CMDB Integration

Introduction

You can synchronize your Resolve Insights inventory to a CMDB (Configuration Management Database) system like ServiceNow or Cherwell to help drive processes in your organization that rely on these third-party services.

note

Insights only supports the CMDB feature set of ServiceNow and Cherwell.

Prerequisites

Ensure that following provisions are in place before you start integrating CMDB services with Insights.

Network Prerequisites

• Allow port 443 at the ServiceNow side for connections coming from all Insights NCE nodes.
• Allows ports 443 and 80 at the Insights side, on all NCE nodes, for connections coming from the ServiceNow MID server.

ServiceNow Prerequisites

• Deploy the Business rule and MID server scripts in your ServiceNow instance.
• In the Incident table, increase the limit on the length of the Correlation ID column to 1000.
• Ensure you have a ServiceNow user to use with Insights. Preferably, use the ITIL admin role, but you can use any role that has the following:
  • Create, Read, and Update permissions on the Incident table.
  • Create, Read, and Update permissions on the table columns to which Insights will push.

Cherwell Prerequisites

REST API Client Setup

In Cherwell Administrator, create a new REST API Client. Take note of the Client Key. You will need it later when configuring the Cherwell connection settings in Insights.

Field Length

Cherwell CSM Configuration Items (CIs) have an out-of-the-box field size of 25 characters. Insight data requires longer formats for some of the fields.

Change the field size of the following fields to 50 or more characters before integrating with Insights:

• Friendly Name

Change the field size of the following fields to 200 or more characters before integrating with Insights:

• IPAddress

Insights Attributes

You need to add Insights attributes to three Configuration Item (CI) objects: Config – Network Device, Config – Other CI, and Config – Server.

Config – Network Device

To add Insights fields to Config – Network Device, follow these steps:

1. In the CSM Administrator main window (orange icon), click the Blueprints category, and then click the Create a New Blueprint task from the Common Tasks menu.

2. In the Manage Objects pane, select the following:

   • Current View: Default
   • Show Object Types: Major
   • Configuration Item:
     • For Config – Network Device, select Config – Network Device
     • For Config – Other CI, select Config – Other CI
     • For Config – Server, select Config – Server

3. In the Config Network Device Tasks section, select Edit Business Object.

4. Scroll to the bottom of the field list and add the following Insights fields using the plus button in these respective sections:

   • In Edit Config - Network Device Business Object Group Member:

     No	Name	Type	Size	Internal Name
     1	Resolve-siteID	Text	200	ResolveSiteID
     2	Resolve-orgID	Text	200	ResolveOrgID
     3	Resolve-devType	Text	100	ResolveDevType
     4	Resolve-devSubType	Text	100	ResolveDevSubType
     5	Resolve-domainName	Text	100	ResolveDomainName
     6	Resolve-fqdnList	Text	200	ResolveFqdnList
     7	Resolve-deviceID	Text	200	ResolveDeviceID
     8	Resolve-isVirtual	Text	15	ResolveIsVirtual

   • In Edit Config – Other CI Business Object GroupMember:

     No	Name	Type	Size	Internal Name
     1	Resolve-siteID	Text	200	ResolveSiteID
     2	Resolve-orgID	Text	200	ResolveOrgID
     3	Resolve-devType	Text	100	ResolveDevType
     4	Resolve-devSubType	Text	100	ResolveDevSubType
     5	Resolve-domainName	Text	100	ResolveDomainName
     6	Resolve-fqdnList	Text	200	ResolveFqdnList
     7	Resolve-deviceID	Text	200	ResolveDeviceID
     8	Resolve-isVirtual	Text	15	ResolveIsVirtual
     9	Resolve-storageDataStoreCapacity	Text	25	ResolveStorageDataStoreCapacity
     10	Resolve-storageLunUuid	Text	100	ResolveStorageLunUuid
     11	Resolve-storageLunTotalSpace	Text	25	ResolveStorageLunTotalSpace
     12	Resolve-storageVolumeTotalSpace	Text	25	ResolveStorageVolumeTotalSpace
     13	Resolve-storageAggregateTotalSpace	Text	25	ResolveStorageAggregateTotalSpace
     14	Resolve-storagePortPortType	Text	15	ResolveStoragePortPortType

   • In Edit Config - Server Business Object GroupMember:

   No	Name	Type	Size	Internal Name
   1	Resolve-siteID	Text	200	ResolveSiteID
   2	Resolve-orgID	Text	200	ResolveOrgID
   3	Resolve-devType	Text	100	ResolveDevType
   4	Resolve-devSubType	Text	100	ResolveDevSubType
   5	Resolve-domainName	Text	100	ResolveDomainName
   6	Resolve-fqdnList	Text	200	ResolveFqdnList
   7	Resolve-deviceID	Text	200	ResolveDeviceID
   8	Resolve-isVirtual	Text	15	ResolveIsVirtual
   9	Resolve-Services	Text	200	ResolveServices

5. In the left Blueprints navigation pane, select Save Blueprint to disk.

6. Assign a name to the blueprint and click Save.

7. In the left Blueprints navigation pane, select Publish Blueprint.
   Cherwell will perform a scan of the blueprint and then publish.

8. After the publishing is complete, open Cherwell Service Management (blue client) and select Help > Reload Definitions.

Initial Setup

Before you can push devices and other Insights data to the CMDB, you need to perform the initial setup, which involves providing authentication and other details.

• Initial setup for ServiceNow
• Initial setup for Cherwell

Pushing Devices to CMDB

There are several different ways to push devices to the CMDB that depend on the settings you selected during the initial setup.

• Pushing Devices to CMDB Manually
• Pushing Devices to CMDB Automatically
• Pushing Devices to CMDB on Schedule

note

You can configure the CMDB tables where devices are pushed. See ::title for details.

note

The following device types will never be pushed to the CMDB system:

• HSRP_VIP
• IOM
• VSWITCH
• GATEWAY
• DISK
• NUTANIX_VSWITCH

Pushing Devices to CMDB Manually

At any time, you can push a device to the CMDB. Doing so either creates the initial CI (Configuration Item) in the CMDB or if the CI already exists, updates it. If you have selected manual push during the Initial Setup, this is the only way to synchronize your Insights data. Even if you have enabled automatic or scheduled push, you still have the option to select and push devices manually.

note

The manual push steps also concern the automatic push when the Push only if item has been manually pushed at-least once option is enabled. See ::title for details.

Follow these steps to push one or more devices to the CMDB:

1. Go to Inventory > Table View and ensure that you are viewing the Device tab.
2. In the table, select all the devices that you want to push to the CMDB.
3. Click the Settings icon (gear) icon above the table, select Push to CMDB, and then click All Selected Device/s.
4. (Optional) In Request Name, provide a name for the push task. Providing a name is recommended for easier tracking of the task later.
5. Check Push service/s into CMDB if you want to also push the information about the services running on the selected devices to the respective CMDB table.
   note

   Only services that have been set up under ::title are pushed.

6. Click Confirm. A configuration dialog box with a ID appears. You can use the ID or the request name (if you have specified one) to identify the tasks in the CMDB Schedule task list.

This procedure creates a scheduled job. The devices will appear in the CMDB as soon as its run completes.

The Last CMDB Update Time column of the Inventory > Table View > Device table displays a timestamp of the most recent push.

Pushing Devices to CMDB Automatically

If you have selected automatic push during the Initial Setup, inventory data will be synchronized as soon as it is discovered or a change event occurs.

If you selected the Push only if item has been manually pushed at-least once option during the initial setup, you will have to use the manual push steps at least once on a device to enable automatic pushing for it. As soon as you do that, the device will continue to be synchronized automatically on change events.

A change event for a device could constitute one of the following:

• Change in one or more of the following fields: Device Status, Device Sub Status, Hostname, Domain Name, Site, Organization, FQDN, IP Address List, IPv6 Address List, Device Type, Device Sub Type, Vendor, Model, Platform, Platform Type, Virtual, Version, Serial Number, Parents Name, Services, or any user-defined field.
• Starting of a new service on the device.
• The act of enabling an already running service to be pushed to the CMDB from the service configuration.

If none of these events is encountered, the device data will not be pushed to the CMDB system automatically.

Pushing Devices to CMDB on Schedule

If you have selected to push on schedule during the Initial Setup, newly discovered inventory data will be batched and finally synchronized when the next scheduled run comes.

Scheduled push is treated by the system as automatic push and the same logic applies. The first time the schedule runs, it will push all devices (except the restricted types). Upon next runs, only changed devices will be automatically pushed.

You can change the schedule parameters on the ITSM Configuration screen.

Optionally, you can process the data before it is pushed. To do that, provide a command line for NCE to execute as explained in ITSM Configuration.

Synchronization of Manually Created or Hidden Devices

Pushing a manually added device from the Inventory does not differ from pushing a discovered device.

For devices that you set as Hidden in the Inventory, an update is made in the CMDB to mark the CI as Retired.

Pushing Applications to CMDB

Pushing an Insights application to the CMDB involves a couple of steps. First, all devices constituting the application are pushed to the respective device table. After that, the application itself is pushed to the application table.

note

You can configure the CMDB tables where applications are pushed. See ::title for details.

Follow these steps to push one or more applications to the CMDB:

1. Go to Inventory > Table View and ensure that you are viewing the Application tab.
2. In the table, select all the application that you want to push to the CMDB.
3. Click the Settings icon (gear) icon above the table and select Push to CMDB.
4. (Optional) In Request Name, provide a name for the push task. Providing a name is recommended for easier tracking of the task later.
5. Check Push service/s into CMDB if you want to also push the information about the services running on the application's devices to the respective CMDB table.
   note

   Only services that have been set up under ::title are pushed.

6. Click Confirm. A configuration dialog box with a ID appears. You can use the ID or the request name (if you have specified one) to identify the tasks in the CMDB Schedule task list.

Pushing Services to CMDB

Services can be pushed to the CMDB as part of the device push. You can't push services separately. See Pushing Devices to CMDB Manually for details.

Whenever it discovers a new service (not previously pushed to the CMDB) on a device that is being pushed, Insights pushes the service and the device:service relationship to the CMDB.

Before services can be pushed, you need to configure them using ::title. Services that are not configured there will not be pushed, even if they run on the device.

note

You can configure the CMDB tables where services are pushed. See ::title for details.

Viewing Scheduled CMDB Push Tasks

Every manual push of a device, group of devices, or application creates a scheduled task.

To view the list of CMDB push tasks, go to Inventory > CMDB Schedule.

In the table, you can use the task ID (ID column) or the optional request name (Request Name column) to identify the tasks.

Clicking the task reveals a list of the devices that were scheduled for push with the task. Under Job Status, you can see if the particular device was pushed successfully or not. Depending on the device type, a different number of tags appear under Job Status. A successfully pushed device shows all these in green.

CMDB Inventory Clean-up

When you change or remove the CMDB instance configuration in Insights, Insights cleans up the existing sys_id information from the Insights. The CMDB records remain in place.