Auto discovery of assets in ITAM

Products

• CA Service Management - Asset Portfolio Management
• CA Service Management - Service Desk Manager

Issue/Introduction

How to integrate CA SAM wit ITCM 
 

Environment

Release : 17.0

Component : CA Asset Portfolio Management

Resolution

Using the CA Software Asset Manager (SAM) Sample ITCM Connector

 

Introduction

A ‘connector’ is a way to automate the CA SAM data import process to import data, usually from a discovery database.  There are numerous sample connectors provided with CA SAM, for various products.  The sample connectors available can be viewed from within CA SAM, at Admin -> Configuration -> Connectors

The sample connector files are located on the SAM server:  \Program files (x86)\CA\SAM\app\htdocs\prod\docs\connectors\standard\{company\connector}…  

This document describes the basic steps for the ITCM 12.5 sample connector setup.  These steps can also be used to implement other connectors. The sample connectors provided have been tested with a specific release level of the discovery product, and may or may not need modification when used with a different discovery product release level.

Our CA Services team can assist with connector customization for your environment.  Connector customization requires extensive knowledge of the discovery database structure.  Connector customization is not within the scope of CA Support, due to the large number of connectors and databases involved.  

Getting Started with the ITCM Sample Connector

1. Get the Connector
   
   Copy all the files (.csv and .xml) from the ITCM connector at:  \Program Files (x86)\CA\SAM\app\htdocs\prod\docs\connectors\standard\ca\itcm\12.5
   to a temporary directory.

2 Test the Connector Query

1. Copy the first select query from the 400_itcm_devices.xml file device xml (400) and run in against your ITCM enterprise database. (Find ‘<key>query’ and then look for the select statement a few lines down.)
2. If it returns devices, then continue with the rest of the instructions. If no devices return, or the SQL errors, then the connector will need customization.  Our CA Services team can assist with connector customization for your environment.  Connector customization requires extensive knowledge of the discovery database structure.  Connector customization is not within the scope of CA Support, due to the large number of connectors and databases involved

3. Configure the Connector

Configure the data source and the protocol email address within the files. 
Each connector contains a data source named ‘custkey_xxxx’.  For the ITCM connector, this is ‘custkey_itcm’.

1. Open each file (csv and xml’s) and search for the word ‘custkey’. Change ‘custkey’ to ‘{mycompanyID}’, where myCompanyID is an abbreviation for your company.  Example:  ca_itcm, for company CA.
2. Data sources need to be unique for each connector. If you create a second connector that points to the same database, then use a unique data source name.  For example, ca_itcm2
3. Locate <protocol_email> and provide an email address (optional). After the import is done an email will be sent to this recipient.

4:Create a Database Connection Parameter Set

1. Open the 400_itcm_devices.xml and locate the db_connect_param_set_id value:

           <key>db_connect_param_set_id</key>

                                           <value>camdb</value>

‘camdb’ is the database connection parameter set id name.  You can change this name, but, if changed, edit ALL the xml files in the connector set to contain the same db_connect_param_set_id value.

2. Create the 5 database connection parameters in the set using the value of the db_connect_param_set_id 

Our example uses ‘camdb’. Substitute the values below with your specific values for host, database name, user, password and port.

5:Register the Connector

1. Zip the temporary directory into a zip file with no spaces in the name.
2. Login to SAM and navigate to Exchange -> Data exchange -> Exchange directory

Select the exchange directory for either superuser or asp asp (admin)

Check the ‘Extract Zip archive’ option and browse to upload your zipped directory.

6.  Run the Connector
The data exchange cron job will run the xml files (in numbered order), at the next scheduled cron job run time.

To manually start the cron job prior to the next run time, Navigate to Admin -> Configuration -> Cron Jobs (above).
Click the …, then Edit and change the next run time ‘hour’ and ‘minute’ to run a few minutes in the future.

 7. View the import log files (log files for any running xml)
Navigate to Exchange -> Logs -> Processes

Select the ellipses (…) on the xml file, then select Details and view the .log file