Working with DM-ETL+ and uCMDB

Table of content

How to check attribute properties

How to (dis)allow relationships

Allowing DM-ETL+ to update CI entities within CI Types

Working with DM-ETL+ and UCMDB

General

This whitepaper will describe some typical procedures that are needed to either obtain the correct information, or to apply a certain configuration needed for consolidation purposes.

How to check attribute properties

General

This chapter will show you how to discover what reference names to use in your DM-ETL+ UCMDB consolidation tasks, as well as discover what key fields apply to a certain CI Type. (Note: based on UCMDB version 7.5)

Details

1. Open the UCMDB Application Console by opening a webbrowser and typing in (default): http://<UCMDBhostname>:8080/UCMDB.
2. Enter the appropriate username and password and login.
3. The UCMDB Console will show after logging in; Click "CI Type Manager".
4. In the left pane, select "CI Types" from the dropdown box and select the CI Type of which you wish to know the naming conventions.
5. Now select the tab "Attributes" in the right pane.

You should now see something like this:

 

See Figure 1.

Figure 1

• The "Key" column shows what fields are used as key within the UCMDB. (Needed for consolidating data properly).
• The "Display Name" column is the friendly GUI name of the corresponding field.
• The "Name" column denotes the actual name you need to use in your references in the UCMDB consolidation tasks.

 

How to (dis)allow relationships

General

This chapter will show you how to discover what reference names to use in your DM-ETL+ UCMDB consolidation tasks as well as discover what key fields apply to a certain CI Type. (Note: based on UCMDB version 7.5)

Details

1. Open the UCMDB Application Console by opening a webbrowser and typing in (default): http://<UCMDBhostname>:8080/UCMDB.
2. Enter the appropriate username and password and login.
3. The UCMDB Console will show after logging in; Click "CI Type Manager".
4. In the left pane select "CI Types" from the dropdown box and select the two CI Types of which you wish to set the relationship. You can do this by holding down the CTRL key and clicking the two CI Types desired.
5. Then rightclick on either one and select the option "Add/Remove Relationship".
6. A Dialog should appear listing all the available relationship types for these two CI Types. Notice the two columns that indicate the 'from' and 'to' relationship directions.

See Figure 2.

Figure 2

1. Select (allow) or de-select (disallow) the tickboxes to configure your desired state.
2. Click OK to save changes

Allowing DM-ETL+ to update CI entities within CI Types

General

In UCMDB 7.5+ there is a data change rule system in place that keeps track of the owner that changed the data. This (by default) implies that when any CI from the related CI Type has a different owner/data store associated than the one that is trying to update or alternatively is listed in the allowed owners, the update request will be ignored. In effect DM-ETL+ will be able to insert/update CI entities without problems until another source changes or inserts CI entities based on the same CI Type. To ensure DM-ETL+ will be able to consolidate to the given CI Type, the steps below need to be followed. (Note: screenshots/menus based on UCMDB version 8)

Important!

Since 2.3.1035.2 we are able to provide Caller Application tag with UCMDB webservices communication. This enables us to specify "UCMDB" (in capital letters) and circumvent any update/delete protection on CI Type level. Follow the steps below when using "UCMDB" as Caller Application does not work.

Details

If for example you would like to update CI entities from the Windows class (nt), which is an inheritance from root Host (host), then you would have to take the following steps:

1. Open a webbrowser and go to the following (default) URL (when browsing from the local server): http://localhost:8080/jmx-console

 

See Figure 3.

Figure 3

1. Scroll down to Topaz and click on the service=CMDB Reconciliation Services link

See Figure 4.

Figure 4

1. Scroll down to the getReconciliationConfiguration() section and enter (the appropriate) customerID which usually is the value "1". Enter "host" in the java.lang.String form field.
2. Click the Invoke button.

 

See Figure 5.

Figure 5

1. The following output (or similar) should appear. Copy this XML output into a text editor and add an owner name DM-ETL as a tag before the </owners> tag. The inserted string should look like <owner name="DM-ETL"/>.
2. Then edit the file so that all text is consolidated into 1 line.

See code below.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><reconciliation-config type="host"><indentification><identification-rule-proprietary-config className="com.mercury.topaz.cmdb.reconciliation.server.identification.rules.impl.HostIdentificationRule"/></identification><data-change><data-change-rule className="com.mercury.topaz.cmdb.reconciliation.server.detain.rule.impl.DataInHostRule"><config-param paramName="more-than-one-match" value="IGNORE"/></data-change-rule><owners><owner name="UCMDBDiscovery"/><owner name="UCMB"/><owner name="CmdbRmiAdapter"/><owner name="DM-ETL"/></owners></data-change></reconciliation-config>

1. Copy this 1 line of text.
2. Click Back to MBean View in your jmx-console webpage.

 

See Figure 7.

Figure 7

1. Scroll down to the deployReconciliationConfiguration() section and enter (the appropriate) customerID used in the previous steps. Paste the copied string into the java.lang.String form field.
2. Click the Invoke button. The result should read as in the screenshot below.

See Figure 8.

Figure 8

 

1. You have now configured DM-ETL+ as an allowed source of updating CI's within this type including inheritance.
2. You can repeat steps 3 and 4 to see the changes applied (below is the result).

See Figure 9.

Figure 9