UCMDB General Parameters

This section describes the most common parameters of the service's methods. For more details, refer to the schema documentation.

CmdbContext

All UCMDB Web Service API service invocations require a CmdbContext argument. CmdbContext is a callerApplication string that identifies the application that invokes the service. CmdbContext is used for logging and troubleshooting.

For the definition of the type, see CmdbContext.

ID

Every CI and Relation has an ID field. It consists of a case-sensitive ID string and an optional temp flag, indicating whether the ID is temporary.

Key Attributes

For identifying a CI or Relation in some contexts, key attributes can be used in place of a CMDB ID. Key attributes are those attributes with the ID_ATTRIBUTE set in the class definition.

In the user interface, the key attributes have a key icon next to them in the list of Configuration Item Type attributes in the user interface. For details, see Add/Edit Attribute Dialog Box. For information about identifying the key attributes from within the API client application, see getCmdbClassDefinition in the topic Query the UCMDB Class Model .

ID Types

An ID element can contain a real ID, or a temporary ID.

A real ID is a string assigned by the CMDB that identifies an entity in the database. A temporary ID can be any string that is unique in the current request.

A temporary ID can be assigned by the client and often represents the ID of the CI as stored by the client. It does not necessarily represent an entity already created in the CMDB. When a temporary ID is passed by the client, if the CMDB can identify an existing data configuration item using the CI key properties, that CI is used as appropriate for the context as if it had been identified with a real ID.

CIProperties

A CIProperties element is composed of collections, each containing a sequence of name-value elements that specify properties of the type indicated by the collection name. None of the collections are required, so the CIProperties element can contain any combination of collections.

CIProperties are used by CI and Relation elements.

For the definition of the type, see CIProperties in the schema documentation.

Type Name

The type name is the class name of a configuration item type or relation type. The type name is used in code to refer to the class. It should not be confused with the display name, which is seen on the user interface where the class is mentioned, but which is meaningless in code.

Configuration Item (CI)

A CI element is composed of an ID, a type, and a props collection.

When using UCMDB Update Methods to update a CI, the ID element can contain a real CMDB ID or a client-assigned temporary ID. If a temporary ID is used, set the temp flag to true. When deleting an item, the ID can be empty. UCMDB Query Methods take real IDs as input parameters and return real IDs in the query results.

The type can be any type name defined in the CI Type Manager. For details, see CI Type Manager.

The props element is a CIProperties collection.

For the definition of the type, see CI in the schema documentation.

Relation

A Relation is an entity that links two configuration items. A Relation element is composed of an ID, a type, the identifiers of the two items being linked (end1ID and end2ID), and a props collection.

When using UCMDB Update Methods to update a Relation, the value of the Relation's ID can be a real CMDB ID or a temporary ID. When deleting an item, the ID can be empty. UCMDB Query Methods take real IDs as input parameters and return real IDs in the query results.

The relation type is the Type Name of the UCMDB class from which the relation is instantiated. The type can be any of the relation types defined in the CMDB. For further information on classes or types, see Query the UCMDB Class Model .

For details, see CI Type Manager.

The two relation end IDs must not be empty IDs because they are used to create the ID of the current relation. However, they both can have temporary IDs assigned to them by the client.

The props element is a CIProperties collection.

For the definition of the type, see Relation in the schema documentation.