UCMDB

HP Universal Configuration Management Database (CMDB) provides people:
automatically discovery of all IT components (HDD, RAM, CPU, MS AD, DBs, etc.) create relationship between components automatically track the changes
CMDBs (Configuration Management Databases) are used more and more consistently in enterprises in order to map and survey the increasingly complex system landscapes. In fact, uCMDB is an infrastructure library. uCMDB (Universal CMDB) is the name for the HPs CMDB implementation, which clearly focuses on the capability of mapping large business environments.
CMDB
The basic element of a CMDB is the so-called CI (Configuration Item), which describes the properties of any hardware, software as well as business process. Each CI is an instance of a CIT (Configuration Item Type), comparable to an object in object-oriented programming, which is an instance of a class. On the basis of the defined inheritances and interdependencies, the system and business landscape of an enterprise can be designed. Every single CI can be dependent on other CIs. This enables systems to be described very flexibly. Thus, using a CMDB, it is also possible to define systems according to the ITIL-Standard.
Main Components of uCMDB

One of the main components of uCMDB is the administration interface enabling not only to define program settings and user rights, but also to manage and control the actual configuration management database.
The other basic component is the view of the configuration management database. It allows IT managers to continuously have an overview of the present configuration. The training focused on the administration interface. The trainer explained how to create CIs and CITs, how to define interdependencies and inheritances, and how to implement views to be accessed by the user. Additionally, we learned much about reporting and statistics.
uCMDB Functions
The most important and powerful modules of uCMDB are the automatic search function enabling the search for system landscape changes by means of discovery, the impact analysis and the distributed storage of the CMDB via a centralized administration, the so-called Federated data model. The complete CI administration and configuration of all views of subsets of the CMDB are implemented graphically, using the so-called TQL (Topology Query Language).
Universe Manager
The Universe Manager maps all CIs. It allows CMDB administrators to manage the actual CMDB data. This includes entering and changing the CIs as well as the relationships between them. Care needs to be taken when deleting CIs. The 7.0 version of UCMDB removes them completely from the database. There is no undo function, although all CI changes are stored in a history database.
View Manager
This is where views of subsets from the CMDB are defined. The views can be accessed by the CMDB users. So for example, you can create a view showing all computers in a defined network that use an obsolete firewall. This view can then be presented to the person in charge of the network administration. For defining the views, TQL is used here as well
Discovery
Discovery works with discovery probes which assume tasks to explore the landscape via discovery gateways, the tasks being defined in the principal CMDB server. A major challenge when scanning server and network components is security. Reading the component properties requires a connection which must not be impaired by any subnets or firewalls. This means that the uCMDB must know the necessary administration passwords in order to be able to discover system details. Reading the properties can be as detailed as you like. In case you find that support by the standard version of uCMDB is missing, just write your own Jython scripts which then discovers the required system properties. If a certain service is not found by discovery, its entry will eventually be removed from the database. The period after which this will happen can be defined by each CIT, and also for each CI individually.
Impact Analysis
UCMDB offers useful mapping and analysis of system failures. Defining potential problems in advance enables the analysis of system failures even for remote systems, connected via large number of nodes.
Federated Database
Federated Database enables distribution of a potentially large UCMDB database to a number of physical systems. So different business headquarters can have their own databases administered via the centralized UCMDB installation. This enables faster database queries, still allowing the users to work with real-time data, as the central server knows where to find them. However, a CIT can be stored in one database only. If more than one database is holding CIs, inherited classes will not be found.
Use of UCMDB in Application Change Management?

Basically, UCMDB is able to store all kinds of properties of all kinds of systems. Nevertheless it is not a trivial task to use the UCMDB together with application lifecycle management (ALM) for managing software components and versions. UCMDB is not predominantly designed to cover this environment; at least such market positioning seems not primarily aimed at by HP. In combination with HP Business Availability Center (HP BAC), UCMDB allows a monitoring system to be implemented. In cooperation with uCMDBs impact analysis function it will be able to record and describe all system failures in detail and enable evaluations, all in real-time. Another application would be exploring web services in combination with HP SOA Center. UCMDB offers interfaces to easily integrate with external tools. But the extent, to which this is reasonable, depends on how much data the CMDB can handle without its performance being
reduced. Suitable views enable its contents to be represented in the most simple way. Additionally, the discovery of configuration files allows you to get a lot of information about the customization of selected software components. On this basis, problems concerning version updates can be recognized in advance, discussed and avoided through analyses. This is particularly true for updates of SAP modules. The uCMDB offers an API allowing the entire application to be controlled from outside. However, it can be a major effort to employ the product in a useful way. At present, HP sells this product mainly as an infrastructure library although its functionality comprises much more than that. A federated database system is a type of meta-database management system (DBMS), which transparently integrates multiple autonomous database systems into a single federated database. The constituent databases are interconnected via a computer network and may be geographically decentralized. Since the constituent database systems remain autonomous, a federated database system is a contrastable alternative to the (sometimes daunting) task of merging together several disparate databases. A federated database, or virtual database, is the fully integrated, logical composite of all constituent databases in a federated database system.
Through data abstraction, federated database systems can provide a uniform user interface, enabling users and clients to store and retrieve data in multiple noncontiguous databases with a single query -- even if the constituent databases are heterogeneous. To this end, a federated database system must be able to decompose the query into subqueries for submission to the relevant constituent DBMS's, after which the system must composite the result sets of the subqueries. Because various database management systems employ different query languages, federated database systems can apply wrappers to the subqueries to translate them into the appropriate query languages.
Among other surveys, [2] defines a Federated Database as a collection of cooperating component systems which are autonomous and are possibly heterogeneous. The three important components of an FDBS as pointed out in [2] are autonomy, heterogeneity and distribution. Another dimension which has also been considered is the Networking Environment Computer Network, e.g., many DBSs over a LAN or many DBSs over a WAN update related functions of participating DBSs (e.g., no updates, nonatomic transitions, atomic updates). Master data management or MDM is a relatively new term for similar practices.

UCMDB

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HP Universal Configuration Management Database (CMDB) provides people:

Main Components of uCMDB

Use of UCMDB in Application Change Management?

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