Searching the Help
To search for information in the Help, type a word or phrase in the Search box. When you enter a group of words, OR is inferred. You can use Boolean operators to refine your search.
Results returned are case insensitive. However, results ranking takes case into account and assigns higher scores to case matches. Therefore, a search for "cats" followed by a search for "Cats" would return the same number of Help topics, but the order in which the topics are listed would be different.
Words and Phrases
| Search for | Example | Results |
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| A single word | cat
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Topics that contain the word "cat". You will also find its grammatical variations, such as "cats". |
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A phrase. You can specify that the search results contain a specific phrase. |
"cat food" (quotation marks) |
Topics that contain the literal phrase "cat food" and all its grammatical variations. Without the quotation marks, the query is equivalent to specifying an OR operator, which finds topics with one of the individual words instead of the phrase. |
Using Boolean Operators
| Search for | Operator | Example |
|---|---|---|
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Two or more words in the same topic |
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| Either word in a topic |
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| Topics that do not contain a specific word or phrase |
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| Topics that contain one string and do not contain another | ^ (caret) |
cat ^ mouse
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| A combination of search types | ( ) parentheses |
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Baselines
Baselines are an optional feature of Configuration Management that allow you to define a set of attributes that all instances of a configuration item (CI) should have. A baseline is a template CI that defines the expected or authorized attributes of a CI. Typically, a baseline only describes the attributes that you expect CIs to share in common and does not include attributes that you expect to vary. For example, a baseline describing PCs might require that all PC CIs be assigned the same model number and operating system version but not the same owner or serial number. In this example, the model number and the operating system would be authorized attributes of the baseline, while the owner and the serial number would be individually-managed attributes.
Note Baseline records replace baseline configuration item groups from previous versions of Service Manager. The upgrade process converts existing baseline configuration item groups to query groups.
Baseline records are separate from the CI records they manage. You must first create a baseline record before you can associate it with one or more CIs. All baseline records must have a name, a list of authorized attributes, and a state. Baseline records can optionally have a version number, which administrators can configure from the Configuration Management environment record. A baseline record’s status determines whether you can add or edit attributes, and whether you can associate CIs to the baseline. After you authorize a baseline record, its attributes are locked and you can only associate or remove CIs from the baseline.
It is up to a Configuration Management manager to determine whether a CI that is out of compliance with its baseline is acceptable or requires a change. Keep in mind that both the CI record and the baseline record describe the expected or managed state of a CI. A baseline record is intended to describe the expected state across many similar items. A CI record describes the expected state of an individual item.
There may be cases where it is acceptable for an individual CI to have a different managed state than other CIs in the same baseline. For example, you might have a baseline requiring that all application servers have 8 GB of RAM. However, you may also want one of your application servers, the Web server, to have 16 GB of RAM. You may want to authorize this exception to the baseline rather than creating a new baseline record to describe just one CI.
Baselines only check for compliance against the managed state of the CI. The actual state of the CI is irrelevant to a baseline compliance check. Continuing the example above, the Web server CI record might list 16 GB of RAM as the managed state. This makes it out of compliance with the baseline that requires all application servers to have 8 GB of RAM. If a discovery process later reveals that the Web server actually only has 12 GB of RAM, this might cause Service Manager to open an unplanned change, but it will not cause a new violation of the baseline. Only differences between the CI’s managed state (16 GB of RAM) and the baseline (8 GB of RAM) matter.
Baseline section
Each CI record has a baseline section that lists details about the baseline, if any, that is currently managing the CI. The baseline section lists the name of the managing baseline, its version, and a list of the attribute names and attribute values the baseline expects. If the CI has a value other than the baseline value, Service Manager displays a warning message stating that the Configuration Item is out of compliance with Baseline.
