What's New in CMS 10.31

The Automated Service Modeling (ASM) feature has the following improvements:

• As a modeler, you can extend service map by manually adding an entry point to any component of a service model

  The new Add Entry Point option in the service model component context menu allows service modelers to extend their service maps by manually adding an entry point to any component of a service model (business application or running software). For details, see Manually Add an Entry Point to a Service Model Component in the Use section of the Universal CMDB Browser Online Help.

• As a modeler, you can manually add IP ranges to probes from UCMDB Browser

  If the Probe shows the error message "the IP address is not in the discovery IP Range", you can manually add a new IP range to the probe from the new Probe Errors pane (Discovery > Discovery Issues > Probe Errors). For details, see Add an IP Range Manually in the Universal CMDB Browser Online Help.

Hybrid user management with multiple user repositories

Starting from version 10.31, when you have LDAP server(s) configured, you can also authenticate with UCMDB users. This allows you to perform hybrid user management with multiple user repositories. Now a UCMDB user has an ID composed of name and repository. For example, now you can have the user admin from UCMDB, and also a user named admin from the LDAP server Repository1. For more details, see Hybrid User Management with Multiple User Repositories in the Hardening section of the UCMDB Help guide.

Improvement to the SOLR search engine

Starting from version 10.31, the SOLR auto commit feature is enabled by default, this means that SOLR will automatically commit documents (indexed CI data):

• hard auto commit. Writes documents to disk but the documents are not visible for searching. The interval for hard auto commit is set to 15 seconds or 10000 documents.
• soft auto commit. Makes documents available for searching. The interval for soft auto commit is set to 3 minutes.

Since UCMDB can run heavy data-in operations, by setting these values the updated data is often sent to Solr, therefor the Solr's performance is improved.

For more information, see Solr Auto Commit in the Administer section of the UCMDB Help.

UCMDB ChatOps tool available

Added the UCMDB ChatOps tool, which is a simplified collaboration model that enables people, processes, tools and bots (chat robots) to exchange information, trigger activities and automate manual tasks in a simpler, rapid, and more cost-efficient way. You can use this tool to search for CIs, as well as to view the following information for a specified CI:

• The general properties.
• The impact analysis results.

• The history changes.

For more details, see the Universal CMDB ChatOps Administrator and User Guide.

Other Improvements

• Added possibility for enabling a-sync history from JMX Console

  Starting from version 10.31, new JMX methods introduced in the UCMDB:service=Async History Service category allow you to enable asynchronous CI history from the UCMDB JMX console. This is helpful if you want to improve data-in performance. For details, see How to Enable Asynchronous CI History in the JMX Reference section of the UCMDB Help.

• Improvements to the UCMDB REST API

  Starting with UCMDB 10.31, you can perform the following operations using UCMDB REST API:

  • Run impact analysis
  • Convert UCMDB IDs to Global IDs, and also the other way around
  • Retrieve history changes

  For more information, see Universal CMDB REST API in the Developer Reference section of the UCMDB Help.

• Added the most common identification rules for the following five classes to supportability handlers to help collect more data for troubleshooting purpose: node, ip_address, interface, running_software, and business_application.

Extended Support Matrix Coverage

• Operating Systems:

  • Added support for Microsoft Windows Server 2016, Datacenter and Standard editions, 64-bit (without the Nano Server installation option)

• Cloud Environment:

  • Added support for Amazon Web Services for both UCMDB Server and Data Flow Probe
  • Added support for Microsoft Azure for Data Flow Probe

• Package Manager

  Added the Package Manager module in the Administration Console for UCMDB Browser, which enables you to easily manage the capabilities of your system based on the packages you deploy. For more details, see the Universal CMDB Package Manager Help.

• Improvement to the Get Related Widget

  Starting with UCMDB Browser 4.12, you can view in the Right panel the CI Type's count information displayed in parentheses. Also, you can go back to a previous state displayed in the get related map, simply by selecting the desired CI in the Navigation Context menu. For more details, see Get Related Widget in the Use section of the Universal CMDB Browser Online Help.

• Other Improvements

  • Improved the export time for reports.

  • Improved the loading time for embedded widgets.

For more details, see the UCMDB Browser 4.12 documentation.

Universal Discovery (UD) software provides visibility into IT environments by automatically discovering and mapping IT applications and infrastructure elements. This is an overview of the main new features and enhancements in Universal Discovery 10.31.

• Added possibility for encrypting IP ranges related information on probes

  Added a new attribute domain_encrypt in the domainScopeDocument.xml file to act as a flag to tell the probe whether to encrypt or decrypt the IP ranges related information in the domainScopeDocument.xml and domainRangesDocument.xml files. No need to manually modify the attribute. You can invoke the new JMX method setDomainEncrypt to control this attribute. For detailed instructions, see How to Encrypt/Decrypt IP Ranges Information on the Probes in the JMX Reference section of the UCMDB Help.

• Accessibility improvement: Providing secure access to the Probe JMX Console by making HTTPS port 8453 default

  Starting with version 10.31, for fresh installed Data Flow Probes, by default the jettyHttpsEnabled setting in the Probe configuration file DataFlowProbe.properties is true and the HTTPS port 8453 is used for the Probe server, with the HTTP port 1977 being disabled. For more information, see Using HTTPS Port 8453 as Default for Data Flow Probe in the JMX Reference section of the UCMDB Help.

Micro Focus releases frequent Content Packs that extend the breadth and depth of discovery and integration content, and enhancements to existing content. Content Pack 22.00 delivers a wide range of content in the areas of support matrix, new discoveries, new and enhanced jobs, and integrations.

Discovered Operating Systems

Added support for discovery and inventory (including agent support) for the following operating system:

• Apple macOS Sierra 10.12
• Windows Server 2016

Discovered Applications

Added support for discovering the following applications:

• IBM DB2 Universal Database 11.1
• IBM WebSphere MQ 9.0
• JBoss Application Server 10.1
• Microsoft Active Directory on Windows Server 2016
• Microsoft Cluster Services on Windows Server 2016
• Microsoft Hyper-V on Windows Server 2016
• Microsoft Network Load Balancer on Windows Server 2016

New Discoveries

Added support for Cloud Foundry Event Discovery.

Cloud Foundry provides RESTful API to get the events. The Cloud Foundry Event Monitor job queries the events every 30 seconds and reports them into UCMDB.

Integrations

• Added support for integrating Micro Focus Network Automation (NA) 10.21.

• Added a new parameter NNMiHost to the Pull Topology from NNMi adapter. NNMiHost is the host name to use with the NNMi integration. You must fill in this parameter if FIPS is enabled. NNMiHost has priority over IP address, which means instead of IP address, NNMiHost will be used if it is filled in.

Others

• Added a new parameter checkHostName to the Host Resources by Shell and Host Applications by Shell jobs. This parameter checks whether the host name from input CI is the same with the current one. If the host name from input CI is different from the current one, the relationship between IP address and node is removed.

• Added a new parameter mapLLDPPortsByNames to the Layer2 Topology CDP-LLDP based by SNMP job. If setting the parameter to true, the LLDP entry is mapped to the local port based on names. If setting the parameter to false, the LLDP entry is mapped to the local port based on indexes. The default value is false.

• Added a new parameter max_include_depth to the JEE WebSphere Liberty Core by Shell job. This parameter defines the maximum recursion depth of the included file discovery. The default value is 5.
• Added a new parameter OracleHomePath to the Oracle Application Server by Shell job. This parameter defines the Oracle home path(s), separated by semicolons.
• Added a new topic Brief Introduction to Storage Discovery to the Discovery Modules section of the Content Help.
• QLogic Host Bus Adapter (HBA) can be discovered on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.
• The Storage Devices Topology by CIM job can discover logical unit numbers (LUNs). The LUN is identified by its ID and one of connected FC ports or iSCSI adapters. The LUN can be used to map the logical volume at the storage side to the physical volume (or disk device) at the server side.
• Scanner version: 10.31.000.155
• Universal Discovery Agent version: 10.31.000.155

• Inventory Discovery Knowledge version: 2016.12

For more information, see the Content Pack 22.00 documentation.