CMDB Use Case - Step By Step Configuration Guide

To make yourself familiar with the configuration steps we prepared this little guide. We will cover all configurations one after another. This example will cover a CMDB use case but the concept behind is the same for all use cases.

Step 1: Create CMDB Project

First, we need a project. The configuration is not important at the moment, so you could choose a Task Management Template because the default configurations are easily adjustable for our case. We will name the project CMDB but you can choose whatever name fits your requirements.

Step 2: Create Issue Types: Server, Application, Database

We want to have the following assets in our use case: Server, Application and Database. Each asset is represented by an issue type. In this step, we create all needed issue types without doing further configuration. This will be done later on.

Open

Open

Step 3: Create Relations

Now we want to create Advanced Links between our assets/issue types. We want to have the following info:

• Which application runs on a server?

• Which server is connected to an application?

• Which database is used by which application?

• Which application is connected to which database?

To get this information we need to create these Advanced Links:

Step 4: Configuring Screens, Screen Schemes and Workflows

Now we continue with configuring the screens and screen schemes. In this step, you would have to consider, what kind of information you want to track in your issue types and replace the default schemes with your own schemes and screens. We keep the default schemes from the template but make small adjustments to the workflow because we want to see if an application/server/database is active or inactive. Also, we make sure that our project contains our new issue types:

Workflow:

Step 5: Configure Advanced Links

Now we are finally ready to do the Advanced Link configuration which will connect our issue types with each other. We go back into the app administration and click on the first Advanced Link field we want to configure. We start with the Application on server.

Applications on Server

At first, we set the context. The outward field ‘Applications on Server’ should show all linked applications, which are installed on a specific server. Therefore we need to restrict the context to the CMDB project and Server issue type.

Data Logic

→ Maximum Selection: at first we set Maximum Selection to 0 because we want to be able to select unlimited applications.

→ Selectable Issues: then we provide a JQL that defines the issues we are able to select. We have to imagine, that the current field we are configuring shows all applications on a specific server (we consider a database also as an application in this case). So we have to provide a JQL which will limit our options to issues from type application and database. This is the most important step in the whole configuration!

→ Searching User: in case we want to use a special user for searching because we want to restrict the visibility of certain assets, then we could optionally choose a searching user. In our case we use the default searching user, which is the admin user.

→ Out-of-Scope Strategy: We want to actively remove our connected issues.

Display Style

The display styles define the appearance of the issue panels/tables in the issue view and how related issues are displayed. We want to show related issues in a table, which is displayed on the left side (below the description box). The table should contain the key, summary and status of related assets:

Application Server

Next, we want to configure the opposite direction. We want to configure an Advanced Link field that is placed in the application issue type and shows the server on which the application is installed. So we have to set the context like this:

Data Logic

This time we only want to select 1 item, because every application belongs to exactly 1 server. So we set Maximum Selection to 1. As for selectable issues, we want to be able to select only servers.

Display Style

We keep the style we used above but this time we use the list style for displaying related issues. Feel free to adjust the display style to your own requirements.

Step 6: Creating Assets and Start Linking Them

Congratulation! Now your project is ready for a CMDB use case and you can start creating assets and linking them. First, we create a server and an application. To link the two issues to each other, click on the three dots as shown in the screenshot:

Now the Advanced Link panel appears in the issue view. Click the link icon to open the issue search panel.

Now we can choose the application server. Because we defined the selectable issues query and also set the maximum selection to one, we are allowed to choose exactly one server:

After submitting you successfully linked the server to the application and you will get a new element in your issue view:

This is what your panel will look like. According to the configuration in the Display Style section, your panel can look different.

And here is the cool thing: When you click on the issue key of the linked server you will get directly to the issue and you will see, that we created also a link to the opposite direction. That means, that the server will show related applications:

Step 7: Continue with more Advanced Links

We configured successfully the Server - Application Relation. To complete our use case we do the same for Application - Database. The whole process is exactly the same. Use the following settings to complete the configuration:

Application - Database

1. Application Database (max selection: 1, selectable issues: project = CMDB and type = Database)

2. Database used by (max selection: 0, selectable issues: project = CMDB and type = Application)