Importing and Managing Software with both ITAM and CMDB

Products

• CA IT Asset Manager
• CA Software Asset Manager (CA SAM)
• ASSET PORTFOLIO MGMT- SERVER
• CA Service Management - Asset Portfolio Management
• CA Service Management - Service Desk Manager

Issue/Introduction

Description:

Software Management in ITAM and CMDB

Solution:

Importing and Managing Software with both ITAM and CMDB

Scenario:

• Customers who own both solutions:
  
  
  • CA IT Asset Manager (CA ITAM) or CA Asset Portfolio Management (CA APM)
    
    
  • CA CMDB
    
    

• Managing software licenses in CA ITAM or CA APM
  
  
• Managing software CIs in CA CMDB

Challenge:

Due to the differences in which CMDB and ITAM/APM view and process software assets, a revised loading procedure is outlined below to address these differences. Please consider the following when loading software data into the MDB.

Overview:

From an ITAM/APM perspective, software assets represent the purchased entity of the license and do NOT represent individually installed instances of software. The latter is more common for the CMDB. When brought into the MDB via the ITAM Data Importer tool or added using the ITAM/APM Web UI, these assets are not registered using CORA registration. The mechanism used to determine if CORA is used is driven by the Asset Type (family) of these records. The Asset Types (family) assigned to ITAM/APM software records should have the "is_software" attribute set to true so that they are displayed in ITAM/APM as software assets. This designation not only prevents CORA registration of the asset but also insures the UI screens are presented correctly for software assets.

Note that for these types of assets (i.e. ITAM/APM software license assets) the CI flag should be set to false since these types of records are not considered CI's for use in the CMDB. These types of records should be loaded into the MDB using the ITAM Data Importer.

CMDB Software CI's ARE individually installed instances of software and need to be registered via CORA in CMDB to participate in CMDB relationships; therefore the "is_software" attribute of the Asset Type (family) should be false to ensure CORA registers the software CI (i.e. instances). The CI flag should be set to true so these records do not show up in ITAM/APM and should be loaded into the MDB using the GRLoader application.

When managing both software assets/licensing in ITAM/APM and software CIs in CMDB, ensure you have separate Asset Types (families) setup to ensure no conflicts. Because of the "is_software" attribute condition to differentiate between an ITAM/APM software asset/license and a CMDB software CI, you cannot use the same Asset Type (family). For example, if both solutions are managing Window XP software, you need two separate Asset Types (families), one for ITAM/APM licenses and one for CMDB software CIs. We recommend you use the OOTB Asset Type (family) of "Software" in ITAM/APM to only manage software licenses.

Best Practices:

1. For loading ITAM/APM - Software (license) use the ITAM Data Importer.
   
   
2. For loading CMDB Software CIs use the CMDB GRLoader.
   
   
3. Use the "Software" Asset Type (family) to manage ITAM/APM software licenses.
   
   
4. Use the CMDB OOTB Asset Types (families) to manage software CIs.

Please note:

1. If you have already loaded a software asset into ITAM/APM, setting the "is_ci" flag to true within ITAM/APM will not be sufficient to make the software asset a CI. You must import the record either using GRLoader or the CMDB Web UI to create a software CI. Symptoms of a failure to follow the above procedure include the inability to create relationships between unregistered CIs.
   
   
2. When loading Hardware assets using the ITAM Import tool, ITAM/APM does NOT register the hardware asset via CORA if the only registration parameter specified is the Asset Name. From an ITAM/APM perspective, the Asset Name is typically the "name of the asset" based on the Model Name and would always be the same for each asset and therefore another value (i.e. serial number) should also be specified. CMDB however populates the Asset Name with the Computer name and WILL register this asset when this is the only value provided when using the GRLoader application.

Environment

Release:
Component: ARGWEB