I am in the process of developing the CMDB Dashboard with the associated health rules. The first iteration will be aimed at the Asset Management set of 'Managed Classes'. Those CMDB classes that they actively manage and are responsible for.
Our CMDB contains a lot of what we consider "non-managed" classes, such as the Next Hop Routing records and other CI classes. We have chosen to keep those in the CMDB but wish to exclude them from the CMDB dashboard. And as we upgrade to Kingston, we want to take advantage of the Health Inclusion rule introduced in Jakarta.
But before beginning a large effort at configuring the rules, I'd like to ask for any best practices or advice that we should be aware of. The documentation (Create identification inclusion rule) is clear on how to provision the necessary filters, but I want to ensure we're doing it in the most efficient manner. And importantly, in a manner that is manageable and understandable by both myself and our Managed Class Owners. Because the Asset Management set of Managed Classes is somewhat lengthy and messy, I'm starting with their set of classes first. As I create the filters, I don't want to create such a fragile filter that it requires constant tweaking and fiddling. I also want to avoid the question from my Managed Class Owners, as to "why" or "why not" any particular class is included or not. They should have a clear understanding of what CIs they own and manage. And if they need to adjust, they need to clearly provide the detail needed for the filter
At the top of the hierarchy, the cmdb_ci table, I plan on excluding the majority of classes that we just don't want incorporated in the scorecard calculations. Especially, the classes that have large numbers of records, such as the aforementioned Next Hop Routing Rule. The active record filter is a simple "Class != <class>" and so forth. Basically, the global exclusion rule.
Under each specific managed class, I would include an inclusion of which specific records to include. That is, "Active = True", or "Status = [Installed | Available | Deployed | etc.]" or "Managed by != NULL", etc. Whatever the Managed Class Owner considers as an active CI record that needs to be managed.
Is this a feasible strategy to follow for building the set of CMDB CI records contained in our dashboard? Are there other methods that have been used and tested? Is there performance concerns that need to be considered when running the dashboard scripts?
Thanks in advance,
Larry
