Directory Integrator, Version 7.1.1
Use the CMDB Connector to read, write, delete, or search configuration items (CIs) and relationships between them in the IBM Tivoli Change and Configuration Management Database (CCMDB).
The CCMDB is an integrated productivity tool and database that helps you manage, audit, and coordinate the change and configuration management processes using user interfaces and workflow that are designed to facilitate cross-silo cooperation. CCMDB includes a database that serves as a logical aggregation of many databases, providing critical information about IT infrastructure resources, including key attributes, their configurations, and their physical and logical relationships to other infrastructure resources.
The CCMDB Connector uses JDBC to connect to the database and supports only the DB2 database. This connector uses the queries.xml configuration file to include static SQL statements to retrieve or store data into the database.
In the CCMDB Connector, a hierarchical data source schema is used to represent information. The schema depends on the specified artifact type such as actual configuration item or relationship, and the specified class type.
For more information about CCMDB, see http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v10r1/topic/com.ibm.ccmdb.doc_7.1.1/overview/c_ccmdb_overview.html.
The CCMDB data layer contains three data spaces that hold configuration items, process artifacts, and the relationships between these objects. This data layer provides a dependency mapping of the discovered environment and a specification of authorized configuration items that define:
The CCMDB Connector supports the Tivoli Common Data Model (CDM) across all three data spaces. The CDM is a logical information model that is used to support the sharing of consistent data definitions and the exchange of data between Tivoli management products concerning managed resources and components of a customer's business environment. The following figure depicts the three data spaces of the CCMDB solution, its interoperability, and its relationship to other data structures such as process artifacts.
For more information about CDM, see http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v10r1/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.taddm.doc_7.2/SDKDevGuide/c_cmdbsdk_understandingdatamodel.html.
The CCMDB Connector works with configuration items stored in the Actual CIs data space. Actual CIs are a subset of configuration items and relationships of the Discovered CIs data space, which is copied to the Actual CIs data space. In the Actual CIs data space, the system deals with subsets of the data from Discovered CIs data space. The system still contains data to perform all the process management and service management capabilities such as CI auditing as part of configuration management or change management.
The CCMDB Connector supports the following two modes of data representation:
You can select the data representation mode to be used by the CCMDB Connector in the Configuration Editor.
In the IdML mode, all attributes are represented with their CDM names capitalized and are prefixed with cdm:. All relationships contain two parts namely, relationship and a related item. The related class carries information for the relationship direction. Thus, the sys.ComputerSystem's relationship runson changes to cdm-rel:runsOn . cdm-src:sys.OperatingSystem. The first part, cdm-rel:runsOn, describes the relationship as seen in the prefix cdm-rel. The second part represents a related type of class sys.OperatingSystem and its prefix, if the related item is the source of the relationship.
In the IdML mode:
In the native mode, all configuration items and relationships are represented according to the internal data model. The connector does not generate GUIDs for configuration items. It relies on the Id values specified in the input data.
Refer to the following example data structure, in native mode and IdML mode, for an operating system with the installed software.
| IdML mode | Native mode |
|---|---|
|
|
You can switch between these two modes of data representation using the IdML Mode option in the Configuration Editor. To check the structure of the current schema, use the Query Schema function of the CCMDB Connector.
Refer to the following example data structure, in native mode and IdML mode, for installedOn relationship.
| IdML mode | Native mode |
|---|---|
|
|
The CCMDB Connector supports AddOnly, Delete, Update, Iterator, and Lookup operation modes. The following table shows the supported modes of operation for various artifact types and schema.
| Mode | Artifact Type | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Actual CI
(Native schema) |
Actual CI
(IdML schema) |
Relationship
(Native schema) |
Relationship
(IdML schema) |
|
| Iterator | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Lookup | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| AddOnly | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Update | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Delete | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
In the AddOnly mode of operation, using the available attributes in the Entry, an actual configuration item or relationship is created and inserted to the database. To add a configuration item or relationship, in the Configuration Editor, set up the attribute mapping to specify values for the attributes.
Following tables describe the operations in AddOnly mode.
| Artifact | Operation |
|---|---|
| Root configuration item | Adds item to the database if it does not exist, else throws an exception. |
| Relationships | Adds the relationship. |
| Related configuration items | Skips if the item exists.
Adds the non-existent items. |
| Artifact | Operation |
|---|---|
| Relationship | Adds the specified relation to the database if it does not exist, else throws an exception. |
| Related configuration items | Skips if the item exists.
Adds the non-existent items. |
In the Update mode, using the available attributes in the Entry, an actual configuration item or relationship is updated in the database. To update a configuration item or relationship, in the Configuration Editor, specify the link criteria and set up the output attribute mapping to provide value for the attribute to be updated.
Following table describes the operations in Update mode.
| Artifact | Operation |
|---|---|
| Root configuration item | Updates the item |
| Relationship | Overwrites the relationship |
| Related configuration items | Skips if the item exists
Adds the non-existent items |
In the Delete mode, using the available attributes in the Entry, an actual configuration item or relationship is deleted from the database. To delete a configuration item or a relationship, in the Configuration Editor, specify the link criteria and input attribute mapping for the attribute.
Following tables describe the operations in Delete mode.
| Artifact | Operation |
|---|---|
| Root configuration item | Deletes the specified item from the database |
| Relationships | Deletes the relationship from the database |
| Related configuration items | Skips the delete operation |
| Artifact | Operation |
|---|---|
| Relationship | Deletes the specified relationship from the database |
| Related configuration items | Skips the delete operation |
In Iterator mode, the CCMDB Connector is used to read actual configuration items and their relationships for the specified class type in the Configuration Editor.
In the Lookup mode, the CCMDB Connector is used to search for the matching attribute. Based on the required configuration item/relationship class, the Entry is constructed of that type relating to the selection criteria passed into the method invocation.
Configuration parameters of CCMDB Connector are described in this section.
To select a supported class, click the Select... button in the Configuration Editor.
Go to the TDI_install_dir/examples/CCMDBConnector directory of your IBM® Tivoli® Directory Integrator installation.