Lyle, Your statements actually match up pretty well with the BMC White Papers that they sent me. Basically, you need to throw any "IP Addressable" device into ComputerSystem and use the PrimaryCapability fields and ProdCats to classify it further. So a router/switch/server/workstation/firewall appliance/load balancer would all fall into that class...
See below for the links to the white papers. Thanks to everyone for their input. Using the CDM and Extensions to Model Business Entities http://documents.bmc.com/supportu/documents/63/06/96306/96306.pdf BMC Best Practice Process Flow for Configuration Management http://documents.bmc.com/supportu/documents/58/63/85863/85863.pdf BMC Atrium CMDB 2.1.00 Concepts and Best Practices Guide http://documents.bmc.com/supportu/documents/00/87/70087/70087.pdf Mapping Data from BMC Discovery Products to BMC Remedy Asset Management http://documents.bmc.com/supportu/documents/89/39/88939/88939.pdf Planning and Implementing BMC Discovery Products with BMC Remedy Asset Management http://documents.bmc.com/supportu/documents/86/36/88636/88636.pdf Tauf Chowdhury Analyst, Service Management Office: 631.858.7765 Mobile:646.483.2779 From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arsl...@arslist.org] On Behalf Of Lyle Taylor Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 6:27 PM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Re: Asset Management - Creating CI for Network Equipment ** I agree with your comment on getting the relationships right, and it's true that many of the classes can be used pretty much any way you like. However, I keep going back to the idea that each class was created for a particular reason with more or less specific uses in mind. I prefer to try to keep their actual usage pretty much in line with their intended usage. I think Communication Endpoint would more aptly apply to something like a port on a switch or a router rather than the device itself. If you take a simple example of a small switch with 8 ports, you would put the switch in the Computer System class, and then if you wanted to track what was connected to each port (which is often important information), you could model each port with a Communication Endpoint (or perhaps a LAN Endpoint) that has a relationship with the switch CI. Each CI connected to the switch would then have a dependency relationship with the Communication Endpoint class representing the port it is connected to. Looking closer at the model, it looks like Communication Endpoint may even be more for things like actual network communication (i.e., a TCP connection on a specific TCP port or something along those lines) rather than a physical connection - then again, there are protocols at each layer of the network infrastructure... Tauf, I recall someone posting how Topology Discovery (or one of the BMC products) maps network equipment and/or communications to the list a while back. It seemed to cover pretty well how BMC does it. I'd recommend searching for that and maybe using that as a starting point, taking out anything you don't need for your scenario. For example, if you don't need to track what port on a switch a server is connected to, you could take out all the in-between CIs and simply create a dependency between the server and the switch CIs. It all really depends on what kind of information you want to track and how detailed you need to be. Lyle From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arsl...@arslist.org] On Behalf Of Rick Cook Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 3:45 PM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Re: Asset Management - Creating CI for Network Equipment ** That's a good point, Lyle. But Communication_Endpoint is a pretty general classs that could cover pretty much anything that doesn't have its own class. ConnectivitySegment and several others are categorization subclasses beneath the ConnectivityCollection class. The relationships between the CIs are especially important with network segments, so just dumping them into ComputerSystem might tend to hamstring that if not done correctly. Between all of those and perhaps a few more Categorization values, you should be covered. Rick On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 2:27 PM, Lyle Taylor <tayl...@ldschurch.org> wrote: ** Which classes are you thinking of? I see ones for logical items like an IP endpoint, WAN, LAN, etc., but nothing that would account for things like routers and switches except for computer system. And the fact that they have the primary capability field that has values like Router and Switch in it would seem to indicate that that was where BMC intended to put them. Lyle From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arsl...@arslist.org] On Behalf Of Rick Cook Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 3:18 PM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Re: Asset Management - Creating CI for Network Equipment ** The 2.1 data model does have sub-classes for network components. What you don't have a class for should work as a categorization subclass in one of the existing ones. Rick On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 1:57 PM, Lyle Taylor <tayl...@ldschurch.org> wrote: ** Most network equipment simply goes under Computer System. If I recall correctly, there is a Primary Capability field that you can use to indicate whether it is a switch, router, etc. if you want to. Lyle From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arsl...@arslist.org] On Behalf Of Chowdhury, Tauf Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 2:53 PM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Asset Management - Creating CI for Network Equipment ** What is the best method for using Asset Management to create CI's such as Network Equipment etc... ? In CMDB there are different forms for a plethora of network equipment but in Asset, under CI Type, there is a very limited set of data. Any suggestions? Tauf Chowdhury | Forest Laboratories, Inc. Analyst, Service Management Informatics-Infrastructure Office: 631.858.7765 Mobile:646.483.2779 ________________________________ This e-mail and its attachments may contain Forest Laboratories, Inc. proprietary information that is privileged, confidential or subject to copyright belonging to Forest Laboratories, Inc. 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