1.0 Introduction to Modeling

Operations Center provides different ways to integrate and correlate technology and business data from nearly any source, including network and systems management tools, databases, and internally developed applications. Map this data to business processes that support IT systems, and generate desktop dashboards that provide greater visibility into end-to-end IT systems value, performance, and utilization.

Modeling your business processes enables monitoring and managing availability and performance of the applications and services that you deliver to the business.

Operations Center provides a modular set of modeling solutions, so you can adopt specific applications that solve specific challenges. This guide focuses on using the Console’s Service Models hierarchy and SCM to create service models. Table 1-1 lists methods of creating service models in Operations Center:

Table 1-1 Methods of Creating Service Models

Operations Center Modeling Tool

Allows you to:

Service Models Hierarchy (available in the Operations Center Console)

  • Manully add elements to define attributes and relationships of enterprise resources using the Service Models element hierarchy. Enterprise resources can include any component or aspect of a business units, such as IT infrastructure components, personnel, or events and transactions.

  • Define classes, behavior models, and custom properties and assign them to service model elements.

Service Configuration Manager (SCM)

  • Generate new element hierarchies from multiple, varied data sources.

  • Automatically discover dependencies and identifies scheduled and unscheduled changes.

  • Integrate the mapping of element relationships across an enterprise.

  • Integrate asset, configuration, and change sources into one business view.

  • Build and maintain Service Views automatically and dynamically—alleviating the need to create, update, and maintain views (models) manually.

Layout View (available in the Operations Center Console)

  • Create visual representations of element, service, or process information using graphics and drawing tools.

  • Use the dynamic linking feature binds graphics in a drawing to element conditions and attributes, thus enabling automatic updates of the drawing when elements change.

  • For information on this feature, see the Operations Center 5.6 Custom Drawing and Layout Guide.

Server, Configuration, Export, and Import commands (available in the Operations Center Console)

  • Creates, edits, and shares element hierarchies from the Service Models hierarchy.

  • Dynamically creates or maintains element branches in the Service Models hierarchy instead of manually creating them.

  • These commands support exporting ACL permissions, custom properties, drawing attributes, and SLA properties.

  • For information on using the Server commands, see the Operations Center 5.6 Server Configuration Guide.

After defining the components of a service model, populate it with elements from different sources. These elements drive the state of the service model. They are brought into Operations Center using standard adapters, custom adapters, and auto-discovery tools. It is also possible to generate elements from external data sources using the Service Configuration Manager (SCM) or the Import Configuration feature. In addition, you can drag and drop elements from anyplace in the Elements hierarchy to a service model.

Table 1-2 summarizes different methods of populating a service model:

Table 1-2 Methods of Populating Service Models

Operations Center Feature

Description

Match Elements by Criteria (available in a service model element’s Elements property page)

  • Assigns elements to service models using element name or DName, element property, or element class.

Standard Adapters

  • Connects to and communicates with third-party management systems. Elements, properties, and alarms from these management systems can drive the state of a specified service model.

  • Operations Center ships with a large number of adapters, each written for a specific network or systems management product.

  • The complete list of standard adapters, as well as the integration and configuration steps necessary to integrate each one, are described in the Operations Center 5.6 Adapter and Integration Guide.

Data Integrator

  • A custom adapter that brings in data from a defined database and builds out elements, properties, and alarms. Provides a way to access business metrics from databases not available using standard adapters.

  • The Data Integrator is an optional component of the Operations Center platform and is licensed as a separate product. For more information, see the Operations Center 5.5 Data Integrator Guide.

Drag and Drop elements

  • A method of manually fine-tuning a service model using existing elements in other hierarchies. Move or copy elements from one hierarchy to another by dragging and dropping them within the Explorer pane.