuration data. Datasets can store data from a variety of discovery applications for the BMC Helix CMDB. The same computer system or other CIs can exist in more than one dataset.

The following table shows the various BMC Helix CMDB datasets created by different sources:

Data created by	Dateset name	Dataset ID
BMC Client Management	BMC Configuration Import	BMC.IMPORT.CONFIG
BMC Helix Discovery	BMC.ADDM	BMC.IMPORT.TOPO
BMC Helix ITSM: Asset Management	BMC.ASSET.SANDBOX	BMC.ASSET.SANDBOX
Reconciliation Engine, merging data from other datasets	BMC Asset	BMC.ASSET

Important

If any other source such as **BMC. ADDM **creates a CI, no record in AST:Attribute is created for the corresponding CI. The record in AST:Attribute is created only after reconciliation, when the CI is pushed to the **BMC.ASSET** dataset.
Reconciliation is an required for Software License Management (SWLM) because SWLM uses data only from the production dataset.

Software usage

Asset managers can use the Software usage process to get visibility into usage information of the various software in the organization. To check the usage information, you can query the usage data for products that are tied to a license certificate or multiple license certificates that might be out of compliance or approaching breach of compliance. You can check the usage information of any product in the product catalog that requires a contract. (for example - Product Name = Adobe Acrobat). This produces a result list of CIs with any usage information. The purpose is to get the usage information so that the IT asset managers understand what software instances are barely used or not used at all.