Discovery: How to customize scans and CMDB synchronization? INCLUDES VIDEO

Product

BMC Discovery

Component

BMC Discovery

Applies to

BMC Discovery All Versions

Question

How to customize Discovery to find something new, or with an alternative/additional method?

This article covers the cases where:

- A customer wants to change the content of an existing attribute such as "Host.ram" or "SoftwareInstance.version"
- A customer wants to add a new attribute to existing nodes
- A customer expects Discovery to detect and model a running software
- A customer expects Discovery to enhance the existing model of a software (i.e. add a new Software Component node, add a relationship to another SI or BAI, etc...)
- A customer wants to add or modify something in the CMDB via CMDB Sync from Discovery

Answer

If the proposed changes may be helpful to the general Discovery community: Open a new support case

If the proposed changes are specific to a particular customer environment: Discovery has to be customized.

For example:

- The new feature only works with one custom application, a specific attribute, or a specific configuration that only exists in a particular customer environment
- The request is "out of the scope of Discovery", but is a requirement for a particular customer
- The new feature is available by using other BMC products, but a particular customer wants to do it with BMC Discovery.

When the customization is about the hosts attributes (ram, os ...), the best approach is to customize the platform scripts.

Sometimes, the best solution is to make changes to attribute values in the CMDB rather than in Discovery, especially if the goal is to get the data in CMDB to make changes. This is because:

- The CMDB provides a well-documented UI to do this
- The CMDB provides a precedence management feature that allows the administrator to chose between the Discovery value and the manual edit in case of conflict.

When the customization is about the CMDB synchronization, the customization may be done with a Discovery custom syncmapping pattern extension.

When the customization is about improving the scan result of the SoftwareInstance, SoftwareComponent, BAI, DatabaseDetail, etc nodes, or the relationships, the best approach is to customize the Discovery TKU patterns.

The customization can be done:

1- By the customer

In this case, it is recommended to review the existing docs:
- The Pattern Language TPL
- Pattern Overview

- Detail node
- Displaying custom attributes
- For syncmapping patterns: Syncmapping block

- Discovery: Best practices for custom TPL patterns and syncmappings

Sample templates for discovery patterns and syncmappings are provided in the UI:

- click on Manage->Knowledge
- click on Creating Patterns

Other tpl examples can be found in BMC Community - Discovery and Getting Started creating a CMDB Syncmapping Extension pattern

Many questions about the design and development of custom patterns can be answered on the Discovery communities: BMC Community - Discovery, but if a custom pattern does not work, BMC Customer Support may provide some limited assistance only if a case is opened anyways. Such assistance would be within the limits of the customization policy:

"Customers must attend the appropriate product training before attempting any customization"

"Customizations are the responsibility of the customer and must be maintained by the customer. Customer Support does not take ownership of any customized code whether the customer, BMC Consulting Services or a BMC Partner generated it"

"Customer Support will NOT provide code customizations to customers."

"customization issues may be assigned a lower priority"

If a case is opened, support will need the error message (logs/screenshots), the commented custom pattern and a record/pool data able to reproduce the issue. It is recommended to send this information when opening a Support case to speed up the resolution.

If training is needed, contact a BMC Account Manager.

2- By BMC Professional Services.
BMC Professional Services is recommended in these circumstances:

if the customer does not have development skills
if the customer is not familiar with Discovery and/or the CMDB
if the customer does not have the time and resources to devote to learning, developing TPL, testing, maintenance, etc

In this case, customers should first contact their BMC Account Manager.

Recorded webinars about Discovery customization:

The list above was updated in Mar25. Check for new/next webinars in this page

Some examples of available help with pattern customization on the Communities:

- The Discovery Patterns topic in the community
- A list of blogs and Documents posted by Discovery SME Lisa Keeler, e.g:

- Discovery custom patterns discussion
- Getting Started creating a CMDB Syncmapping Extension pattern
- Discovery: Sharing my library of syncmapping extension stubs

Knowledge Article