What's New in HP CMS Version 10.20

Automated Service Modeling provides the ability to automatically map the complexity of critical business services and business applications, starting from an entry point for the service (usually the URL of the service). You can use the UCMDB Browser to easily create a model of a particular service (starting from the service’s URL) or enterprise application (leveraging existing out-of-the-box discovery content). You can select multiple entry points or model multiple applications that have already been discovered. The process is simplified and put in the control of the service owner.

Service maps are automatically discovered and modeled, and provide:

• A service model that is maintenance-free, and appears in near real time.
• The ability to accurately discover the service in a top-down manner, and see the map update automatically.
• The ability to leverage existing integrations and infrastructure.
• The ability to prioritize discovery problems in the context of a service.
• The ability to contact a UCMDB administrator in case of advanced discovery errors.
• Constant tracking of dynamic changes in a business service’s infrastructure.
• The ability to quickly identify the impact of changes to CIs in complex environments.

• The ability to define service border rules.

Once you have created a service map, you can interact with it by showing or hiding layers of associated data (servers, historical changes, virtualization, networking, or storage topologies).

Enhanced HP UCMDB Integrations with Service Manager and Asset Manager, and a Unified Integration Framework

Provides enhanced and improved HP UCMDB integrations with other HP Software Service Portfolio Management products, such as HP Service Manager and HP Asset Manager.

• Unified Generic Adapter framework. The unified Generic Adapter framework offers a single platform for creating generic adapters to achieve data push, population, and federation by leveraging the original the Enhanced Generic Push Adapter framework. The Generic Adapter framework works based on the Groovy scripts for the data mapping and supports communication with multiple external data APIs (Web services and DLLs).

  For details, see the new Developing Generic Adapters chapter in the HP Universal CMDB Developer Reference Guide.

• Visual Mapping Tool. The mapping tool is part of the UCMDB UI. It is under the Data Flow Management > Adapter Management module and available during the selection of mapping files in supported adapters. It facilitates complex integration configurations by means of value/field mappings and transformation, and additionally it offers benefits for all integration scenarios, including data push, population, and federation.

  Benefits of the visual mapping tool includes:

  • Automatically loads CI types and attributes from an external product, as well as queries and attributes from UCMDB.
  • Enables you to add, update, and remove mappings using Graphical User Interface (GUI).
  • Enables you to search, edit CI types and attributes within loaded types.

  Supported mapping capabilities include one-to-one CI type mapping and attributes mapping, one-to-multiple CI type mapping, and a composite CI type mapping to one CI type.

• Offers the capability of centralized class model synchronization. You can create CI type and add new attributes for external class models from within UCMDB and push the changes to HP Service Manager by using the generic adapter.

Usability Improvements

• Infrastructure Settings Validation. You can enable field validation for infrastructure settings values. Supported validation types include emails, URLs, ports, protocols, deprecated values, time values, and root CI/relationship.
• Improved JMX search. Allowing JMX users to search for a service (for example, Server Services). It is also helpful when you know that an operation you are searching for is under a certain service category but you do not remember the exact name of the operation.
• Ability to change master keys. As a UCMDB System administrator, you can now use the JMX console to change the master key that is used to encrypt all UCMDB keys.

UCMDB Browser 4.00

• Interface update. The UCMDB Browser now has an improved user interface, focusing on simplicity and usability.

• Other improvements.

  • Added the Dependent Services widget, which presents all services that will have an impact on a selected CI if they fail, according to a specified impact severity level.

  • Added a new Map component in the Environment, Impact Simulation, and Dynamic Widgets.

  • Lightweight Modeling has been updated to Assisted Modeling, using the new Map component.

Easier Maintenance and Support for the Product

• Enhanced the JMX methods by adding the Changed Settings to collect changed infrastructure settings and their values, to easily understand what changes have been made.

• Added a new JMX executeServerLogParser to retrieve UCMDB Server logs for a specific time frame for support engineers or users.

New Custom Reports Available

• Auditing Report. This report displays auditing information about CIs, Relationships and many Unified Resource Manager (URM) resources. .
• Licensed OSIs Report. This report shows all the licensed OSIs (UDI and Full) and all third-party licenses that are counted. It is visible to users with the Administrator permissions only.

• Migration Progress Report. This report displays information about nodes and agents that may be useful after a DDMI to Universal Discovery migration.

• Service Discovery Errors Report. This report displays discovery errors from the service activities.

Like other custom reports, you can schedule and export the above reports, you can also send the reports by email.

Extended Support Matrix Coverage

• Operating Systems

  • Added support for Oracle Enterprise Linux with Red Hat Compatible Kernel v6.4 and v6.5

  • Added support for Oracle Enterprise Linux with Oracle Unbreakable Kernel, v6.4 and v6.5

• Virtualization

  • Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 R2
  • Oracle VM 3.2

• Databases

  • Added support for Oracle 12c, Standard/Enterprise Editions

  • Added support for Oracle 12c RAC, Enterprise Edition

  • Added support for Microsoft SQL Server 2014, Standard/Enterprise Editions

• Web Browsers

  • Added support for Safari on Windows for UCMDB UI, CM UI, and UCMDB Browser

  • Added support for Safari on Mac OS X for UCMDB UI and UCMDB Browser

  • Added support for Firefox 31 ESR

• Plug-ins

  • Added support for Adobe Flash Player versions up to v15

  • Added support for Adobe Reader X and XI

Enhancements and Performance Improvement

• You can now add up to 1200 managed views in Configuration Manager.

• You can use the new relative attribute operators for policies and analysis.

HP Universal Discovery (UD) software provides visibility into IT environments by automatically discovering and mapping IT applications and infrastructure elements. This is an overview of the main new features and enhancements in Universal Discovery 10.20.

DDMI Migration to Universal Discovery Enhancements and Improvements

• Improved the agent migration robustness and success ratio.

• Allows you to monitor migration progress using the new Migration Progress Report.
• Allows you to view the precise error message and status during the migration.
• In Universal Discovery, one probe can support at least 20 management zones and handle inventory discovery of up to 50,000 nodes.

Universal Discovery Integration with BDNA Normalize

You can now integrate Universal Discovery with BDNA Normalize to discover more installed software. BDNA Normalize is a software product that integrates with Universal Discovery to normalize raw scan file data against BDNA's repository of installed software called Technopedia. When BDNA Normalize integration is enabled, the normalized installed software data produced by the scanner-based inventory is normalized to the Technopedia catalog instead of Universal Discovery Application Library (SAIs).

You may want to consider the extra hardware requirements if you plan to install BDNA Normalize product on the same machine as Probe. For more details, refer to BDNA Normalize documentation.

Ability to Perform Client Discovery without SNMP

It is possible for you to perform discovery of client type IP ranges without using SNMP. You can use the Range IPs by ICMP job and the Host Connection by Shell job to discover client type IP ranges.

Universal Discovery to Discover Multiple Installations

Enhanced scanner-based inventory discovery by providing the capability to configure how multiple installations of the same application version that are installed on a machine are reported.

The scanner-based inventory discovery is enhanced to be able to report multiple installations of the same application version. By default this is disabled maintaining the same behavior as in previous Universal Discovery versions. This capability can be enabled in the Data Flow Management > Adapter Management > InventoryDiscovery > Adapters > InventoryDiscoveryByScanner > Adapter Definition > Global Configuration Files > EnricherServiceSettings.ini > Edit > SAI Recognition dialog by setting the Report multiple installations of the same version option to Yes.

Data Flow Probe Heartbeat Mechanism Improved

The heartbeat mechanism that reports the health of the Data Flow Probe is improved. Probe has two statuses, connected and disconnected. In previous versions, if the probe is very busy, the status can be displayed as disconnected. Now in version 10.20, even when a probe is very busy, it will still ping UCMDB server as usual, and the status will be correctly displayed as connected. This results in a more robust probe status display than before.

Automatically Configure Probe Ranges Based on Active Directory Site Information

You can now configure probe IP ranges with Active Directory in the Data Flow Management > Integration Studio module.

If you already run the LDAP Active Directory Connection and LDAP Active Directory Topology job to discover the Active Directory, you can add the Active Directory range to Data Flow Probe Range directly via an integration button.

For details, see HP Universal CMDB Data Flow Management Guide.

Universal CMDB Development Center (UDC) is Now Official Released to Support Version 10.20

The Universal CMDB Development Center (UDC) is now officially released to support version 10.20 of Universal CMDB, Universal Discovery, and Configuration Manager. For more details, see https://hpln.hp.com/content/announcing-ucmdb-development-center-udc-version-09.

More Debugging Options Available

More debugging options are now available, providing easy access to communication log as well as the ability to run the scanners with the debug/trace log and to download the scanner log.

In Data Flow Management > Discovery Progress Dialog Box > Triggered CIs View > CI Count View > CI Instance View, if you right click a CI and select Debug, you will find the additional debugging options as follows:

• Rerun Discovery

  • Enable Communication Log
  • Enable Communication Log and Record Results
  • Enable Scanner Debug Log
  • Enable Scanner Trace Log

• Download Scanner Log

For details, see the HP Universal CMDB Data Flow Management Guide.

Enhanced Inventory Discovery via SSH

Inventory Discovery via SSH is enhanced to be able to use a user account that has the shared home directory. For example, the home directory is mounted via NFS or Samba, so that the same directory is used when the user logs into different computers.

To enable this feature, set the enableSSHSharedHomeDir parameter in the globalSettings.xml file to true. For details, see the HP UCMDB Universal Discovery Content Guide - General Reference document.

Improved Performance for the Inventory Discovery by Scanner job, the Data Flow Probe during redundancy checks, and PostgreSQL JDBC

To optimize performance of the Inventory Discovery by Scanner job, the maximum amount of threads for the job adapter is extended to 20.

To improve the performance of the Data Flow Probe during redundancy checks, you can now manually add the following parameter to the configuration file of the Data Flow Probe (DataFlowProbe.properties) and set it to true:

appilog.agent.local.process.result.filterRedundant.reportIgnoredWarning=true

This parameter instructs the probe not to generate a warning message for a CI that UCMDB has flagged as ignored. By default, the parameter does not exist in the DataFlowProbe.properties file, and its default value is false.

To increase robustness, the PostgreSQL JDBC timeout setting is increased to 6,000 seconds.

Added Quick Search Functionality for Data Flow Probe JMX Methods

You can now search for Data Flow Probe JMX methods in the Data Flow Probe JMX Console.

Creating Filters to Include or Exclude Specific CIs During Discovery

You can create filters to include or exclude specific CIs during discovery. These filters are set in the Adapter Management module, using the GlobalFiltering.xml file. For details, see the How to Filter Discovery Results section in the HP Universal CMDB Data Flow Management Guide.

Other Enhancements and Improvements

• Ability to Export Entire Configuration of the UCMDB/UD Server to a File. As an administration, you can now export the entire configuration of the UCMDB/UD Server to a file (for example, HTML or XML file, ZIP archive that contains multiple XML files, and so on) for support engineers by running the JMX method selectAndRunSupportHandlers and select all categories.

• The Pre/Post-Scan Script Editor window is enhanced to allow you select other resource files from the InventoryDiscovery adapter for each platform so that they can be packaged with the Scanner and deployed to a remote machine.

• The new setting Universal Discovery Protocol Connection Order on the Preferences page of the New Infrastructure Discovery Activity window allows you specify the order in which the Universal Discovery Protocol in used to connect to remote machines when the Host Connection by Shell job runs.
• Inventory discovery activity is available, which enables users to migrate virtualization configuration from DDMI to Inventory Discovery activity, and fully map the inventory virtualization discovery in DDMI to Inventory Discovery activity in UD.

• Linux x64 architectures are supported by native versions of the Universal Discovery Agent and the Scanner.

For more details about the new features introduced in the Content Pack 15.00, see the Release Notes for Universal Discovery Content Pack version 15.00.

HP releases frequent Content Packs that extend the breadth and depth of discovery and integration content, and enhancements to existing content. Content Pack 15.00 delivers a wide range of content in the areas of support matrix, Universal Discovery Inventory, SNMP Discovery Improvements, storage, and integrations.

Support Matrix

• Hyper-V 2012 is supported by Hyper-V Topology by Shell and Hyper-V Topology by WMI jobs.

• F5 BIG-IP LTM v10 and v11 is supported by F5 BIG-IP LTM by SNMP job. A shell-based discovery job F5 BIG-IP LTM by Shell is added.

• NNMi 10.x is supported by NNMi integration jobs.
• Network Automation 10.x is supported by the Pull Topology from HP Network Automation integration.

• Oracle 12c is supported by the database discovery jobs.

• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, 2012, and 2014 are supported by the database discovery jobs.

• The Storage Essentials integration is enhanced to support SE version up to 9.70.

• Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 for script-based inventory discovery.

Universal Discovery Inventory

• Native MSI package for the Windows x64 Agent.

• Native x64 Scanner and Agent for Linux.

• A parameter is added to the Inventory Discovery by Scanners job so that the job can run the scanners with the debug/trace log options and the job can retrieve the scanner log.

• Along with the pre-scan and post-scan scripts, the Inventory Discovery by Scanners job can deploy extra data or executable files.

• The Inventory Discovery by Scanner job is able to use the UNIX user account which has an NFS-mounted home directory.

SNMP Discovery Improvements

The Host Resources by SNMP job is enhanced:

• The job can discover the modules of complex network devices such as switches (Fans, Environment Sensors, Power Supply, Chassis).

• More device types are discovered, such as network printers, IP phones, and so on.

• Added a new Rulebase Support Report to support rulebase creation and maintenance. View the report at Modeling > Reports > Topology Reports > Network > Rulebase Support Report.

Storage

• SMI-S Discovery supports EMC namespace for EMC/VMAX storage, including EMC Ionix Control Center and EMC Symmetrix Management Console (SMC).
• SMI-S Discovery supports LsiArray13 for NetApp E-Series storage devices.

Integrations

• The HP OneView integration can populate data from HP OneView into HP UCMDB by REST API.

Discovered Applications

• IBM WebSEAL version 6, 7, 8 can be discovered via Shell-based protocols or using Web Services. The WebSEAL application is also officially known as TAM (Tivoli Access Manager) in the earlier versions. The product was later renamed to ISAM (IBM Security Access Manager).

• Cisco UCS related jobs can discover Cisco UCS systems and their components.

Other

• The Edition attribute is added to the Running Software CI type. The DB Connection by SQL job can discover the edition of the MS SQL Server.
• IP MAC Harvesting by SNMP job supports CISCO IP-MIB.
• Oracle Database Lightweight Discovery can connect to Oracle databases that have a discovered IpServiceEndpoint.
• Sybase discovery supports encrypted password for the SQL protocol.

For more information, see Content Pack 15.00 documentation.

DDMI to Universal Discovery Migration Walkthrough Guide

The original DDMI to Universal Discovery Migration Guide is restructured, updated, and renamed to DDMI to Universal Discovery Migration Walkthrough Guide, aiming to provide detailed step-by-step instructions about migrating DDMI to Universal Discovery as well as necessary information in order to walk users through the entire migration process smoothly.