At the end of the day, there are several topics here. What is the best way to represent location in the CMDB What is the best way to display the data, select a location to say display, plot a map, something else that is about CONSUMING the location data that is in the CMDB
As far as representation, you need to look at what you are thinking about in terms of saying the location of something. Do you mean a blade in a rack? Do you mean a room in a building? Do you mean a building? Do you mean a site? Do you mean something else? For things that are more physical – like blade in a rack – you would have an entity that represents the rack and one that is the blade and then relate the two. This would go for anything where there is an actual set of objects that together form a structure like this. For other things, there is a class for representing a Location. You would create instances of that class for every location. NOTE: The model is about creating locations for things that are reasonably large like buildings or sites or such. Then, you relate locations to things where you want to identify the location. Now, the location relationship contains attributes that allows you to get more specific about where within the location – like the office number of floor or pillar number or such. So, the CMDB structure has standard classes and relationships for storing the locations and specific details within locations for any object. Now, you relate objects to locations (filling in qualifying attributes if desired). On to the display. You can pick any location object from the CMDB and tell Atrium Explorer to display it to 1 level following the location relationships. This will display all the things tied to that location. Or, when displaying a thing (server or whatever) you can include location relationships in the display and get the location displayed as a related CI to the object. No special logic or tool needed. Now, if you wanted to be able to pick the location from a map, you could put a wrapper on top that shows a map and then takes the selected point, maps to the closest location and then opens Atrium Explorer with the related things to that location. Or you could pull the data and use it yourself in some other interface or display. The key is to use the location class and relationship modeling of the Common Data Model (CDM) that is part of the standard CMDB definition and not extend with custom attributes. Many applications and users know about the location object and relationship – none of them know of your extension. And, location is far better represented in the CMDB as a CI that you re related to rather than as a static attribute value. Of course things that are moving around (your mobile devices) aren't always where they are home based. You really need to decide whether it is worth the overhead of trying to record where something is at the CURRENT MOMENT when it moves around for what you are trying to accomplish. This is just a data management challenge. I hope this is useful, Doug Mueller From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Pierson, Shawn Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2012 12:58 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: GIS and Atrium CMDB ** It sounds cool, but I personally would tie the lat/long coordinates to the Site record rather than each individual CI. If you were tracking things that were truly mobile such as cell phones, then it might make sense to track it on the CI level but it seems to me like it would make life easier for everyone to just have the coordinates on a site record that each CI has populated. Also, the Google Maps API is a good way to go if you just want to display the coordinates on a map, but if you need to do something such as building the most efficient driving directions for some number of Incidents between the different locations you will want to purchase another product to do it to save time and money spent on gas. Thanks, Shawn Pierson Remedy Developer | Southern Union From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jose Huerta Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2012 2:17 PM To: [email protected] Subject: GIS and Atrium CMDB ** One customer demands us to geo-localize the CI. The idea is to upload the maps of their offices and show the CI's on the map. He has a WiFi network capable of localizing the wireless assets. We also now, from the switches where each device is connected. So all this information could be in the CMDB using AIE. I mean, We have no problem in modifying the BASE ELEMENT to hold the localization data. My question is about representing it. My only option is to develop a custom web page that using the google maps API shows the CIs from the CDMB, and shown this web page in Remedy using a data visualization field. Any one tried it before? Any commercial app? Thanks! Jose M. Huerta Project Manager Movil: 661 665 088 Telf.: 971 75 03 24 Fax: 971 75 07 94 [cid:[email protected]]<http://www.sm2baleares.es/> SM2 Baleares S.A. C/Rita Levi Edificio SM2 Parc Bit 07121 Palma de Mallorca [cid:[email protected]] <http://es-es.facebook.com/pages/SM2-Baleares/158608627954> [cid:[email protected]] <http://twitter.com/#!/SM2Baleares> [cid:[email protected]] <http://www.linkedin.com/company/sm2-baleares> La información contenida en este mensaje de correo electrónico es confidencial. La misma, es enviada con la intención de que únicamente sea leída por la persona(s) a la(s) que va dirigida. 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