Discovery Event Manager rule options

Rules help to automate the process of managing incoming configuration item (CI) records. When you have rules set up, you can manage whether a record is added, updated, or deleted to the CI records in ITSMA Service Management. The Discovery Event Manager tool checks the incoming CI records and determines what to do when the actual state of the CI records does not match the managed state of the CI records in ITSMA Service Management. When Discovery Event Manager finds the rule that applies to an incoming CI record type, the server checks the rule, and then updates the record according to the rules you have set up.

Example: If a user's machine has 4 GB of RAM added and the Discovery Event Manager tool discovers that the actual state of the CI record does not match the ITSMA Service Management managed state for that CI record type, the Discovery Event Manager tool opens an unplanned change. This then gives the Change Manager the opportunity to review the CI record and determine what tasks to complete.

Actions are required in the following cases:

• Records that do not exist.
• Records that contain unexpected data.
• Records are marked for deletion.

The following options are available when configuring rules to meet your business needs:

• Action if matching record does not exist: If a CI record does not exist in Service Management.
  • Add the record: (Default) When the information received from Web services through Discovery Event Manager does not bring up a matching record in Service Management, add the record.

  • Add the record, and set dependency as true: This option is available only for synchronization of CI relationship data. Service Management will add the CI relationship record and enable outage dependency for the record by checking its Outage Dependency check box and setting its number of dependent downstream CIs to 1.

  • Open an Incident: Open an incident to investigate a new CI record that currently does not exist in Service Management to determine if it is compliant with Service Management.
  • Open a Change: Open an unplanned change to review the new CI record, because it currently does not exist in Service Management. This change gives the Service Management Administrator an opportunity to deny the Change Management request and back it out by using the change management process or to accept the actual state of the new CI record and assign tasks accordingly.
• Action if record exists but unexpected data discovered: Changes to the information in an existing CI record raise a flag for the Discovery Event Manager tool. Some of the information is not part of the managed state in Service Management. The unexpected data in the CI record must be logged or reviewed.
  • Open a Change: (Default) Open an unplanned change to review the actual state of the CI record. This change gives the Service Management Administrator an opportunity to deny the Change Management request and back it out by using the change management process, or to accept the actual state of the existing CI record and assign tasks accordingly.
  • Log Results and update record: Log the results of the actual state of the CI record, and then update the record.
  • Open an Incident: Open an Incident to investigate the actual state of a CI record and determine what actions must be performed or initiated to bring the record into compliance with Service Management.
• Action if record is to be deleted: If an external event specifies that the record needs to be deleted.
  • Delete record: (Default for CI relationship records) This option is available for synchronization of both CI and CI relationship records. Service Managementautomatically deletes the record.

  • Open an Incident: This option is available only for synchronization of CI relationship records. Service Management opens an incident to investigate the deleted record and determines which actions must be performed or initiated to bring the record into compliance with Service Management.

  • Open a Change: This option is available only for synchronization of CI relationship records. Service Management opens an unplanned change to review the deleted record. The change allows someone to investigate whether the deleted record is compliant with your business practices. If the record is compliant, the change can be approved. If the record is not compliant, then the change can be denied and the record added back to the system.

  • Update record to the selected status: (Default) This option is available only for synchronization of CI records. Service Management updates the status of the CI record to a value selected from the drop-down list (for example, Retired/Consumed), instead of deleting the record permanently.

  • Open an Incident to update record to the selected status: This option is available only for synchronization of CI records. Service Management opens an incident to update the record’s status to a value selected from the drop-down list (for example,Retired/Consumed). Once the incident has been closed, Service Management automatically updates the CI record to the selected status.
  • Open a Change to update record to the selected status: This option is available only for synchronization of CI records. Service Management opens an unplanned change to update the CI record’s status to a value selected from the drop-down list (for example, Retired/Consumed). The change allows someone to investigate whether the requested status change is compliant with your business practices. Once the change has been approved and closed, Service Management automatically changes the CI record to the selected status. If the change has been denied, Service Management makes no changes to the CI record.