Working with CIs

You can define a new CI in IT Universe Manager by clicking the New CI button on the toolbar. The New CI dialog box opens, which enables you to define the properties for the new CI. The CI is created in the CMDB. For details, see New CI/New Related CI Dialog Box.

A CI created in this way is added as an independent entity without any relationship to any other existing CI in the CMDB.

You can define a new CI to be added as a parent, child, or sibling of an existing CI.

To define a new related CI:

1. Select the CI in your view to which you want to attach the new CI.

2. Click the New Related CI button on the toolbar.

3. In the New Related CI dialog box, define the properties and relationship for the CI. For details, see New CI/New Related CI Dialog Box.

The CI and relationship are created in the CMDB.

Note The CI and relationship are added to the view only if they meet the specifications of the pattern of the view, template, or perspective.

You can delete a CI by selecting Delete from CMDB from the shortcut menu in IT Universe Manager. The CI is deleted from the CMDB and from all views. If the CI has children, they are not automatically deleted when you delete the parent CI. If you delete a CI without first deleting the relationship between the CI and any child CIs that appear with the parent CI in a view, the child CIs are removed from the view.

If the child CIs do not appear in any other view, they remain in the CMDB without appearing in a view. The child CIs might appear in the future in views where they meet the pattern requirements.

One exception to this rule is when the relationship between a child and parent CI is a Composition relationship; in that case, when the parent CI is deleted, the contained CI is also removed from the CMDB. For example, if a node CI is the container for a child CPU CI, then when the node CI is deleted, the CPU is also removed from the CMDB.

When you delete a CI that was created by the DFM process, the CI is restored the next time that DFM runs (if the CI is still valid), and it reappears in all relevant views.

In IT Universe Manager, you can edit the properties of a CI. The CI properties are divided into several categories which appear in the New CI dialog box:

• The general properties of a CI are common to all CIs. Some general properties are defined automatically during CI creation; others can only be defined manually in the New CI dialog box.

• CIT-specific properties are created as part of the CIT definition in the CI Type Manager. The values for the CIT-specific properties are taken from the CIs discovered during DFM. The values can also be entered manually, when you manually create CIs to represent entities in your infrastructure. For details, see CI Type Manager.

• Key properties can be general or CIT-specific properties, which must be assigned a value to create an instance of the CI type.

You can access the Configuration Item Properties dialog box to view the CI properties from IT Universe Manager by right-clicking the CI and selecting Properties or by clicking the Properties tab in the Advanced pane. You can also edit the CI properties if you have the necessary permissions for editing CIs. For details on CI properties, see Configuration Item Properties Dialog Box.

The CIT-specific properties are displayed in the Specific Properties section of the Configuration Item Properties dialog box when you sort the properties using the Categorized button. Some properties for the automatically created CIs can be edited, however, if the CI is configured to Allow CI Update (in the General Properties), then DFM may override your changes when it updates the CI. A description of the selected property can be found in the Description area at the bottom of the Configuration Item Properties dialog box.

Some of the CIT-specific properties for DFM CIs are set by default to be monitored for changes. When one of these properties has been modified, information on the change can be viewed in a CI change report. For more information, see CI Change Report.

If a CI or relationship is not updated or refreshed over a period of time (for example, a CI is not rediscovered by DFM and no manual update occurs), an aging mechanism deletes the CI from the CMDB. For details, see CI Lifecycle and the Aging Mechanism.