Metric binding to resources

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of Metric binding to resources

    Metric binding to resources in ServiceNow's Metric Intelligence allows you to bind metric series not only to Configuration Items (CIs) but also to specific resources within those CIs, such as individual disks or web pages. This approach enhances the granularity and efficiency of monitoring by enabling detailed tracking and aggregation of metrics at the resource level rather than only at the CI level.

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    Key Features

    • Two Binding Methods:
      • CI/Metric binding: Associates metrics directly with a CI (e.g., winserver001/responsetimemean).
      • Resource binding: Associates metrics with a resource within a CI using a CI/Resource/Metric format (e.g., winserver001/Disk — C/diskusage), enabling more detailed metric modeling.
    • Efficient Aggregation: Resource binding supports meaningful aggregations across similar resource metrics (e.g., average disk usage across all disks on a host).
    • Resource Records: When binding to resources, resource records are created or updated to represent monitored entities that may not exist as CIs in the CMDB.
    • Resource Class Mapping: Metric Intelligence uses the CI Type To Resource Class [sacitypetoresourceclass] table to map CI classes to corresponding resource classes, facilitating automatic resource identification during metric binding.
    • Resource Tables: The system includes a hierarchy of resource tables extending from the CI Resource [ciresource] parent table, such as hardware, applications, services, databases, and virtual machine objects.

    Use Cases

    Resource binding is especially useful when monitoring entities like disks, processors, network interfaces, or web pages that:

    • Exist within a CI but are not individually represented as CIs in the CMDB.
    • Require detailed metric tracking and aggregation at the resource level.
    • Are captured by monitoring tools that generate KPIs for specific components within services, such as individual web pages.

    How Metric Binding to Resources Works

    • The MID Server generates metric binding events for monitored metrics.
    • The system attempts to identify the CI associated with each metric event.
    • Once the CI is identified, the system refers to the CI Type To Resource Class mapping to find the appropriate resource class.
    • The resourcepath attribute in the event's additional information is used to locate or create a matching resource record within the resource class.
    • The metric event is then bound to the resource record, enabling precise tracking and aggregation.

    Configuration Requirements

    • Ensure the system property sa.metric.use.resource.binding is set to true (default) to enable resource binding.
    • For metrics to bind to resources, populate the resourcepath attribute by either:
      • Using event rules to add resourcepath to the Additional information field in metric events.
      • Including resourcepath as part of the CI identifier data sent to the MID Server.
    • Review and customize the default mappings in the CI Type To Resource Class [sacitypetoresourceclass] table to ensure accurate resource classification before processing metric data.
    • Managing the mapping table requires the evtmgmtadmin role.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    • Improved granularity in metric collection and monitoring by capturing metrics at the resource level within CIs.
    • More accurate and meaningful metric aggregation across similar resources, facilitating better performance analysis and troubleshooting.
    • Ability to monitor and bind metrics for entities that are not present as CIs in the CMDB, extending monitoring capabilities.
    • Streamlined metric event processing through automated resource identification and binding, reducing manual effort in metric management.

    Bind metrics to resources to simplify metric events binding by enabling binding to resources such as specific disks or web pages, in addition to binding to CIs.

    Metric Intelligence models metric series in either of the following methods:
    • Binding a metric series to a CI and to the metric being monitored for that CI using a 'CI/Metric' format. For example, 'win_server_001/response_time_mean'.
    • Binding a metric series to a CI, a resource within that CI, and the metric being monitored for that resource, using a 'CI/Resource/Metric' format. For example, 'win_server_001/Disk — C/disk_usage'. This method is referred to as resource binding.
    The first method enables modeling, storing, aggregating, and querying data at the CI level. However, resource binding creates resource records for specific monitored entities, such as an individual web page or a disk. Therefore, resource binding is more efficient when there are multiple resources of similar types within a CI, and metrics applicable to a category of these resources are mapped to these resources.
    Use cases:
    • Common examples are disks, processors, and network interfaces. In cases in which these entities are being monitored but do not exist in the CMDB, using resources for metric binding is useful.
    • Some monitoring solutions capture metric data within services such as KPIs for individual web pages in an application. In such cases where the entity being monitored is not a configuration item, metric binding to resources can be helpful.
    In those situations, using resource binding results in more meaningful aggregations across similar metrics (such as: avg disk_usage for a host across all disks).

    Resource binding process

    The MID Server generates metric binding events that are processed by the instance. When processing a metric binding event, there is an attempt to identify the CI to which this metric binding event belongs. If this attempt is successful, then the metric binding event is bound to the identified CI and binding to a resource is attempted. The following steps describe the attempt to bind a metric binding event to a resource:
    1. Identify the CI class of the CI that was bound to the metric binding event.
    2. Locate the resource class which is mapped to that CI class (using the CI Type To Resource Class [sa_ci_type_to_resource_class] table).
    3. Read the resource_path attribute value in the additional_information field in the metric binding event.
    4. Check if a resource record exists in the resource class table, in which name is equal to resource_path and cmdb_ci is equal to the CI that was bound to the metric binding event.
    5. If such resource record exists, then the metric binding event is bound to that resource. Otherwise, a new resource record is created with the preceding values and the metric binding event is bound to the newly created resource.

    Configure resource binding

    • Ensure that the sa.metric.use.resource.binding system property is set to true (default).
    • For series intended to be bound to resources, ensure that the resource_path attribute is populated by doing either step:
      • Use an event rule to add the resource_path attribute to the Additional information field in events. For more information, see Creating an event rule to map metrics to specific CIs.
      • Populate the resource_path attribute as a part of the respective CI identifier when data is sent to the MID Server for processing.
    • Review the default mappings in the CI Type To Resource Class [sa_ci_type_to_resource_class] table and adjust as needed. It is critical that mappings are set as desired prior to data processing.

      Managing the CI Type To Resource Class table requires the evt_mgmt_admin role.

    Resource tables

    Resource binding uses an underlying hierarchy structure of resources which is a subset of the [cmdb_ci] hierarchy. Metric Intelligence installs the following resource tables:
    • CI Resource [ci_resource] (parent table):
    • Tables that extend CI Resource [ci_resource]:
      • ci_resource_hardware
      • ci_resource_appl
      • ci_resource_service
      • ci_resource_vm_object
      • ci_resource_database

    Mapping CIs to resources

    Mappings of CI classes to resource classes are stored in the CI Type To Resource Class [sa_ci_type_to_resource_class] table. This table is installed with Metric Intelligence, and is used during metric binding to resources.

    Table 1. Mappings in the CI Type To Resource Class table (default)
    CI class Resource class
    cmdb_ci_hardware ci_resource_hardware
    cmdb_ci_appl ci_resource_appl
    cmdb_ci_service ci_resource_service
    cmdb_ci_database ci_resource_database
    cmdb_ci_vm_object ci_resource_vm_object