In my last post I gave an overview of some of the components that make up Data Warehouse and Reporting. One of the components of the DW is the Management Pack Synchronization. Because the structure and data within the DW is driven by MP’s within Service Manager we need to be able to regularly synchronize them into the DW. Later on when we get into looking at actual DW MP’s, the direct correlation with SM MP’s will become more clear.
Sequentially, MP Synchronization works in this way (see figure below also):
- A MP is imported into a Service Manager implementation that is registered as a source for the DW.
- On the DW management server the MP Sync workflow kicks off on a set schedule
- It grabs the source Service Manager name(s) from the DWStagingandConfig database via the Data Access Service (see Travis post on Data Access Service here ). We will accommodate multiple sources as a part of our Multi-Management group support within DW so that there is a consolidated location for all Service Manager reporting needs.
- We connect to the source Service Managers and get the list of their MP’s. DW will specifically key off of the MP version number for changes to classes and relationships.
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At this point, the MP list in DW is compared to the MP list in SM for any action that MP Sync should take. These actions can be:
- If the MP is new to that SM instance but already exists in DW there is only the need for the association between the source SM and MP to be recorded within DW
- If the MP is new or updated and does not exist within DW, the MP is exported from SM and then imported into the DWStagingandConfig database.
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If the MP has been deleted from that SM instance then, depending on how many sources have that MP, we will either
- decrement the source count within DW and remove the association to that source
- we will remove the reference entirely if the source count will now be equal to zero
Note: only sealed management packs will be sync'd from SCSM to the DW. Exception to this: List items (aka "enumerations") and groups/queues will be sync'd to the DW regardless of whether they are in a sealed or unsealed MP. More information on how to seal a management pack can be found here: http://blogs.technet.com/servicemanager/archive/2009/12/25/sealing-management-packs.aspx
MP’s that we bring over from SM will be both SM specific and DW specific. The SM MP’s give us awareness of what the Service Manager CMDB is structured like, the DW MP’s drive the structure and processes of the DW databases. In my next post we will dive into what happens after MP Synchronization…Anatomy of DW/Reporting deployment. In the meantime, please leave any questions you may have!
