Hi Chris, We, too, are going through the same thing. I can only speak to product categories, the DSL and the CMDB, as that is what my group deals with. I've done a little research, and posed some questions to Remedy, and here's what we've learned so far:
The "5 levels of Product Categories" is the Tier 1, 2, 3, Product Name, Model/Version. You're right - entries from the DSL are "set" and out of the box, they are not modifiable. The answer I got re: modification of at least the Tier 1-3 structure to meet more of an industry standard (i.e. "DBMS Software", "Desktop Tools", etc.), they said that it was a good recommendation for an RFE. So, unless you want to modify and potentially face upgrade issues, further classification could/would be done at the CI level (you could extend the "Product" class, which holds software instances (more on that below) to have a further classification structure for the installed software). In terms of hardware, it's more flexible from the standpoint that you've got to create the products yourself. We, too, had "Hardware" as Tier 1 category, however, if you follow what we feel is the spirit of the CMDB, CTI are used to made differentiations <within> a class - for example, the Computer System class might have a CTI like Personal Computer/Desktop/-None- , or Personal Computer/Laptop/-None-. I don't like the -None-, but until Remedy gets that locking us into a mandatory 3 (or 5) tier structure is quite limiting, we've got to live with it. In terms of components - like Video Card - you could create the product in the "BMC_Card" class, with a CTI like Video Card/Something/Something (sorry, not up on video card stuff); another example would be a mouse - could go into the class BMC_Pointing Device with a CTI of Wireless/Ergonomic/-None- or USB/Ergonomic/-None-, etc. Point is, you've got to create the products with the right "classes" first, then differentiate/categorize further from there with CTI. Lastly, remember that CTI is only mandatory at the Product level - once you create CI's, there is no restriction on CTI, so you might even want to create "generic" components in the right class and utilize that. That way you avoid the "Dell Video Card, HP Video Card, IBM Video Card", etc. The way it all ties together (Product Catalog/DSL/CMDB) is that the DSL is just pulling entries from the Product Catalog that are are set up to be in the System Component/Product class. (Personally, I think "Product" is a bad name for this class, as it is misleading - a product can be any product, not just software....still waiting for an answer from Remedy on this). The way the product catalog ties to the CMDB is that once you create the product entries, specifying the particular class - when you create an instance of the CI in the class, the menu options are based on the CTI of the product that you created. Hopefully this helps somewhat and is not too convoluted to follow :) I just know that we are struggling with the same thing and no one ever posts back to the more "generic/esoteric/design" type questions, so just wanted to give a shout out. Good luck, and let me know how you fare going forward! _______________________________________________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at http://www.wwrug.org
