How to Add DEM Reconciliation Rules

It is possible that your Service Manager system already contains CI records that match CIs in your UCMDB system. Rather than add duplicate CI records to your Service Manager system, you can configure Service Manager to reconcile CI records between the two systems based on specified Discovery Event Manager (DEM) reconciliation rules.

A DEM reconciliation rule record enables you to specify what Service Manager queries you want to use to determine whether an existing CI record matches a CI in a UCMDB system. An administrator typically specifies reconciliation rules prior to starting the integration to the UCMDB system so that Service Manager will not create duplicate CI records.

When performing CI reconciliation between Service Manager and UCMDB, Service Manager uses the ucmdb.id field to query the device table or a join table to determine whether an Update or Create operation is needed. The reconciliation process is as follows:

1. The UCMDB system sends a web service message containing the latest CI attribute data to Service Manager.
2. Service Manager scans the web service message for the CI ucmdb.id value.

   Note The ucmdb.id field is displayed in the Actual State Section of the CI form, with a label of Ucmdb ID.

3. Service Manager searches for an existing CI record that has the same ucmdb.id value.
4. If Service Manager finds a CI that has the ucmdb.id value, no reconciliation is needed. Service Manager compares the UCMDB CI attributes to the Service Manager managed fields and runs the appropriate Discovery Event Manager (DEM) rules as needed to update the CI record in Service Manager.
5. If Service Manager cannot find a CI that has the ucmdb.id value, it searches for a DEM reconciliation rule record that is defined for the CI type.
6. If no DEM reconciliation rule record is found, Service Manager creates the CI record according to the appropriate DEM rules.

7. If a DEM reconciliation rule record is found, Service Manager evaluates the rules and appends (ucmdb.id=NULL or ucmdb.id~=NULL and istatus=”XXXXXX”) to the reconciliation rules in the backend. The istatus value is retrieved from the DEM rule for deletion (for example, Retired/Consumed). If no istatus value is found in the DEM rule, Service Manager only appends ucmdb.id=NULL to the reconciliation rules in the backend.

8. If no matching CI record is found by the reconciliation rules, Service Manager creates the CI record according to the appropriate DEM rules.
9. If a matching CI record is found by the reconciliation rules, Service Manager updates the CI record according to the appropriate DEM rules

Multi-company mode

By default, Service Manager uses only the ucmdb.id field for CI reconciliation and the company.id field is not used. You can manually add DEM reconciliation rules.

Using join tables for reconciliation

When setting reconciliation rules, if the CI type you are reconciling has a joindef definition (as defined in the devtype table), use the join table name instead of the device table. For example, if you want to reconcile computer CIs, use the joinnode table instead of the device table.

Sequence of reconciliation

By default, Service Manager executes the reconciliation rules in their listed order. To change the order in which Service Manager reconciles CIs, you can add a numeric value to the Sequence field.

Steps to add a DEM reconciliation rule record

To create a DEM reconciliation rule record, follow these steps:

1. Click Tailoring > Web Services > DEM Reconciliation Rules.

   Service Manager displays the DEM Reconcile Record form.

2. In the Table field, select a Service Manager table against which you want to run reconciliation queries.

   Note Only tables that are specified in CI type records are displayed in the drop-down list. You can create only one DEM reconciliation record for one table.

3. Click New.

4. Enter expressions in the Expression column, and then enter a sequence number for each expression in the Sequence column.  For example, you can add the following expressions for the device table. In this example, Service Manager looks for a matching record first based on the logical.name field, and then based on the sm.device.display.name field.

   Expression	Sequence	Notes
   logical.name=logical.name in $L.file	1	Checks to see if the CI Identifier matches the logical.name value of an existing CI in Service Manager. If no matching record is found, go to the next expression.
   sm.device.display.name=sm.device.display.name in $L.file	2	Checks to see if the CI Display Name matches the display.name value of an existing CI in Service Manager.

5. Click Add.

   Service Manager creates the DEM reconciliation rule record.