How to relate CIs and Service Offerings by dynamic CI Groups

[JakubS]

Hello,

We are trying to create relationships between network CIs and their respective TSOs. But I cannot find a definite answer if this should happen automatically when CIs are scoped and TSO related, or do we need a script for that?

Something seems to be missing because not even data from the offerings are propagated to the CIs.

Any idea what might be wrong?

Thank you,

Jakub

[Mathew Hillyard]

Hi @JakubS 

That is the function of a Dynamic CI Group.

First create a new CMDB Group (or identify an existing one whose queries meet your needs) and define the necessary CMDB Query Builder Query(-ies), Encoded Query(-ies) or manually added CIs. Your CI data needs to be good quality - location, manufacturer, model etc. - as this is the basis for the queries.

Then create a Dynamic CI Group and reference the CMDB Group in the field with the same name.

In the baseline the CIs that are brought in (which go into the Service Configuration Item Association [svc_ci_assoc] table do not appear in a related list. There is a UI action to show them in both the CMDB Group and the Dynamic CI Group but that brings up a custom UI view that I find useless. It's better just to add the relevant related list to the Dynamic CI Group form.

Then link your TSO to the Dynamic CI Group with a CI Relationship where the type is Contains::Contained by. Note that automated sync of ownership will cascade from TSO through the group to the CIs unless you deactivate the Business Rule.

Note this does not create CI Relationship [cmdb_rel_ci] records, they are instead stored as associations. So if you want to see which Dynamic CI Groups and TSOs they belong to, you will not be able to see this in either the Dependency View or related items formatter (I've raised an Idea to get this fixed in the platform as it is a gap). 

I hope this helps!

Mat