Creating grouping patterns

You can create new grouping patterns in the Grouping Patterns pane, in the Data Management Portal.

To create a new grouping pattern, complete the following steps:

  1. Open Data Management Portal.
  2. In the Functions pane, click Discovery if you use TADDM 7.3.0, or 7.3.0.1, or Analytics, if you use TADDM 7.3.0.2, or later.
  3. Click Grouping Patterns. The Grouping Patterns table is displayed.
  4. Click New. The General Information pane of the Create new Grouping Pattern window is displayed.
  5. In the Name field, specify a grouping pattern name. The name can be changed to a different one and it does not have to be unique.
  6. Select the pattern type and select the pattern compatibility type if applicable.
    1. The following pattern types are available:
      • Business Application, which is a collection of components that provides a business functionality that you can use internally, externally, or with other business applications.
      • Access Collection, which is a collection that is used to control the access to configuration items (CIs) and permissions to modify them when data-level security is enabled.
      • Collection, which is a group of any resources that you can select according to your needs.
    2. Fix Pack 1 You can select the pattern compatibility type only when the compatibility with earlier version mode is enabled. This type determines the type into which the old grouping entity is converted. For more information about the conversion process, see Migration from 7.2.2 and automatic conversion of old business applications.
      The compatibility type is based on a chosen pattern type:
      • Collection - only Collection compatibility type is available.
      • Access Collection - only Access Collection compatibility type is available.
      • Business Application - the following types are available:
        • Business Application,
        • Business Service.
  7. Specify the value for the Schedule option. This is the time when business applications are generated. You can choose from the predefined values, or change the time by using the bizappscli tool.
  8. Specify the value for the Configuration option. You can choose from the predefined values, or change the configuration by using the bizappscli tool. The tool allows you to modify advanced options of the business application building process.
  9. Optional: Enter a brief description in the Description area.
  10. Optional: If applicable, in the URL field, specify the URL that links to the business application.
  11. Click Next. The Selectors pane is displayed.
    Note: You can create a draft version of a selector by selecting the Disabled check box. Such selector is not used by BizAppsAgent in building custom collections.
  12. Click New to add a selector, and then enter the name of the selector.
  13. Optional: Fix Pack 1 In the Tier name field, specify the tier name of the selector. For more information, see Business application tiers.
  14. Optional: Enter the description of the selector in the Description area.
  15. Define selection rules. Click Choose...
  16. Click Choose... to edit core CIs selection method and grouping name expression. A new window is displayed.
    1. Choose core CI selection type. The following methods are available:
      • MQL query - enter a query in the text area. The starting "SELECT * FROM" is already hardcoded, so you must specify only source table and optional conditions. For more information, see Model Query Language overview.
      • SQL query - enter a query in the text area. The starting "SELECT * FROM" is already hardcoded, so you must specify only source table and optional conditions. For this type of query, use the building blocks database view names rather than the table names, for example BB_COMPUTERSYSTEM40_V WHERE NAME_C like 'test%'.
      • Instance-based selection - select the CIs manually from the list of all discovered CIs.
      Note: You can define custom queries by clicking Get from templates. Custom queries can be saved and reused in other selectors.
    2. Edit the Grouping name expression field. Enter grouping name expression for the selector or leave the default value "${patternName}". The default value sets the name of the generated collection to the name of the grouping pattern.
      For more information about grouping name expression, see Grouping name expression.
    3. Optional: Click Test to verify that the selection method and grouping name expression are valid. If there is an error, the relevant field is highlighted and the detailed error message is indicated by the tooltip. If there are no validation errors, you can see the sample results. For each core CI, a computed name of the custom collection is included. If the grouping name expression is not applicable for some of the core CIs, for example when an attribute is not set for the object, a warning is displayed. Custom collections are not created for such core CIs.
      Note: Even if you do not test the query and grouping name expression, they are validated automatically when you save the entire grouping pattern. If there are any errors, the grouping pattern is not saved, unless the error refers to the disabled selector.
    4. Click OK to accept the changes and close the dialog window.
    The validation status of each selector is represented by an icon on the selectors list. You can move mouse over the icon to see a tooltip message with details.
  17. Select or clear options regarding Dependency Traversal Template, which affect how related CIs are added to the collection.
    • Clear the Dependency Traversal Template option to skip traversing dependencies of the core CI. In such a case, custom collections that are generated by this selector consist only of CIs specified by the query of selector.
    • If you select the Dependency Traversal Template option, the following options are available:
      • Higher Up - traverse the dependencies up. When you select this option, BizAppsAgent traverses all objects, which depend on a specific core CI, and all other objects that depend on these objects. For example, BizAppsAgent traverses from a hypervisor to all computer systems that are hosted on it, and then to all application servers that are hosted on these computer systems.
      • Higher Down - traverse the dependencies up and then down. You can select this option only when the HigherUp option is selected. With the HigherDown option selected, BizAppsAgent goes down from all objects that it encounters while it traverses up the dependencies.
      • Lower Down - traverse the dependencies down. When you select this option, BizAppsAgent traverses all objects, on which a specific core CI depends, and all other objects on which these dependent objects depend. For example, BizAppsAgent traverses from the web server to a hosting computer system, on which the web server depends, and then goes from the computer system to a hosting hypervisor, on which the computer system depends.
      • Lower Up - traverse the dependencies down and then up. You can select this option only when the LowerDown option is selected. With the LowerUp option selected, BizAppsAgent goes up from all objects that it encounters while it traverses the dependencies down.
  18. Optional: You can add more selectors to this grouping pattern by clicking New and repeating steps 12 - 17.
  19. Optional: You can review other selectors of this grouping pattern by clicking a selector from the list on the left of the window. You can then change the details of each selector.
  20. Optional: You can remove a selector by selecting it from the list on the left of the window and clicking Delete.
  21. Click Next. The Administrative Information pane is displayed.
  22. Optional: Specify the appropriate information in the Administrative Information pane.
  23. Optional: Click Next. The Extended Attributes pane is displayed.
    Note: This pane is displayed only if extended attributes for the Grouping Pattern type are defined.
    To learn more about extended attributes and their definitions, see Extended attributes.
  24. Optional: Specify the appropriate information in the Extended Attributes pane. These extended attributes are copied to the generated custom collections.
    Notes:
    • There is no need to add extended attributes definitions to the custom collection type explicitly. Required definitions are automatically created by BizAppsAgent when generating custom collections.
    • When extended attributes' definitions are automatically cloned from Grouping Pattern to Custom Collection type, the type of each extended attribute is widened to String to avoid data loss while casting existing values.
    • Every time when grouping patterns are processed, the existing extended attribute values of a custom collection are updated. The manual changes to propagated extended attributes of a custom collection are lost on the next execution of the grouping pattern. If custom collections created from a single grouping pattern are to have an extended attribute that can be customized for each custom collection independently, then you must define a dedicated extended attribute for CustomCollection type with a unique GroupingPattern name and category.
  25. Click Finish to close the wizard and submit the newly created grouping pattern. The Grouping Patterns table is refreshed automatically.