Asset Management Integration Engine (AMIE) – Part 2

In the previous article we discussed the general principles behind AMIE and how to configure and connect it to an asset management tool. In this article we expand on this, and discuss how to customize and develop your own mapping files for more granular control of the information sent to LiveTime’s CMDB.

Naturally, it is important that users have a very good technical understanding of the asset management system they are connecting to.

Mapping

LiveTime provides discrete control over every aspect of the Item import process from third party discovery servers. Using an XML based mapping file, you can edit and create new descriptor files to add new functionality to the system dynamically.

The XML mapping file is divided into various sections. The master wrapper tag is the Import Definition, as it provides the name of the asset management system and what will be populated in the popup menu.

<IMPORT_DEFN SERVER="LiveTime Discovery" VERSION="2007" AUTHOR="LiveTime Software Inc.">
  <ITEM CATEGORY="Hardware" ID_KEY_FORMAT="Client.Client">
    <ASSET_ID_LIST PARAM_NAME="ASSETID">
      <SELECT>SELECT computer.client</SELECT>
      <FROM>FROM com.livetime.assetimport.Client computer</FROM>
      <WHERE>computer.propAddress is not null</WHERE>
      <SORT1 ASCENDING="true">client</SORT1>
      <ALIAS>computer</ALIAS>
    </ASSET_ID_LIST>

The next layer outlines the Item Categories that are to be imported from this definition. By default most descriptors include both Hardware and Software. Within each of these sections are various tags that map the foreign tables into LiveTimes’ CMDB format.

The tags contain pseudo SQL objects, which are then mapped internally by LiveTime. The normal representation is the LiveTime property object on the left and the foreign mapping parameter on the right.

<ITEM_PROPERTY FIELD="field1" VALUE_PREFIX="" VALUE="cpu.propSize" VALUE_SUFFIX="MHz" TYPE="LOOKUP" />
    <ITEM_PROPERTY FIELD="field2" VALUE_PREFIX="" VALUE="memory.propSize" VALUE_SUFFIX="KB" TYPE="LOOKUP" />
    <ITEM_PROPERTY FIELD="field3" VALUE_PREFIX="" VALUE="computer.propMacAddr1" VALUE_SUFFIX="" TYPE="LOOKUP" />

In the above example, “field1” represents the name of the LiveTime field within the Hardware category of the CMDB. A quick review of the Hardware category within LiveTime (listed in system order), identifies the attribute name it actually references. In this example “field1” maps to the CPU field as shown below.

Inheritance

When software assets are mapped into LiveTime, they are automatically linked as children of the parent hardware using a special relationship within LiveTime’s CMDB called ‘Parent of / Child of (Inherit Owner)’. LiveTime supports many types of relationships that are defined in the ITIL or CMS > Relationships window of the Administrator role.

Note the ‘Inherit Parents Ownership’ option, means that all Items created as children of a hardware device that uses this Relationship Type, in this case all the software, adopts the same owner as the hardware. This is the default behavior in all the built-in descriptors.

Ownership

Many asset systems are able to detect the ownership of each device, most commonly desktop computers, through centralized authentication servers based around LDAP. Since we know who is using the device, it is possible to map the owner to the hardware tree and therefore, to the software on that machine.

Since LiveTime also permits centralized authentication, owners can be associated to each Item during the synchronization process. However, this depends on the following:

• LiveTime is setup to use centralized authentication
• The Asset management system uses centralized authentication
• The Asset management system supports Asset ownership ties
• The XML Descriptor is configured to bring across ownership information.

Asset Management Integration Engine (AMIE) – Part 1

The LiveTime Asset Management Integration Engine (AMIE) enables enterprises to quickly and easily synchronize with third party asset management and discovery systems. Using XML descriptor files embedded within the LiveTime application, AMIE is able to connect to the foreign host and transfer any type of Asset Management data into LiveTimes’ Configuration Management Database (CMDB).

AMIE can also recognize schema changes on the foreign host, and dynamically adapt to these modifications in real time. The system comes pre-configured with adaptors for all the major asset management vendors such as Novell ZENworks, Microsoft SMS, Centennial Discovery, LANDesk, LANrev and many others. Other adapters can be added as required using simple XML descriptor files. You can also edit the existing implementations and control the information that is imported into LiveTime when needed.

It is important that you have basic familiarity with the third party asset management system you intend to use with LiveTime. This requires knowledge of the underlying database it uses and the login credentials. While many of the defaults are provided for you, many organizations are unaware of the login credentials that are chosen after the initial install. In many cases this results in configuring a new user for LiveTime, so that AMIE can extract the data it requires.

Garbage In Garbage Out

A very important, and often overlooked concept, is managing the scope and quality of data within your existing system. Scope plays an important role in determining exactly what information should be imported into LiveTimes’ CMDB and whether it is relevant to Incident, Problem or Change Management.

It is important to recognize that all asset management systems collect volumes of information. LiveTime does not sanitize this information as it is imported into the staging area of the CMDB (although data input masks and filters are available for doing this). The task of ensuring the integrity and value of the data is the responsibility of each organization.

 Careful planning, testing and scoping of the asset data integration, is essential to obtaining and maximizing the potential of the asset management synchronization. You will quickly discover that left unchecked, the LiveTime system will collect hundreds of thousands of assets if they are available.

Getting Started

To access the AMIE integration within LiveTime, you must have Administrator access rights to the application. Once you are logged in, navigate to the Setup > CMDB Import menu option, and select New.

There are several important options that you must be aware of when doing any sort of synchronization. Firstly, the relevant server type needs to be selected for each asset management system. This loads the appropriate XML descriptor into the engine that can optionally complete many of the default fields.

The most crucial section to be configured is the Ownership privileges. This selection defines how each Item is mapped when the asset owner is UNKNOWN, as it dictates LiveTime’s ability to automatically assign ownership. There are always many Unknown Items in every system, so it is important that they are assigned to a user within LiveTime making them unavailable for all customers. Initially, these objects will be imported into the staging area of the CMDB for assessment. The configuration manager can then decide which objects to commit to the CMDB for automated management from that point forward.

We highly recommend that each Unknown Item be assigned to the System User by default. The Configuration Manager can subsequently review this assignment at a later date, and manually re-assign to the relevant owners.

The Synchronization option lets you specify the frequency of updates between the asset management tool and the LiveTime system.

In the next installment we will discuss object mapping and relationships and how they can be controlled and customized with the AMIE engine.