CMDB Link Types
You can define the types of links that can be used to link CMDB items, specifying which CMDB item types may be linked, as well as the type of relationship the two items can have.
Benefits of Setting Up CI Linking in Your CMDB
Setting up and maintaining Configuration Item (CI) Linking in your Configuration Management Database (CMDB) might seem daunting, but the benefits far outweigh the effort. Here are a few key advantages:
Improved Visibility: Linking CIs provides a clear view of the relationships and dependencies between assets and services, enhancing impact analysis for change management and incident resolution.
Enhanced Impact Analysis: Understanding the connections between CIs helps in assessing the potential impact of changes or issues on your organization's services and operations.
Better Compliance and Security Management: With detailed mapping of CI relationships, it's easier to ensure compliance with regulations and quickly identify potential security vulnerabilities or breaches.
Optimized Asset Management: By having a structured CI linking, organizations can more effectively manage their assets throughout their lifecycle, from acquisition to retirement.
Data Accuracy and Integrity: CI linking supports the maintenance of accurate and up-to-date information in your CMDB, which is crucial for every aspect of ITSM processes.
By investing time in setting up CI Linking, organizations can achieve a more resilient and efficient IT infrastructure, leading to enhanced service quality and customer satisfaction.
You can also set the impact relationship for the link type.
You can configure more than one link type between the same CMDB Types by using different link type categories. These include Peer to Peer, Parent-Child, Container-Component, and so on. For example, you can set up Peer to Peer link, and a Parent-Child link between two CMDB item types. Each link type must be associated with a particular link type category.
You can also restrict which item types can be linked. For example, you can allow Servers to be linked to Routers, but stop Routers from being linked to Keyboards. You can also set the impact relationship for the link type.
ASM Core provides the Link Types below by default. You cannot delete these link types. However, you can rename them or edit the details:
Service Bundle to Service Action (optional)
links a service action to a service bundle so that a User ordering this service bundle does not have to order the linked service action.
Service to Service Action
links a service action to a service so you can create an impact relationship between the service and any linked service actions.
Specific link types are targeted at Cloud Provisioning scenarios and are meant to be used in the Integration Platform when importing resources from the VMware vCloud Director. The names of these links all have the same “(vCloud)” prefix.
Resilient Configuration Items
A resilient Configuration Item (CI) refers to a component within an IT infrastructure that is designed to withstand failures, disruptions, or stress while continuing to function effectively, either fully or with minimal degradation in performance. Resilient CIs are crucial in ensuring the reliability, availability, and continuity of IT services in the face of potential failures or unexpected events.
Many organizations choose to start with resilient Configuration Items (CIs) like servers, storage, and network components when maturing their Configuration Management Database (CMDB) because these elements are critical to service delivery and have significant operational impact. While linking workstations to users might seem like an easier task, for example, the value and criticality of resilient CIs make them a higher priority when maturing a CMDB. By starting with these essential infrastructure components, organizations can:
Gain visibility into service dependencies.
Manage risks effectively.
Ensure operational continuity.
Build a foundation for extending the CMDB to other, less critical components later on.
Once resilient CIs and their dependencies are well-documented, organizations often extend their CMDB to include simpler relationships like workstation-to-user mappings to further improve asset tracking and service management.
Key Characteristics of a Resilient CI:
Redundancy- Resilient CIs often have built-in redundancy, meaning that they have backup systems or components ready to take over if the primary system fails. Examples include redundant network paths, load-balanced servers, or mirrored storage systems.
Failover Mechanisms- A resilient CI is configured to automatically switch to a backup system, component, or process in the event of a failure, ensuring minimal or no downtime.
Fault Tolerance- The ability of a CI to continue operating in the presence of faults or errors without requiring immediate manual intervention. For example, fault-tolerant servers or databases that keep functioning despite hardware or software issues.
Scalability- Resilient CIs are often scalable to handle varying loads. This means they can manage a sudden spike in demand or stress without failure by scaling resources dynamically.
Self-Healing- Some resilient CIs have self-healing capabilities, where they can automatically detect issues and attempt to resolve them without human intervention. For instance, a system might reboot a failed service automatically.
Monitoring and Alerts- Continuous monitoring of the health of a resilient CI allows for proactive detection of potential issues before they cause failure. Alerts can notify administrators or trigger automatic responses to prevent disruptions.
High Availability (HA)- Many resilient CIs are designed with High Availability in mind, meaning they can provide continuous service with minimal downtime. This often involves clustering or distributing services across multiple locations to mitigate the impact of localized failures.
Disaster Recovery Capabilities- A resilient CI is part of a broader disaster recovery plan, ensuring that critical systems can be restored quickly in case of catastrophic failure or disaster, such as data replication to off-site locations.
Examples of Resilient CIs:
Servers with failover clustering and load balancing.
Storage Systems with data replication or mirroring.
Network Components (e.g., switches, routers) with redundant connections.
Virtual Machines that can be spun up in different environments for continuity.
Databases with replication and automated backup processes.
Importance of Resilient CIs in IT Service Management (ITSM):
In IT service management (ITSM), ensuring that CIs are resilient is critical for maintaining service uptime, meeting SLAs (Service Level Agreements), and avoiding costly disruptions to business operations. Configuration management processes track and document the resilience of each CI as part of the broader effort to maintain a stable and dependable IT environment.
By identifying, managing, and improving the resilience of CIs, organizations can better handle failures and ensure consistent service delivery even in adverse conditions.
Creating a Link Type
Before you can begin CMDB Item linking, you need to define the link type. When you have completed this task, you can proceed to CMDB Item Linking, found Here:
Before you start
You must have CMDB Setup enabled within your General Access security role in order to configure any CMDB administration settings. Depending on if or how your system is partitioned, ensure that you are working in the correct partition.
Select the Menu button, then Admin, and then select System Administration. The System Administration window is displayed.
In the Explorer pane expand CMDB.
Select CMDB Link Types to open the window. A browse table of all existing link types appears. (You may like to adjust the column widths to see all of the columns.)
Select the New icon.
Specify the CMDB Link Type Details.
Category
A drop down list of link types to define the relationship between CMDB item types.
Container-Component
This can be used when you have a CMDB item that encapsulates other CMDB items.
This category is useful when you want to abstract lower CMDB items away from the higher level CMDB linking diagram view, but still want to view them on the CMDB linking diagram when necessary. Take, for example, a Server Farm is the container which is connected to Servers (the component). On the CMDB linking diagram, the Configuration Manager will just see the Server Farm as the CMDB item displayed, although they can drill down further and see the configuration of the servers within.
Parent-Child
This can be used when two CMDB items have a logical parent-child relationship in the CMDB. For example, Email Service can be the parent of the Email Server.
Peer-to-Peer
This can be used when there is no hierarchical representation between two CMDB items. For example, a Server connected to a Network Printer.
Summary
This can be used when you have CMDB items that you would like to have entered in the CMDB, but do not really need to see on the CMDB linking diagram. They are listed in summary view on the CMDB linking diagram Info pane. For example, a Desktop CI is connected to Microsoft Office.
The category that you select here will determine the item type fields which are displayed on this page. If you select the Summary category, the Summarized tab will display in the linking diagram information pane if the item is selected.
Audit
Check this box to enable auditing for this link.
Impact Can Be Overriden Manually
Check this box to allow analysts to override the impact relationship set by the system administrator for this link type. Analysts can modify the impact relationship when accessing a link on the CMDB Linking Diagram.
Peer A
The first CMDB Item Type in the Peer-to-Peer relationship.
This field only displays if "Peer-to-Peer" has been selected under Category.
Peer B
The CMDB item type to which you want to link the Peer A item in the Peer-to-Peer relationship.
This field only displays if "Peer-to-Peer" has been selected under Category.
Principal
The first CMDB Item Type in the Summary relationship.
This field only displays if "Summary" has been selected under Category.
Summarized
The CMDB item type to which you want to link the Principal item in the Summary relationship.
This field only displays if "Summary" has been selected under Category.
Impacts
This checkbox specifies whether CMDB items using this link type will impact the other linked CMDB items. The impact determines if an outage against this CMDB item will also cause an outage against the linked CMDB item.
The label of these checkboxes depends on the type of category selected.
Role
A description for this component’s part in the relationship. This will be displayed on the CMDB Linking Diagram.
This can be defined for Container, Component, Parent, Child, Peer, Principal and Summarized fields. The Item Types displayed depend on what was selected in the Category field.
Link Styles
Styles will be used on the CMDB Linking Diagram. If necessary, click on the title to expand the section.
Specify the Line Width (in pixels) or thickness of the linking lines. The line width can be set to a number greater than 1 only when the line type is solid. For other line types, even if you set a thickness greater than 1, it will revert to 1 when you save the link type details.
Link Styles is unavailable for Container-Component or Summary link types because CMDB items linked using one of these link types are represented by an icon rather than a configurable line on the CMDB Linking Diagram.
Description
Optional description of the Link Type
6. Repeat for each link type you wish to create.
7. Select the Save icon to save the changes and close the window. Provide the Change Reasons if prompted to do so.
Updating a Link Type
Select the Menu button, then Admin, and then select System Administration. The System Administration window is displayed.
In the Explorer pane expand CMDB.
Select CMDB Link Types to display the window. A browse table of all existing link types appears. (You may like to adjust the column widths to see all of the columns.)
Select the link type you want to edit.
Update the CMDB Link Type Details as necessary. You may want to rename, assign a different line style, line color, or line size.
Select the Save icon to save the changes and close the window. Provide the Change Reasons if prompted to do so.
Deleting a Link Type
You cannot delete the default entries: Service Bundle to Service Action, Service Bundle to Service Action (optional), and Service to Service Action.
Select the Menu button, then Admin, and then select System Administration. The System Administration window is displayed.
In the Explorer pane expand CMDB.
Select CMDB Link Types to display the window. A browse table of all existing link types appears. (You may like to adjust the column widths to see all of the columns.)
Select the link type entry you want to delete.
Select the Delete icon. Select to save the changes. Provide the Change Reasons if prompted to do so.
Restoring a Deleted Link Type
Select the Menu button, then Admin, and then select System Administration. The System Administration window is displayed.
In the Explorer pane expand CMDB.
Select CMDB Link Types to display the window. A browse table of all existing link types appears. (You may like to adjust the column widths to see all of the columns.)
Select Show Deleted to display the deleted link types as well as the active ones.
Select the deleted entry you want to restore.
Select the Unfdelete icon . Deselect the Show Deleted checkbox to see the link type in the active list.
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