Breakdown on Configuration Item - number of elements exceeds the maximum allowed.

[Banu1]

Hello,

I need to create a breakdown on Configuration item(cmdb_ci) for incident table, there are total of 20,000 CI's on incident table.

Am getting error msg as:

'This breakdown source was automatically disabled because the number of elements exceeds the maximum allowed as defined in the Properties'

is there any way that i can make this work or is it possible to show top 10 used CI's on incident records as a breakdown ?

Thank You!

Regards,

Banu

[Kuldeep Kumavat]

Hi Banu,

The option you have is to use Manual Breakdowns. You can create a manual breakdown which would contain the top 10 CIs.

You can populate this Manual Breakdown through a scheduled script execution which would bring the 10 Top CIs and insert in the Manual Breakdown. You need to schedule the script execution before your Data Collection Job. Also, you can restrict your script just to keep latest top 10 CIs and remove the other old entries.

But with this method you will only get the Top 10 CIs for the latest Collection date and won't contain historical top 10 CIs.

Regards,

Kuldeep

[chrissteinkep5]

Hi Banu. It is possible to update the Performance Analytics properties to increase the maximum elements but it may cause performance issues and so is not recommended and typically done as a last resort. 

Showing top 10 CIs for Incidents in report form is a fast and efficient way to show the data, and I always like to create this for clients as it often leads to challenging questions. It may be that a generic CI is being used (e.g. 'computer') or that Event Alerts are being mixed with Incidents which muddy the KPIs. In your case I would recommend:

1) Create a report (column) showing Incidents, Grouped by CIs, with 'Count Distinct' CIs and showing the top 20 without "Other". This can be done in minutes and would show immediate value to the client.

2) Using the top 20 CIs from this Report, create a manual breakdown 

3) Then create a breakdown widget visualization to display the 'Top 10'

This is not perfect especially if the organization's most common CIs on Incidents changes frequently. If the Top 10 CI's is very different month to month consider using the top 50 CIs in your manual breakdown. 

You could use scheduled jobs and scripting to dynamically generate your breakdown, but this would make visualizing historical data a challenge if a CI dropped off the 'Top 10' list for one month. 

But the most efficient approach would be to only collect on a sub set of the Configuration Items records. Maybe 'Business Criticality=1' or certain classes? Any filter criteria that would allow you to reduce the 20,000 CIs to 500 would be ideal. If your CI breakdown is limited to 500 no additional work is required. 

So in order of least effort and complexity to greatest:

1) Reduce the number of CIs to show to 500 using a filter - based on how important the CI is to the business

2) Create a manual breakdown based on the top 20, 30, or 50 most common CIs

3) Create a scheduled job and script the dynamic creation of the manual breakdown on a regular basis

If you have any questions please let me know,

Chris