on - edited on by
Steph Morillo
When planning a journey, think about more than just the destination. This advice is especially true when your organization embarks on a journey to "Service Aware CMDB" or "Predictable AIOps."
You should also consider the approach, resources, and input you need from various application, service, and CI owners. By planning these details, you can ensure that your journey is smooth, efficient, and successful.
We will start with an assumption that your CMDB is healthy. I like ensuring my house is clean before heading out to my favorite destination! Please make sure you are using the right discovery method and how frequently you are discovering the CIs, and in complex environments, you should implement and govern the use of tags on your cloud resources.
Here is a list of the available approaches to mapping Services to your infrastructure configuration items.
- Dynamic CI Groups – used to map small application services, uses CIs that are easily grouped using created list filters or CMDB queries. A simple license server, for example. There are limitations to the number of CIs in an application service that a Dynamic CI group populates. This method does not require an ITOM Visibility license.
- Manual mapping – best fit for mainframes or small application services that do not change much and have high availability. This mapping can be done within the CSDM Menu>Manage Technical Services>Application Services module to ensure you use the in-platform relationships. If you create a manual mapping and later decide to use a more automated approach, you may have duplicate relationships if you do not first delete the manual relationships. This method does not require an ITOM Visibility license.
- Tag-based mapping – is great for cloud-native, hybrid environments. Tags identify critical applications, microservices, and cloud resources without needing credentials, elevated rights, and MID Servers or firewall openings. You should implement and govern the use of tags on your cloud resources.
- Automated Service Suggestions **New** - Create application services to CI mappings quickly based on service suggestions using machine learning. Use Service Mapping Plus, which is available through store download. Time to value. You don't need to figure out the entry points. If you have already created an Application Service using the CSDM menu or import, this process will create another Application Service of the same name or conflict.
- Top-Down mapping and Connection Suggestions – This is to get highly detailed surgical maps that use patterns and connection suggestions. This approach is the most granular of the approaches. It is recommended for mission-critical application services for on-premises and legacy applications. Top-down uses connection suggestions and still requires starting with an entry point. This approach is like taking the train or bus, you will see a lot of detail, but it will take longer to get there.
You may need to take several different approaches. You can use the guide I've included below to understand the approach and value based on the type of application services you have in your organization. Dynamic CI groups, Manual mapping, and tag-based mapping provide quick visualization and less detailed maps and may require human updates. Use the top-down pattern and connection suggestion-based mapping approach for higher effort for visualization and detailed maps, but know it takes longer to value.
Approach Considerations
(image from Now Create Service Mapping Workshop presentation)
Find out more and click on the links below:
Now Create implementation guidance
**NEW** Automated Service Suggestions
