Context

Tool mentors explain how a tool can perform tasks, which are part of ITUP processes and activities. The tasks are listed as Related Elements in the Relationships section.

You can see the details of how processes and activities are supported by this tool mentor, by clicking the links next to the icons:

•   Configuration Management
  •   Identify Configuration Items

Details

The IBM® Tivoli® Application Dependency Discovery Manager (TADDM), a component of the Change and Configuration Management Database (CCMDB), is an agent-free tool for discovering CIs and provides complete and detailed application maps of business applications and supporting infrastructure, including cross-tier dependencies, run-time configuration values, and complete change history.

There are two inputs that must be defined before discovery can occur: Scope and Access.

1. Scope specifies the span of discovery and is set as a subnet, range of IP addresses, or a specific IP address.

   

2. Read-only access credentials are needed to discover and query the components for configurations and dependencies. Logins and passwords and community strings for SNMP, SSH, WMI, JMX, LDAP and SQL are examples.

   

The TADDM discovery process can be executed on demand, as part of a schedule, or driven by externally triggered events.

Upon discovery initiation, the TADDM discovery engine proceeds through a multi-step process:

1. The discovery engine uses standard protocols to inspect the defined discovery scope to identify the IP nodes (address) of all installed devices.
2. For each valid IP node in the set, TADDM launches a discovery sensor. The discovery sensors discover and categorize the component type by matching it to the appropriate signatures in the Data Center Reference Model. As the discovery takes place, the components are categorized as software components, hosts, network devices, network services or storage devices. Uncategorized software processes are classified as unknown servers, and uncategorized IP devices are classified as other IP devices. Once the CI is identified, it is queried for its configurations and its dependencies.
3. Once the data is discovered, it is processed through the Data Center Reference Model to build a topological representation of the infrastructure. Users can then create templates to categorize and discover unknown software servers.

Upon completion of discovery, TADDM processes the discovered component data to populate the CMDB and generate a topological representation of the infrastructure.

Subsequent discovery runs update the database and topologies, while maintaining a comprehensive change history of the infrastructure configuration and dependencies.

The result is an intuitive application map and deep configuration details as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3

For more information

For more information about this tool, click the tool name IBM Tivoli change and Configuration Management Database at the top of this page.