HP Universal CMDB 9.10 Configuration Manager Frequently Asked Questions

Relevant versions: Configuration Manager 9.10L and UCMDB 9.03

Publication date: April 2011

Deployment/Versions

Is the UCMDB Platform listed in the installer the same as the UCMDB Foundation?

Yes, the terminology will be aligned in the future. The UCMDB platform is equivalent to what we now call UCMDB Foundation.

Is Configuration Manager available for the RTSM that is used in BSM version 9.0x?

No, Configuration Manager works with UCMDB and not with RTSM. Even though it uses the UCMDB technology, RTSM is optimized for monitoring and is not equivalent to a UCMDB instance.

Is Configuration Manager a separate product from UCMDB that runs on a different server, with a separate license and SKU?

The Configuration Manager is a component of the HP Universal CMDB product. If you are a UCMDB customer you are entitled to received it at no extra cost, whether you have obtained UCMDB through DDMA licenses, Service Manager licenses, or BSM licenses.

If I have UCMDB version 9.0x installed and I want to upgrade to Configuration Manager, do I install the version 9.10 patch, or is there a later patch?

To upgrade, you must have at least UCMDB version 9.03 installed first. If you have version 9.03 or later, launch the UCMDB 9.10L installer and select only the Configuration Manager component. If you do not have UCMDB version 9.0x installed, you can install both UCMDB Foundation (version 9.03) and the Configuration Manager components.

What are the initial capacity requirements for using Configuration Manager?

For capacity and other configuration requirements, see the HP UCMDB 9.10 Configuration Manager Deployment Guide.

What size of Oracle or SQL database should I plan for if I have a medium or large installation?

This depends on the amount of historical data you want to save (this amount is configurable), the number of managed CIs you would have, and the number of policies per CI. very hard to determine. In general, if you have a large UCMDB installation, then you should have a medium Configuration Manager installation.

How do I transfer data from test environments to production environments?

For TQLs and views, use UCMDB packages to transfer data. For policies and managed views, currently you need to recreate them manually.

Usability

After I select a filter in Configuration Manager, this filter stays in the filters list. How do I get rid of the list?

The last five filters that you select appear in the list. Currently, you cannot delete this list.

The GUI looks a lot like that of Release Control and a lot less like that of UCMDB. Are there plans to make the applications look and act similar?

In general, we aim for simplicity in the user interface. This enables Configuration Manager to be easily used by multiple people in an organization.

Configuration Analysis

When creating or updating a configuration model in the Configuration Analysis module, can you assign any value to the model's attributes, or are you limited to using only a CI that exists in UCMDB?

You can use any values to create your model, whether or not they exist in UCMDB.

Can you compare against a range of values?

Yes, you can use operators such as Like, In, Greater than, and so on.

When you use certain operators during analysis, possible options are already provided. Are these values based on what is currently discovered?

The values within the dropdown lists for the attributes are based on the discovered values within the target CIs that have been selected.

Can you do a partial search on CI attributes when looking for matching CIs?

You can use the Like operator to search on CI attributes. You can also select all the exact options, if the number of items is not too large. In addition, you can use the In operator if your list of potential values needs to be specific and not just similar.

Can the configuration model be used to create baselines (for example, "standard server")?

Yes, any model that you created in the Analysis module may be used to create baselines.

Can you explain volatility?

Marking an attribute as volatile means that you tolerate some deviation on it before consider two close values to be different ones. For example, suppose you want your servers to have 20 G disks. You might consider that a newly added server with a disk that has 20,004,438,016 bytes satisfies that expectation (that is, non-volatile). An example of an attribute that you would want to be non-volatile would be port number: 8080 and 8081 are not the same thing.

Policy Administration

Is a composite CI a new CI type?

No, it is the way that Configuration Manager looks at those CIs as one unit

Are composite CIs additional CI instances, that is, do they add to the CI count in UCMDB?

Composite CIs are specific CI instances that already appear in UCMDB. A composite CI is simply the result of your defined folding rules after Configuration Manager queries the data in UCMDB.Each composite CI in a view is an instance of an existing CI.

Are composite CIs available only in Configuration Manager?

Yes.

Does UCMDB provide the ability to define architecture policies and identify architectural non-compliance issues?

Yes, you can set policies based on any data that resides in UCMDB.

Does the refresh button rerun the policy or just refresh the page?

It refreshes the page.

How does the policy compliance in UCMDB compare to the compliance policies in Server Automation?

Here are some differences:

Configuration Manager

Topology Compliance (Application / Infrastructure) and more

Enforces topological rules as policies (for example, all clusters must have at least four servers)

Enforces baselines for the entire map of a service or environment

UCMDB-CM Buyer Persona: Configuration Manager

BSA

Element Configuration Management (Server / Network / Client)

BSA enforces rules at the level of an individual element

BSA maintains baseline for individual server

BSA Buyer Persona: Distributed Server Operations Manager

NA Buyer Persona: Network Operations Manager

We are working to create better alignment in future versions.

How do I configure topology policies?

Topology policies are TQL queries that are referenced within a policy record. For details about setting up policies, see the HP Universal CMDB Configuration Manager User Guide.

How do I set up a baseline model?

You can manually create a baseline configuration model that is based on the UCMDB data model, or select an existing configuration from the environment as the baseline model. You can also use a Configuration Model that you created and saved in the Configuration Analysis Module.

Are there overlaps in policy definitions between UCMDB and SOA Center?

No, there is no overlapping between the types of policies managed by SOAC and UCMDB for a business service (or any other CIs).

Do you require a view before creating a policy?

You can create a policy without a view, but in order for it to be active you must associate it with the view to which it applies.

In a baseline policy rule, what happens if you delete the leading CI?

You can delete the leading CI (reset baseline) to start over with a new baseline rule.

For topology conditions, does the TQL rule need to be configured with only one CI Type in the result?

No. Several CI types can be in the result but the CI type on which you want to see the policy indicator must be selected as the CI Type Filter.

Must all CI types in a topology policy exist in the view? In other words, can a CI type exist in a topology policy and not in the view?

No. but the CI type you want the indicator to be on must be in the view or on a component CI of one of the composite CIs in the view.

If I see, for example, 78 on 78 under New Policy Breaches, does this mean that every CI in this view is in breach?

It means that 78 CIs out of all CIs in the view have breaches on them. Since there are exactly 78 breaches, you can assume that each CI must have one breach.

In the View Summary and Policy Summary modules, what does it mean when the bars are colored blue?

A blue color indicates that there is no data present.

Is there a specific TQL type required for the Advanced Filter and Condition TQL?

Both should be queries (not views).

Are policies are exportable? Can they be bundled with views and TQLs in Package Manager?

See How do I transfer data from test environments to production environments?

If there is a change in a policy that changes the status of a CI in breach to become satisfied, does that show up in Configuration Manager?

Yes, if a policy changes (even if the composite CI stays the same) and the policy result changes, a snapshot is created.

Is there a way to configure the interval or schedule of the Calculate Policy Analysis process?

In Configuration Manager, go to Administration > Server Administration > Configuration Manager > Job Sync > Offline Analysis. Configure the repeat interval and view comparison fields.

State Management

How can I populate the authorized state?

The authorized state is populated from Configuration Manager; whether this is automatically or manually done is based on defined rules.

Which state is currently consumed by applications, Authorized or Actual?

CIs are in Actual state until you begin to manage and control configuration changes. Once you do that, you may want to have your applications that consume CI data use the Authorized state.

What is the meaning of having multiple pending authorizations?

Having pending authorizations means that a change has caused the Automatic State Transition process to halt, and require someone to review the change before it is authorized. This provides a level of control needed to manage the quality of data against a specific configuration.

What is the level of granularity of an authorization? Is it all of the data obtained during discovery, a single CI, or something else?

Authorizations are controlled at the composite CI level.

Does every CI in UCMDB have a flag to indicate whether its state is authorized or not? What about newly discovered CIs?

Authorized state is a separate dataset that stores the entire CI entity, so that you can track not only whether the CI is authorized, but also the authorized value for each of its attributes. Note that this currently means that by having an entire UCMDB in authorized state, you are halving its capacity.

If no policies have been defined, is the only data being captured in Configuration Manager the actual state changes?

Policies and states are not related. So you can manage an authorized state and not have any policies. If you see discrepancies between the actual and authorized states, you can see RFC information if you have set up a federation adapter for that, and you can decide whether to promote newly detected changes to the authorized state without additional information of policy compliance.

Why do I need to create comments? Aren't changes documented through RFC?

Not all changes are documented in RFCs. You create comments to enable the auditing of reasons you had for deciding to authorize CIs.

Service Manager Integration

How do you efficiently manage configuration data synchronization between Service Manager and UCMDB, since today CIs that are in Authorized state are managed directly in Service Manager?

Service Manager does not managed the Authorized state; it manages the Managed state, which represents the changes that you want to control with the Change control process. This is different from the Authorized state in UCMDB, which controls the changes that happen in the environment and the potential risk associated with these changes based on what you want to be managed with configuration control. With this said, there is an option in UCMDB (starting with version 9.03) to push CI configuration from the Configuration Manager Authorized state into Service Manager, thus effectively making sure only authorized changes exist in Service Manager.

Where does an RFC originate from when comparing Actual and Authorized states?

The RFC reference that is provided as a tool within State Management is whatever RFC is defined within the CMS. When you query the CMS for RFC providers that match your conditions, whichever change system within the CMS returns matching RFCs is displayed. Currently, there is such an integration with Service Manager.

Will the Service Manager managed state be included in Configuration Manager in the future?

Data flows in the opposite direction: the Authorized state in UCMDB is pushed to Service Manager, overriding the existing state there. Therefore, Service Manager works on top of the authorized configuration.

Is there a simple way to manually create CIs in UCMDB from Service Manager?

We are currently investigating how to simplify CI creation in UCMDB.

Is it possible to integrate a Configuration Manager baseline policy with Service Manager?

No, this functionality is not currently available.

I'm confused about the difference between Authorized state and Managed state. Are they the same thing when we are talking about policies?

Policy state is not the same as either Authorized state or Managed state. Policies define compliance against standards that you want to use to manage your environment. These policies are currently assessed against the Actual and Authorized states.

Is it possible to identify an RFC that matches a condition that we set for it?

Yes, if any RFC is federated through UCMDB that matches a specified condition, those RFCs are displayed as potential reasons for why these configuration changes have been detected. Remember that our integration is with UCMDB and not specific a change system product such as Release Control or Service Manager.

Is the RFC adapter pre-configured for Release Control or Service Manager?

Configuration Manager does not have specific point-to-point integrations. Any source that federates RFCs to UCMDB will be queried and the results of those queries are displayed in the State Management module.

Can you automatically open a trouble ticket in Service Manager for policy breaches?

No, this is not currently possible.

Is there access to change information from Release Control?

Any change system that is configured for federation with UCMDB is taken into account for the Related RFC capability. Configuration Manager integrates with UCMDB's RFC service and not to a specific product.

Do you recommend that Service Manager should now be integrated with Configuration Manager instead of UCMDB for actual state information?

Authorized state information resides in UCMDB Foundation. Service Manager should continue integrating with UCMDB Foundation, but it now has the option to consume the authorized state instead of the actual state. In any case, Service Manager does not need to integrate directly with Configuration Manager, which is only the control point.

Is the only integration between Configuration Manager and Service Manager through the get related RFC option when changes are getting discovered?

There is no direct integration between Configuration Manager and Service Manager. Configuration Manager only interacts with UCMDB Foundation, and consumes RFC information that is brought to UCMDB through federation

How is integration with RFCs performed with external change tools such as CA or Atrium?

RFCs are brought through federation, so whatever source is federating RFCs to UCMDB or Configuration Manager shows those RFCs. There is an available out-of-the-box adapter for federating RFCs from Atrium.

What is the difference between discovered changes and RFCs from Service Manager? Do you see all RFCs planned for a CI, or only the one that matches an attribute where a change is detected?

Configuration Manager shows all RFCs that relate to a CI and were planned for (or implemented on) during the time that is relevant to the state discrepancy. RFCs are not correlated at the attribute planning level.

If I have RFCs federated from Service Manager for a particular host that I can see in UCMDB, will I see them in the Related RFCs tab?

Yes, as long as the RFC implementation dates correlate with the date difference between the snapshots, and as long as the RFC is in implementation or done phase. See the RFC page under Server Administration for RFC filtering capabilities.

Snapshots

When you compare snapshots, is there any way to easily find out in which snapshot an attribute has changed?

Since Configuration Manager does not keep track of attribute values, there is no easy way to do this.

How much data is created when snapshots are created, especially when discovery is very active?

Configuration Manager only persists the minimal data that is order to present the composite CI. It keeps references to the CIs that composed the composite CI and full information is retrieved from UCMDB during runtime.

Views

If all views can be both topology and inventory views, why do I have to choose one when I create a view?

Different users are interested in different kind of views. By specifying the nature of the view when it is created, you provide a default viewing mode.

How can I tell that a view is "managed" in Configuration Manager?

During normal operation of Configuration Manager, there is no such indication. If you delete a managed view from UCMDB, you will be notified in Configuration Manager that the view was removed.

User Management

Can I find out more information about User Management?

There is no information currently available.

Does User Management provide restrictions based on instances, or only against CI types?

BSF allows you to define as low level as you want. Eventually, you will be able to define at the instance level of the resource, if desired. However, Configuration Manager currently supports permissions only down to the view level. So currently, CI instances are managed by permissions at the view/group level, which may be more fine-grained than the CI type level.