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www.bmc.com

BMC BladeLogic Decision Support forServer Automation

User Guide: Report Authoring

Supporting

BMC BladeLogic Decision Support for Server Automation

version 8.2.02

August 2012


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Contacting BMC Software

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BladeLogic and the BladeLogic logo are the exclusive properties of BladeLogic, Inc. The BladeLogic trademark is registered with the U.S.

Patent and Trademark Office, and may be registered or pending registration in other countries. All other BladeLogic trademarks, servicemarks, and logos may be registered or pending registration in the U.S. or in other countries. All other trademarks or registeredtrademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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3

Customer support

You can obtain technical support by using the BMC Support Central website or by contacting Customer Support bytelephone or e-mail. To expedite your inquiry, see Before contacting BMC.

Support website

You can obtain technical support from BMC 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at http://www.bmc.com/support. From thiswebsite, you can

read overviews about support services and programs that BMC offers find the most current information about BMC products search a database for issues similar to yours and possible solutions order or download product documentation download products and maintenance

report an issue or ask a question subscribe to receive proactive e-mail alerts when new product notices are released find worldwide BMC support center locations and contact information, including e-mail addresses, fax numbers, and

telephone numbers

Support by telephone or e-mail

In the United States and Canada, if you need technical support and do not have access to the web, call 1 800 537 1813 orsend an e-mail message to [email protected]. (In the subject line, enter SupID:,such as SupID:12345). Outside the United States and Canada, contact your local support center for assistance.

Before contacting BMC

Have the following information available so that Customer Support can begin working on your issue immediately:

product information

product name product version (release number) license number and password (trial or permanent)

operating system and environment information

machine type operating system type, version, and service pack or other maintenance level such as PUT or PTF system hardware configuration serial numbers related software (database, application, and communication) including type, version, and service pack or

maintenance level

sequence of events leading to the issue

commands and options that you used

messages received (and the time and date that you received them)

product error messages messages from the operating system, such as f i l e sys tem f ul l messages from related software
http://www.bmc.com/supportmailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.bmc.com/support


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4 BMC BladeLogic Decision Support for Server Automation Report Authoring Guide

License key and password information

If you have questions about your license key or password, use one of the following methods to get assistance:

Send an e-mail message to [email protected].

Use the Customer Support website at http://www.bmc.com/support.
mailto:[email protected]://www.bmc.com/supporthttp://www.bmc.com/supportmailto:[email protected]


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Contents 5

Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction 7

Intended audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Documentation conventions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Related documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

BMC BladeLogic Decision Support for Server Automation documentation . . . . . 9BMC Server Automation documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Cognos documentation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Chapter 2 Report authoring tools 13

Query Studio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Report Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Query Studio and Report Studio comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14Accessing authoring tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Chapter 3 Reporting overview 17

Report packages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

BladeLogic report package and data domains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18Audit domain. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20Compliance domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27Inventory and Change Tracking domains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33Job Activity domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44RBAC domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47Patch domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49Command Usage domain. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54Provisioning domain. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Site data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58Model extensibility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Custom properties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59Extended objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Chapter 4 Integration with external systems 61

Create an Inventory report using Query Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61Configure Cognos to save a report in CSV format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63Specify the output file location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64Schedule the report to save the output to the file location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69


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Chapter 5 Creating reports in Query Studio 75

Query Studio features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75Filtering report data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76Grouping data in reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76Creating sections in reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77Adding calculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77Creating charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77Adding summaries to reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77Applying conditional styles to reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Creating a report in Query Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78Saving a report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80Sample reports demonstrating Query Studio features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Creating a report with filters and calculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80Creating a report with groups and sections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82Creating a report with filters, summarization, and groups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84Creating a report with filters, summarization, and calculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86Creating a report with filters, summarization, and charts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88Creating a report with filters, groups, and conditional styles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Chapter 6 Creating reports in Report Studio 95

Creating a report in Report Studio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95Sample reports demonstrating Report Studio features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Creating a simple Audit list report using an out-of-box template . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98Creating a Job Activity crosstab report with filters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Customizing built-in reports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Chapter 7 Custom report examples 105

Sample Inventory reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106Sample Inventory report with summarization, chart, and property . . . . . . . . . . 106Sample Inventory report with groups and calculations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108Sample Inventory report with filters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Sample Compliance reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112Sample Compliance report with filters, groups, and calculations . . . . . . . . . . . . 112Sample Compliance report with filters, groups, calculations, charts, and

conditional styles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115Sample Compliance report with filters, grouping, sections, calculations, and

summarization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120Sample Change Tracking reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

Sample Change Tracking report with filters and groups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122Sample Change Tracking report with filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124


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C h a p t e r 11Introduction

BMC BladeLogic Decision Support for Server Automation is a web-based reportingapplication that provides extensive report capabilities related to your data centerservers that are managed by BMC.

BMC BladeLogic Decision Support for Server Automation uses rich data warehouseschema and dimensional modeling principles to access and report on historical datacaptured by BMC Server Automation. In addition to a wide variety of built-in reports,BMC BladeLogic Decision Support for Server Automation also provides a way toeasily create your own custom reports.

This guide provides information for report authors who use BMC BladeLogicDecision Support for Server Automation to create reports on various aspects of serverconfiguration management. The guide focuses on the data model that is available inthe report authoring tools bundled with the product. The data model is theabstraction layer that business users and report authors use on a daily basis for datamining.

This guide provides the following categories of information:

An in-depth discussion of the data model.

Overviews of the report data groups (domains).

Comparisons of the report authoring tools: Query Studio and Report Studio.

Examples of custom report creation.

This guide includes report creation examples that illustrate the ad hoc reportingcapabilities available with the product and illustrate some of the data model areas.The data model enables a vast array of reports and a small sample of them aredescribed in this document. The document is not a comprehensive reference guide forthe report authoring tools. Separate IBM Cognos documentation providescomprehensive information about these tools and is available with the BMCBladeLogic Decision Support for Server Automation product.


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Related documentation


Related documentation

This topic lists additional documentation that is related to the product.

BMC BladeLogic Decision Support for Server Automationdocumentation

The following BMC BladeLogic Decision Support for Server Automation documentsare available at BMC online documentation portal:

Title Description

BMC BladeLogic Decision Support for ServerAutomation Installation Guide: for Oracle

Documents how to install the BMCBladeLogic Decision Support for ServerAutomation module with Oracle on allsupported platforms.

BMC BladeLogic Decision Support for ServerAutomation Installation Guide: for SQL Server

Documents how to install the BMCBladeLogic Decision Support for ServerAutomation module with Microsoft SQLServer on all supported platforms.

BMC BladeLogic Decision Support for ServerAutomation Database Administration Guide

Documents database requirements, setup,and administration for BMC BladeLogicDecision Support for Server Automation.

BMC BladeLogic Decision Support for ServerAutomation User Guide

Documents how to administer and use BMCBladeLogic Decision Support for ServerAutomation module.
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BMC Server Automation documentation


BMC Server Automation documentation

The following BMC Server Automation documents are available at BMC onlinedocumentation portal:

Cognos documentation

BMC BladeLogic Decision Support for Server Automation uses the Cognos 8.4.1reporting framework for its reporting product. The BMC documentation includesreferences to the Cognos documentation for additional information about BMCBladeLogic Decision Support for Server Automation.

The Cognos documentation is available at BMC online documentation portal andfrom the product Help menu. In the menu, choose a specific document from themenu, choose More Documentation for a list of additional documents, or choose Helpfor a document related to the current product area. Most Cognos documents includea Related Documentation section, which includes a hyperlinked list of all Cognosdocuments. (See the BMC documentation first, as the primary source of instructionsfor installing, configuring, and using BMC BladeLogic Decision Support for ServerAutomation.)

Title Description

BMC Server Automation User Guide Documents the functionality of BMC ServerAutomation.

BMC online technical documentationat:BMC Server Automation 8.2

Explains how to install all thecomponents of the BMC ServerAutomation system on all supportedplatforms.

Explains how to perform all the tasksnecessary to make the components of a

BMC Server Automation system functiontogether smoothly.

BMC BladeLogic Network Shell CommandReference

Provides a complete description of allNetwork Shell commands and utilities.

BLCLI Help Documents how to use the BMC ServerAutomation Command Line Interface(BLCLI), how to access the BLCLI using theJython Line Interface, and describes theBLCLI commands.
https://docs.bmc.com/docs/display/bsa82/Homehttps://docs.bmc.com/docs/display/bsa82/Homehttps://docs.bmc.com/docs/display/bdssa82/Homehttps://docs.bmc.com/docs/display/bsa82/Homehttps://docs.bmc.com/docs/display/bdssa82/Homehttps://docs.bmc.com/docs/display/bsa82/Homehttps://docs.bmc.com/docs/display/bsa82/Homehttps://docs.bmc.com/docs/display/bsa82/Home


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The following Cognos documents are available from the product Help menu.

Title Description

IBM Cognos 8.4 User Guide Documents how to view, organize, schedule,create, and distribute reports.

IBM Cognos 8.4 Business Intelligence QueryStudio User Guide

Describes how to create simple reports.

IBM Cognos 8.4 Business Intelligence ReportStudio Professional Authoring User Guide

Describes how to create complex reports.

Note that if you have not installed ReportStudio as an add-on package to your BMCBladeLogic Decision Support for ServerAutomation installation, you will not see thefeatures described in this document.

IBM Cognos 8.4 Administration and SecurityGuide

Provides details on administering BMCBladeLogic Decision Support for ServerAutomation and security

IBM Cognos 8.4 Business IntelligenceInstallation and Configuration Guide

Provides configuration information.


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C h a p t e r 22Report authoring tools

BMC BladeLogic Decision Support for Server Automation provides report authorsand business analysts the following tools for report creation and authoring: QueryStudio and Report Studio.

Query Studio

This tool is geared towards business analysts who understand the data model andneed to quickly generate simple reports. The tool provides easy drag-and-dropmethodology for users to create ad hoc reports, quickly analyze data, and applyfiltering, grouping, sorting, and simple formatting. This tool also provides limitedcharting capabilities.

Query Studio is licensed by named users. A single user license comes with BMCBladeLogic Decision Support for Server Automation. You can purchase additionallicenses from BMC.

Report Studio

This tool is geared toward advanced report developers. In addition to providing

access to the data model, Report Studio has many capabilities that are not includedwith Query Studio. Report Studio provides robust reporting capabilities, such asprompt pages, filter panels, complex SQL statements and joins.

The built-in (or out-of-box) reports included with BMC BladeLogic Decision Supportfor Server Automation are created by using Report Studio. You can customize thesereports according to your requirements.

Report Studio is an optional tool, licensed by named users. Individual licenses can bepurchased from BMC.


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Query Studio and Report Studio comparison


Query Studio and Report Studio comparison

The following table compares the report authoring tools. The table lists typicalreporting tasks and specifies what tool can be used to perform each task.

NOTE This is not a complete list of the available functionality in each tool. For more details abouteach tool, see the IBM Cognos Query Studio User Guideand Report Studio User Guideat BMConline documentation portal.

Task Report Studio Query Studio

Create simple ad hoc reports Yes Yes

Ability to access full data model Yes Yes

Create drill-throughs Yes No

Create charts Yes Yes, limited

Filtering Yes Yes

Grouping Yes Yes

Sorting Yes Yes

Create crosstab reports Yes Yes

Create conditional formatting Yes Yes, limited

Create prompt pages Yes No

Create multi-page reports Yes No

Create multiple query reports Yes No

Apply conditional styles and style variables Yes No

Apply conditional rendering between lists,crosstabs, and charts.

Yes No

Import and export report definitions Yes No

Use custom SQL in reports Yes No

View generated SQL for reports Yes No

Create calculations using complex SQLfunctions

Yes No

Create filters with complex calculations Yes No

Create joins Yes No

Create dashboard reports Yes No

Use objects, such as HTML items, valueprompts, and hyperlinks

Yes No

Set default values and static values inprompts

Yes No

Create detailed customized layout andformatting

Yes No
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Accessing authoring tools



Access to the report authoring tools requires appropriate authorizations. Users whoare assigned to a role with the Reports.QueryStudio authorization can access QueryStudio. Users who are assigned to a role with the Reports.Studio authorization canaccess Report Studio.

You can access the report authoring tools from the Launchmenu in the BMCBladeLogic Decision Support for Server Automation portal.

For more information about BMC BladeLogic Decision Support for ServerAutomation authorizations and access, see the BMC BladeLogic Decision Support forServer Automation User Guideat BMC online documentation portal.

Set page breaks on multiple data items Yes No

Control exact placement of objects on a page Yes No

Task Report Studio Query Studio


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C h a p t e r 33Reporting overview

The BladeLogic data model is a data abstraction layer used in BMC BladeLogicDecision Support for Server Automation. This data model exposes a businessintelligence view of BMC Server Automation information that is captured in the data

warehouse.

The model is an object-tree representation of all of the results and objects that aremaintained in BMC Server Automation, such as jobs and job results, servers,templates, roles, and users. Data from all job results and core objects such as jobs,servers, and templates are organized as domains.

The model maintains information about relationships between data and security. Thegathered data is transferred from the BMC Server Automation On-Line TransactionProcessing (OLTP) database to the reports warehouse using the extract, transform,and load (ETL) process.

Report packages

BMC BladeLogic Decision Support for Server Automation ships with report packagesthat combine a data model and a set of built-in reports that are created using thatmodel. Report packages include folders for results data, objects, and other elementsthat are exposed when you select a package.

When you open Query Studio or Report Studio, the left panel displays reportpackages. The following report packages are available:

BladeLogic

The BladeLogic package contains built-in reports that are arranged in ahierarchical tree structure.


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BladeLogic report package and data domains


BladeLogic KPI

The Key Performance Indicator (KPI) package includes data elements used in thebuilt-in KPI reports. You can use these data elements to create custom KPI reports.

For more information about KPI reports, see the BMC BladeLogic Decision Supportfor Server Automation User Guideat BMC online documentation portal.

BladeLogic report package and data domainsThe BladeLogic report package, which is available from Query Studio or ReportStudio, displays folders for results data, objects, and other elements. The folders areorganized in a way that is specific to each domain group. For more information aboutlaunching Query Studio or Report Studio, see Creating a report in Query Studio onpage 78or Creating a report in Report Studio on page 95.

The BladeLogic report package folders are called domain groups(or domains)throughout this document. The BladeLogic package contains the following domain

folders:

Audit (see Audit domain on page 20)

Compliance (see Compliance domain on page 27)

Inventory (see Inventory and Change Tracking domains on page 33)

Job Activity (see Job Activity domain on page 44)

RBAC (see RBAC domain on page 47)

Patch (see Patch domain on page 49)

Command Usage (see Command Usage domain on page 54)

Provisioning (see Provisioning domain on page 56)

WARNING Do not modify the templates the built-in reports use as any modifications of the templates canresult in corrupted reports.


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Audit domain


Reporting objects are classified into the following categories:

To create a meaningful report, you would usually need at least one measure, and onedimension or one attribute. You should avoid combining summary level query itemswith the detail level query items in a single report. For example, you should notcombine Servers Attempted(measure) with Server Name(dimension) because thenumber of servers attempted for a Compliance Job are counted twice for both theservers, as shown in the following figure:

The following sections explain domains, query subjects, and filters available in thedomain folders.

Audit domain

The Audit domain contains data associated with the Audit Jobs in BMC ServerAutomation and a set of statistical metrics based on the results of running the jobs.

You can use Audit Jobs to determine whether server configurations match a standardconfiguration and identify servers that deviate from the standard. You canautomatically correct any deviations from that standard.

Icon Object

Query subject: Represents a table in the database.

Attribute: Represents a column of qualitative data in the database,such as operating system name.

Dimension: Represents a group of descriptive data about a majoraspect of a business, such as product or date.

Measure: Represents a column of quantitative data in the database,such as time.

Filter: You can apply filters to query items.

Folder: You can use a folder to organize query subjects.


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Audit domain


The Audit domain folder contains the query subjects shown in the following figure:

Combining query items from Audit domain

The query subjects in the Audit domain are divided into generic, detail level, andsummary level categories. Query items from the generic query subjects can becombined with query items from the detail or summary level query subjects. BMCrecommends you do not combine query items from the detail and summary levelquery subjects as the combination might result in inconsistent results.

NOTE The Audit job run result measures (Servers Attempted, Servers Not Audited, and ServersSuccessfully Audited), which are present in the Audit Jobquery subject, can be combinedonly with theJob Name andJob Run Start Timequery items.

Generic query subjects Detail level query subjects Summary level query subjects

Audit Source Component Audit Target

Components Audit Job Audit Job Run Date Audit Job Property Audit Source Server

Property Audit Target Server

Property Audit Component

Property Audit Template Property

Audit Details Audit Summary Audit Server Result


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Audit domain


The following sections describe sample summary level query subjects with queryitems, which can be combined with other query items to generate useful reports. Formore information about creating reports, see Chapter 5, Creating reports in QueryStudio.

Generating reports using the Audit Server Result query subject

You can combine the query items in the Audit Server Result query subject with thequery items in the following query subjects to generate useful reports, as shown inthe following figure:

Audit Job

Audit Source Component

Audit Target Component

Audit Job Run Date

Audit Source Server Property

Audit Target Server Property

Audit Template Property

Audit Job Property


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Audit domain


Generating reports using the Audit Job query subject

You can combine the query items in the Audit Job query subject with the query items

in the following query subjects to generate useful reports, as shown in the followingfigure:

Audit Job

Audit Job Run Date

Audit Job Property

EXAMPLE

To create a report displaying the number of compliant and non-compliant servers for a givenaudit policy, combine the following query items:

Audit Target Component/Target Template(Policy) Name Audit Job/Job Run Start Time Audit Server Result/Server Is Complaint Audit Server Result/Server Is Non Compliant Audit Server Result/Server Unknown/Error


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Audit domain


Generating reports using the Audit Summary query subject

You can combine the query items in the Audit Summary query subject with the queryitems in the following query subjects to generate useful reports, as shown in thefollowing figure:

Audit Source Component

Audit Target Component

Audit Job

Audit Job Run Date

Audit Source Server Property

Audit Target Server Property

Audit Component Property

Audit Template Property

EXAMPLE

To create a report displaying the Audit job run success parameters for the latest job runs,combine the following query items:

Audit Job/Job Name

Audit Filters/Audit Job Latest Run Audit Job/Servers Attempted Audit Job/Servers Not Audited Audit Job/Servers Successfully Audited


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Audit domain


EXAMPLE

To create a report displaying an overview of deviations for object types on servers, combinethe following query items:

Audit Job/Job Name Audit Filters/Audit Job Latest Run Audit Target Component/Target Server Name Audit Summary/Object Type Audit Summary/Total Differences


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Compliance domain


Compliance domain

The Compliance domain contains data associated with the Compliance Jobs in BMCServer Automation and a set of statistical metrics based on the results of runningthese jobs. Compliance reports provide detailed information on the results ofCompliance Jobs for servers in your data center.

EXAMPLE

To create a report displaying details of deviations found on servers for an Audit job run,combine the following query items:

Audit Job/Job Name Audit Filters/Audit Job Latest Run Audit Target Component/Target Server Name Audit Summary/Object Type Audit Detail/Item Name Audit Detail/Item Difference Details


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Compliance domain


The Compliance domain folder contains the query subjects shown in the followingfigure:

Combining query items from Compliance domain

The query subjects in the Compliance domain are divided into generic, detail level,and summary level categories. Query items from the generic query subjects can becombined with query items from the detail or summary level query subjects. BMCrecommends you do not combine query items from the detail and summary level

query subjects as the combination might result in inconsistent results.

The following sections describe sample query subjects with query items, which can becombined with other query items to generate useful reports. For more informationabout creating reports, see Chapter 5, Creating reports in Query Studio.


ComplianceTemplate(Policy)

Compliance Job Compliance Job Run Date Compliance Job Property Compliance Template

Property

Compliance Server Compliance Rule Compliance Rule

Result Compliance Exception Compliance Server

Property

Compliance Job RunResult

Compliance Server Result


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Compliance domain


Generating reports using the Compliance Server Result query subject

You can combine the query items in the Compliance Server Result query subject withthe query items in the following query subjects to generate useful reports, as shownin the following figure:

Compliance Job

Compliance Server

Compliance Template(Policy)

Compliance Job Run Date

Compliance Server Property

Compliance Job Property

Compliance Template Property

NOTE Rollup aggregation for the % Compliance measure in the Compliance Server Result querysubject is average of all the compliance results. For example, if the % Compliance for two jobruns for a server is 40% and 50%, % Compliance for that server is 45%. For all other measuresin the Compliance Server Result query subject, the result is sum of all compliance results.


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Compliance domain


EXAMPLETo create a report displaying weekly statistics of number of servers that get covered by

compliance checks, combine the following query items:

Compliance Job Run Date/Year (apply filter to display details of a particular year) Compliance Job Run Date/Week Of Year Compliance Job Run Result/Servers Targeted Compliance Job Run Result/Servers Attempted Compliance Job Run Result/Compliant Servers Compliance Job Run Result/Non Compliant Servers Compliance Job Run Result/Unknown Servers


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Compliance domain


Generating reports using the Compliance Rule Result query subject

You can combine the query items in the Compliance Rule Result query subject withthe query items in the following query subjects to generate useful reports, as shownin the following figure:

Compliance Job

Compliance Template(Policy)

Compliance Rule

Compliance Server

Compliance Job Run Date

Compliance Exception

Compliance Server Property

Compliance Job Property

Compliance Template Property


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Inventory and Change Tracking domains



The Inventory domain contains data associated with BMC Server AutomationSnapshot Jobs. These jobs gather inventory information on a collection of serverconfiguration objects that are defined in the templates associated with the jobs.

You can use Inventory reports to determine the hardware and software objects thatare present in your server environment. Several reports provide information aboutvirtual machines in your environment.

BMC recommends that you use the inventory templates supplied by BMC to captureinventory data. These templates captures the relevant data for assets withoutimpacting the performance of the product. For information about downloadingtemplates, see the Installing Inventory templates and other scripts section in theBMC BladeLogic Decision Support for Server Automation Installation Guidefor OracleorBMC BladeLogic Decision Support for Server Automation Installation Guidefor MicrosoftSQL Serverat BMC online documentation portal.

NOTE The Rule Result String dimension in the Compliance Rule Result query subject shows

values only for the failed rules.

The Exception Name dimension in the Compliance Exception shows exception names

only for rules that are complaint with an exception.

EXAMPLE

To create a report displaying the number of servers on which a rule is compliant, non-compliant, compliant with exception, or indeterminate for a given job run, combine thefollowing query items:

Compliance Server/Server Name Compliance Rule/Rule Name (apply filter to display details for a particular rule) Compliance Job/Job Run Start Time

Compliance Rule Result/Rules Compliant Compliance Rule Result/Rules Non Complaint Compliance Rule Result/Rules Compliant with Exception Compliance Rule Result/Rules Indeterminate

NOTE BMC does not recommend that you modify these templates. If you want to add additionalassets or attributes, you must make a copy of the templates and modify the copy to includeadditional assets or attributes as required.


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The Change Tracking domain contains changed results data for all Inventory assets.Change Tracking reports provide overview and detailed information about thechanges to hardware and software objects in your server environment.

Information in the Change Tracking reports is mainly derived from the Snapshot job

runs in BMC Server Automation. Snapshot Jobs include a feature called changetracking that lets you view the changes that occur between the first time you take thesnapshot, which functions as the baseline, and the next snapshot at the currentmoment in time. If no changes are made to either the job definition or the componenttemplate associated with the job, subsequent runs of the job only collect server objectattributes that have changed since the last time the job was run.

The Change Tracking domain has an attribute, Change Type, which shows whetherdata is added, modified, removed or captured through baseline. For moreinformation about baseline, see the BMC Server Automation User Guideat BMC onlinedocumentation portal.
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The Inventory domain folder contains the query subjects for the Inventory andChange Tracking domains shown in the following figure:

Combining query items from Inventory and ChangeTracking domains

The query subjects in the Inventory and Change Tracking domains are divided intogeneric, detail level, and summary level categories. Query items from the genericquery subjects can be combined with query items from the detail or summary levelquery subjects. BMC recommends you do not combine query items from the detailand summary level query subjects as the combination might result in inconsistentresults.


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Generating reports using the Snapshot Job Results query subject

You can combine the query items in the Snapshot Job Results query subject with thequery items in the following query subjects to generate useful reports, as shown inthe following figure:

Snapshot Job

Snapshot Run Date

Server

Virtualization Properties

Snapshot Template

Inventory Server Property Inventory Job Property

Inventory Template Property

NOTE If you want to view the inventory data for servers, use the Show Latest Dataoption to run

an Inventory report. If you want to view data for servers for particular policies, use the Show Template Latest

Dataoption to run the report.

If you choose query items from the Change Tracking folder under Inventory domain,BMC recommends that use the Show Snapshot Data (Change Tracking)option to run thereport.

For more information about these options, see Running an Inventory report on page 44.


Server Snapshot Template Snapshot Job

Snapshot Run Date

Query subjects in thefollowing folders: Common

Software Discovery Windows Unix

Snapshot Job Results (in theSnapshot Job query subject)


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EXAMPLE

To create a report displaying the total number of changes found by a Snapshot Job on servers,combine the following query items:

Server/Server Name Snapshot Job/Job Name Snapshot Job/Snapshot Job Results/Object Type Snapshot Job/Snapshot Job Results/Total Changes Filters/Snapshot Job Latest Run


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Generating reports using the Hardware Information query subject

You can combine the query items in the Hardware Information query subject with thequery items in the following query subjects to generate useful reports, as shown inthe following figure:

Server


Snapshot Template

Snapshot Job

Snapshot Run Date

Inventory Server Property

Inventory Job Property



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Generating reports using other query subjects

You can combine the query items in the File, Software, Extended Objects, SoftwareDiscovery, and Active Directory query subjects with the query items in the followingquery subjects to generate useful reports, as shown in the following figure:

Server


Snapshot Template

Snapshot Job

Snapshot Run Date




EXAMPLE

To create a report displaying a brief configuration of servers, combine the following queryitems:

Server/Server Name

Common/Hardware Information/Machine Summary/Installed Memory (GB) (Choosethe Show Latest Dataoption when prompted)

Common/Hardware Information/Machine Summary/Virtual Memory (GB) Common/Hardware Information/Machine Summary/Total Number Of Socketed

Processors Common/Hardware Information/Hardware/Storage Devices/Physical Storage

Device/Capacity (GB) Common/Hardware Information/Hardware/Processor/Architecture Common/Hardware Information/Operating System/OS Details/Product Common/Hardware Information/Operating System/OS Details/Version


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EXAMPLE

To create a report displaying a list of software by software type, combine the following queryitems:

Server/Server Name Common/Software/Software Type (Choose the Show Latest Dataoption when

prompted) Common/Software/Software Full Name


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Generating reports using Windows query subjects

You can combine the query items in the Windows query subjects with the query

items in the following query subjects to generate useful reports, as shown in thefollowing figure:

Server


Snapshot Template

Snapshot Job

Snapshot Run Date




EXAMPLE

To create a report displaying the number of software that got added, modified, removedwhen a Snapshot Job was run on a server, combine the following query items:

Server/Server Name

Common/Software/Software Type (Choose the Show Snapshot Data (Change Tracking)option when prompted)

Snapshot Job/Job Run start Time Common/Software/Change Tracking/Added Common/Software/Change Tracking/Modified Common/Software/Change Tracking/Removed


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EXAMPLE

To create a report displaying a list of users, their account expiry dates, and the last date whenthe users changed their passwords on servers, combine the following query items:

Server/Server Name Windows/Local Users/User Name (Choose the Show Latest Dataoption when

prompted) Windows/Local Users/User Expire Date Windows/Local Users/Last Password Change


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Generating reports using UNIX query subjects

You can combine the query items in the UNIX query subjects with the query items inthe following query subjects to generate useful reports, as shown in the followingfigure:

Server


Snapshot Template

Snapshot Job

Snapshot Run Date





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Job Activity domain


Running an Inventory report

When you run an Inventory report, you can use the following options to view thelatest inventory data and change tracking information:

Show Latest Data:You can use this option to view the latest inventory data for anasset on a server. This option shows the data captured by the most recent snapshotjob run on the asset, irrespective of the templates used.

Show Snapshot Data (Change Tracking):You can use this option to option to viewchanges for an asset captured by the snapshot job runs. This option shows the datacaptured by all job runs (irrespective of templates) for an asset. You can limit thedata by choosing the Year, Month, or Weekquery item from the Snapshot Run Datequery subject. In addition, you can compare values for an asset over multiple jobruns.

Show Template Latest Data:You can use this option to view the latest inventory datafor an asset that is captured by a particular template for a server. This optionshows the data captured by the most recent snapshot job run on an asset for aparticular template. You can use this option to track a particular asset that is usinga particular template.

Job Activity domain

The Job Activity domain contains a set of statistical metrics based on the results of

running BMC Server Automation jobs.

EXAMPLE

To create a report displaying the information about UNIX groups existing on servers, combinethe following query items:

Server/Server Name,

Unix/Unix Groups/Full Name (Choose the Show Latest Dataoption when prompted) Unix/Unix Groups/Name Unix/Unix Groups/GID


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Job Activity domain


The Job Activity domain folder contains the query subjects shown in the followingfigure:

Combining query items from Job Activity domain

The query subjects in the Job Activity domain are divided into generic, detail level,and summary level categories. Query items from the generic query subjects can becombined with query items from the detail or summary level query subjects. BMCrecommends you do not combine query items from the detail and summary levelquery subjects as the combination might result in inconsistent results.

The following section describes sample summary level query subjects with queryitems, which can be combined with other query items to generate useful reports. Formore information about creating reports, see Chapter 5, Creating reports in QueryStudio.


Job Job Run Date Job Activity job Property

Job Runs Job Approval/Remedy

Approval Job Schedule Job Activity Server

Property

Job Activity Calculations


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RBAC domain


RBAC domainThe RBAC domain contains data associated with BMC BladeLogic authorizations.

RBAC reports provide summaries of role-level and object-level authorizations,assigned roles for users, and audit trails for changes to system objects.

To view the reports data, you must have the GlobalReportAdmins,GlobalReportViewers, or RBACAdmins role assigned to you.

The RBAC domain folder contains the query subjects shown in the following figure:

EXAMPLE

To create a report displaying the parent folder path and job folder for latest job runs and thenumber of servers on which those job runs were attempted, combine the following queryitems:

Job/Parent Folder Path Job/Job Folder Names Job/Job Name Job Runs/Job Run Start Time Job Runs/Run Status Job Runs/Time To Execute (Sec) Job Activity Calculations/# Servers Attempted Job Activity Filters/Job Latest Run

NOTE User with all other roles can view only the RBAC reports (without data) and the RBAC folderin the model.


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Patch domain


Patch domain

The Patch domain contains data associated with BMC Server Automation Patch

Analysis Jobs and a set of statistical metrics based on the results collected by thesejobs.

Patch reports provide overview and detailed information about the vendor-recommended patches that are installed on or missing from the servers in a datacenter. You can use Patch reports to evaluate how well servers in your data centerconform to vendor recommendations and to track patch policy compliance over time.

EXAMPLE

To create a report displaying all roles with their authorizations that exist on a server, combinethe following query items:

Object/Server/Server Name Role/Role Name Object/Object Authorization


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Patch domain


The Patch domain folder contains the query subjects shown in the following figure:

Combining query items from Patch domain

The query subjects in the Patch domain are divided into generic, detail level, andsummary level categories. Query items from generic query subjects can be combinedwith query items from the detail or summary level query subjects. BMC recommendsyou do not combine query items from the detail and summary level query subjects asthe combination may result in inconsistent results.


Generating reports using the Patch Information query subject

You can combine the query items in the Patch Information query subject with thequery items in the following query subjects to generate useful reports, as shown inthe following figure:

Patch Analysis Result

Patch Job Run Date

Patch Information

Query subjects in the Patch Details folder

Patch Job Property


Patch Job Run Date Patch Overview Patch Server Missing Patch Details Patch Server Property Patch Job Property



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Patch domain


Generating reports using the Patch Server query subject

You can combine the query items in the Patch Server query subject with the queryitems in the following query subjects to generate useful reports, as shown in thefollowing figure:


Patch Job Run Date Patch Server

Patch Server Property

Patch Job Property

EXAMPLE

To create a report displaying the number of compliant and non-compliant servers for a patchanalysis policy in a particular month, combine the following query items:

Patch Analysis Result/Patch Analysis Policy Patch Analysis Result/Scanned Server Count Patch Analysis Result/Not Scanned Server Count Patch Analysis Result/Servers Attempted Count Patch Analysis Result/Compliant Server Count Patch Analysis Result/Non Compliant Server Count

Patch Job Run Date/Week Patch Job Run Date/Month


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Patch domain


Generating reports using the Missing Patch Details query subject

You can combine the query items in the Missing Patch Details query subject with thequery items in the following query subjects to generate useful reports, as shown inthe following figure:


Patch Job Run Date Patch Server

Query subjects in the Patch Details folder

Patch Information

Patch Server Property

Patch Job Property

EXAMPLE

To create a report displaying the number of patches that are installed or missing on a serverfor a patch analysis policy, combine the following query items:

Patch Analysis Result/Patch Analysis Policy Patch Job Run Date/Job Run start Time Patch Server/Server Name Patch Server/Installed Patch Count Patch Server/Missing Patch Count


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Command Usage domain



The Command Usage domain contains data associated with the servers being used ata data center, such as information about the users accessing those servers.

EXAMPLE

To create a report displaying details about missing patches on servers, combine the followingquery items:

Patch Analysis Result/Patch Analysis Policy Patch Job Run Date/Job Run Start Time Patch Server/Server Name Patch/Patch Information/Patch Name Missing Patch Details/Vendor Reason


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The Command domain folder contains the query subjects shown in the followingfigure:

To collect data for the Command Usage reports, you need to run thecollect_agent_logs.nshscript on the BMC Server Automation application server, whichcopies data from agent logs on specified target servers to files on the reports server.Use the script to create a BMC Server Automation Network Shell Script Job that youcan run on a regular basis. For more information about the script, see BMC BladeLogicDecision Support for Server Automation User Guideat BMC online documentation

portal.

Combining query items from Command Usage domain

You can combine the query items in the Command Usage query subject with thequery items in the following query subjects to generate useful reports, as shown inthe following figure:

Usage/Log Date

Command Usage Server Property
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Provisioning domain


Provisioning domain

The Provisioning domain contains data associated with BMC Server Automation

Provisioning Jobs.

Provisioning reports provide detailed information about provisioning activity in adata center.

The Provisioning folder contains the query subjects shown in the following figure:

EXAMPLE

To create a report displaying weekly statistics of commands executed on a server, combine thefollowing query items:

Command Usage Summary/Server Name

Command Usage Summary/Host Name Command Usage Summary/Usage Count Usage/Log Date/Week Of Year Usage/Log Date/Year


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Provisioning domain


The query subjects in the Provisioning domain are divided into generic and detaillevel categories. Query items from generic query subjects can be combined withquery items from detail level query subjects.

Combining query items from Provisioning domain

You can combine the query items in the System Package query subject with the queryitems in the following query subjects to generate useful reports, as shown in thefollowing figure:

System Package Type

Provisioned Devices

Provisioning Job Runs

Provisioning Job Run Date Provisioning Calculations

Generic query subjects Detail level query subjects

Provisioning Job Runs Provisioning Calculations Provisioning Filters

Provisioning Devices System Package System Package Type PXE Boot Image Provisioning Job Run

Date Provisioning Job

Property Provisioning Server

Property


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Site data


te data

BMC BladeLogic Decision Support for Server Automation can aggregate data acrossmultiple BMC Server Automation sites. In these cases, report authors might need to

report on a subset of sites or allow report viewers to filter by site.

EXAMPLE

To create a report displaying provisioning details of a server, combine the following queryitems:

System Package Type/System Package Type System Package/System Package Name Provisioned Devices/Computer Name

Provisioned Devices/OM Server Name Provisioning Job Runs/Job Name Provisioning Job Runs/Provisioning Start Date


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Model extensibility


The reports model includes a site data column for several data groups, such as job,template, and server. This enables you to create reports in which you can view siteinformation and filter data by sites.

In a multiple site configuration, independent sites (with locally managed servers)

provide data to a central reports data warehouse for consolidated, enterprise-widereporting. Data from the BMC Server Automation core databases is used to populatethe central reports data warehouse.

Users with the GlobalReportAdmins role can view data from all sites in a multi-sitereports installation. Other users can view data from the site to which their role hasaccess. For more information about roles and access to data, see the BMC BladeLogicDecision Support for Server Automation User Guideat BMC online documentationportal.

Model extensibility

The model dynamically extends to reflect changes that take place in BMC ServerAutomation. When BMC Server Automation customizations are detected, the ETLprocess picks them up and updates the model. Model extensions can occur withcustom properties and extended objects.

This section provides an overview of custom properties and extended objects andtheir availability in the model. For more information about BMC Server Automation

custom properties and extended objects, see the BMC Server Automation User GuideatBMC online documentation portal.

Custom properties

Core objects, such as server, template, and job have a number of properties that shipwith BMC Server Automation. These objects are also available in the BladeLogic datamodel. You can create custom properties for these objects in BMC Server Automationand mark these properties for inclusion in reports. During the model update process,

these properties are added to the BladeLogic model and appear in the model whenyou open it.

For information about how properties are marked for inclusion in reports, see theBMC BladeLogic Decision Support for Server Automation User Guideat BMC onlinedocumentation portal.
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Extended objects


Extended objects

Extended objects are wrappers that encapsulate a script that captures configurationinformation on servers. Extended objects do not modify the data model in the same

way as custom properties; however, extended objects show up in the model in adynamic fashion. Data for extended objects is stored as value-name pairs. You canfilter on the object name and select the columns that you want included in reports.

When a new extended object is deployed in BMC Server Automation, it is picked upduring the next ETL run and the reports data warehouse is updated. Report authorscan then locate the object in the Inventory domain by filtering on the Full Namefieldunder the Common/Extended Objectsfolder. You can combine query items in theCommon/Extended Objectsfolder with other query items such as server, job, ortemplate in the Inventory folder to create meaningful reports.


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Create an Inventory report using Query Studio


To create the Inventory report

1 Launch Query Studio and select the BladeLogic report package.

2 In the left pane, expand the package tree, locate and expand the Inventoryfolder,

expand the Inventory Summarysubfolder to locate the Server Nameand OS Namedata items and drag them to the report body.

3 To save the report, click Saveon the toolbar.

4 Specify a name and location for the report.


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Configure Cognos to save a report in CSV format


You can save the report to several locations. By default, the report is saved to theBladeLogicpublic folder. You can click the Select My Folderslink to save the reportto the My Foldersfolder. To drill down further into subfolders of the selectedparent folder (BladeLogicor My Folders), click the Select another locationlink.

Configure Cognos to save a report in CSVformat

This procedure describes how to configure Cognos to save a report to a file in the CSVformat.

To save a report in CSV format

1 Access BMC BladeLogic Decision Support for Server Automation.

2 From the Launchmenu, select IBM Cognos Administration.

3 Select the Configurationtab.

4 Click the Dispatchers and Serviceslink in the left pane.

5 Click Set properties - Configuration .

6 Select the Settingstab.


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Specify the output file location


7 Locate the Environment, Advanced Settingsrow and click Edit.

8 In the Set advanced settings - Configurationdialog box, add the following parametersettings:

9 Click OK.


This section describes how to set up the output file location and how to save a reportto that location. Use the instructions based on the applicable operating system type.

Parameter Value

RSVP.CSV.DELIMITER ,

RSVP.CSV.TERMINATOR CRLF


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To specify the output file location on Windows systems

1 From the Startmenu, select Programs > BMC > Reports > Cognos Configuration.

2 Select Actions > Edit Global Configuration to open the Global Configuration dialog

box.

3 Select the Generaltab.

4 Locate the Archive Location File System Rootfield.


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5 In the Valuecolumn, type the location in which the report will be saved, in thefollowing format:

f i l e: / /f i l e Sy s t e mPa t h

ThefileSystemPath variable indicates the full path.

For example,

f i l e: / / d: / Output

6 Click Testto test the archive location.

7 When testing completes, click Close.

8 Click OK.

9 In the Explorer window, under Data Access, click Content Manager.

10 In the Save report outputs to a file systembox, click Trueor False.

11 Save your changes in Cognos Configuration.

Cognos Configuration validates several tasks.

12 When the tasks are complete, click Close.

13 Restart the Cognos service from IBM Cognos Configuration.


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14 Specify the location details for the file system in BMC BladeLogic Decision Supportfor Server Automation as follows:

A Access the BMC BladeLogic Decision Support for Server Automation portal.

B From the Launchmenu, select IBM Cognos Administration.

C Select the Statustab.

D Click the Systemlink in the left pane.

E From the All Serverslist, select Services> Content Manager.

F From the ContentManagerServicelist, select Set properties.

G Select the Settingstab.

H Locate the Environment, Advanced Settingsrow and click Edit.

I Select the Override the settings acquired from the parent entrycheck box.

J Add the following parameter settings:

The outputLocationvariable specifies the path at which you want to save thereport (for example, d:/output).

K (Optional)To specify a script, such as a .bator .shfile, that will run after thereport output is saved to the target directory, add the following parametersettings:

The scriptNamevariable specifies the script name with the location of the script.

L Click OK.

M Select the Configurationtab.

N Click the Dispatchers and Serviceslink in the left pane.

O Click Define File System Locations .

Parameter Value

CM.OUTPUTLOCATION outputLocation

Parameter Value

CM.OUTPUTSCRIPT scriptName


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P From the bottom right corner of the Define file systems locations display panel,click New.

Q In the New File System Location page, specify a name for the file and a folder inthe file system root location (you can also provide optional information, such as

description and screen tip).

In the previous example, the name is Archiveand the folder location is Sample.Note that the file system root location that you specified earlier in thisprocedure appears under File system root location. In this example, it isfile://d:/Output.

R Click Finish.

S Restart the Cognos service from the reports server.

To specify the output file location on UNIX systems

1 On the reports server, at the command prompt, type the following command:

cd $BLREPORTS_HOM E/portal/configuration

2 Edit the cogstartup.xmlfile and search for the outputCMReportToFile parameter.


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Schedule the report to save the output to the file location


The parameter entry looks similar to the following sample:

3 Edit the parameter to change the f al sevalue to t rueso that the parameter entryis modified, as shown in the following sample:

4 Save and close the file.

5 Restart the Cognos service as follows:

A Navigate to the appropriate directory for your installation type:

(for 32-bit installations)BDSSAInstal lationDirectory/Portal/bin

(for 64-bit installations)BDSSAI nstal lat ionDi rect ory/Portal/bin64

B Type the following command: ./cogconfig.sh -s

6 Perform step 14 on page 67.

Schedule the report to save the output to thefile location

This section describes how to schedule a report to save the output to a specified filelocation.

To schedule the report to save the output to a file location

1 Access the BMC BladeLogic Decision Support for Server Automation portal.

2 Click Morecorresponding to the report that you want to save the output for.

3 Under Available Actions, click New schedule.

4 Under Frequency, you can set the required scheduling interval in days, weeks,months, or set the schedule to be trigger based. Select the frequency as required.

f al se

t r ue


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The following figure illustrates the options needed for saving the report outputevery week day.

5 To specify the period for which you want the output saved, use the Startand Endfields.

The following illustrates July 9, 2010 as the start date with no end date.

6 Under Options, select Override the default valuesto display the options and chooseformats and delivery options.

Under Formats, select the required format for the report output.


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The following figure illustrates report output set to the CSV format.

Under Delivery, select Save to the file system. To specify more options whensaving to the file system, click Edit the options.

For Name, select Use the report nameand for Location, select the location nameyou specified in step O on page 67(in the example it was/Archive).


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7 Click OK.

8 Under Prompt values, select Override the default valuesand then click Setto displaythe prompts that are associated with the report.

9 Set the prompt values that you want to use when the report runs and click OK.

The report runs at the scheduled frequency or the scheduled trigger and the reportoutput is saved to the specified location.


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The following figure shows a sample report output:


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C h a p t e r 55Creating reports in Query Studio

You can use Query Studio to create simple reports in BMC BladeLogic DecisionSupport for Server Automation. Query Studio enables you to change the appearanceof the reports. In addition, Query Studio allows you to compare and analyze reports

by using filters, summaries, and calculations.

Query Studio features

Query Studio features enable you to perform the following tasks:

Filter report data (see Filtering report data)

Group data in reports (see Grouping data in reports on page 76)

Create sections in reports (see Creating sections in reports on page 77)

Add calculations (see Adding calculations on page 77)

Create charts (see Creating charts on page 77)

Add summaries to reports (see Adding summaries to reports on page 77)

Apply conditional styles to reports (see Applying conditional styles to reports onpage 78)

For more information about these features, see the IBM CognosQuery Studio UserGuideatBMC online documentation portal.


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Filtering report data


Filtering report data

Report filters enable you to specify criteria for including or excluding data from areport. Filtering data also enables you to make the required information more

accessible and improves performance by minimizing the time required to process areport.

The BMC BladeLogic Decision Support for Server Automation model includes somebuilt-in filters (also called stand-alone filters). These filters are available from thepackage in the report creation area. You can add these filters to your custom reports.You cannot modify the built-in filters. To include specific data, you add filters and toexclude specific data, you can add a filter with the NOT condition.

An example of a built-in filter is the Audit Job Latest Run filter. If you use this filter ina report, only the data from the latest job run is included in the report. If you apply

the NOT condition to the filter, the report includes data from all relevant job runsexcept the latest.

You can select any field in your custom reports and make that field a filter (also calleddynamic filter). This enables you to filter the report using that field to set yourconditions. You can specify a value or range of values for that field. Only data thatsatisfies the filter conditions is included in the report.

You can also specify that a filter include prompts. When you run a report, you areprompted to provide specific values to filter the report data. For example, a reportthat provides information about servers can include a prompt for an OS type. After

you specify the OS type, the report includes the data only for the specified OS type.

For information about how to add filters, see Creating a report with filters andcalculations on page 80.

Grouping data in reports

You can group identical data in a report column if that column contains multipleinstances of the same value. When you group data, report rows might be reordered to

display identical values together and to suppress the duplicate data.

For example, in a report listing the capacity of servers for all OS types, you can groupthe report by the OS Namecolumn to suppress the duplicate rows in this column.

For information about how to create groups, see Creating a report with filters,summarization, and groups on page 84.


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Creating sections in reports


Creating sections in reports

When you create sections in a report, the selected report item is shown as the headingof a section. For example, in a report listing the rules for each template, you can create

sections by using the Template(Policy) Namecolumn. Each template is listed as asection heading that contains the rules for that template.

For information about how to create sections, see Creating a report with groups andsections on page 82.

Adding calculations

You can perform calculations on one or more items in reports. For example, you can

add the values of the Rules Compliantand Rules Compliant with Exceptioncolumns tosee the total number of compliant rules.

You can also concatenate multiple columns. For example, you can concatenate theParent Folder PathandJob Folder Namecolumns to get the full path of a job.

For information about how to add calculations, see Creating a report with filters,summarization, and calculations on page 86.

Creating charts

Charts enable you to present your data graphically. For example, you can create achart to see the trend of weekly Audit Job runs in a particular year.

For information about how to create charts, see Creating a report with filters,summarization, and charts on page 88.

Adding summaries to reportsYou can apply summaries to reports to calculate the total, count, maximum,minimum, or average of the values in report columns. For example, you can count thetotal number of servers attempted against an Audit Job, by applying the Countsummary function to the Server Namecolumn.

For information about how to summarize data, see Creating a report with filters,summarization, and charts on page 88.


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Applying conditional styles to reports


Applying conditional styles to reports

Conditional styles enable you to change the appearance of columns based on thevalues in these columns. For example, if the value of the % Compliancecolumn is less

than 33 percent, you can apply a background color to the column.

For information about how to apply conditional styles, see Creating a report withfilters, groups, and conditional styles on page 91.

Creating a report in Query Studio

Use the following instructions to create a report in Query Studio.

To create a report using Query Studio

1 Launch Query Studio from the BMC BladeLogic Decision Support for ServerAutomation portal.

2 Select a package (for example, BladeLogic) from the list of available packages.

NOTE BMC recommends that you create reports with the Preview with No dataoption. Afterpreviewing the report, apply the required filters and run the report with full data toget optimal performance.


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Creating a report in Query Studio


The following figure shows the report creation window with the default reporttemplate in the right panel and the domain folders in the left panel, based on theselected BladeLogic package. These domain folders contains query subjects andquery subjects contain query items. You can use the query items to create reports.

3 Click the Run Reportlink.

4 Click the Preview with No Datalink.

5 Click the Insert Datalink.

6 To add a query item to the report, drag the query item from the correspondingdomain folder onto the report template or double-click the query item.

7 Apply filters based on your requirements. For information about filtering, seeFiltering report data on page 76.


9 Click the Run with All Datalink.

10 Save the report (see Saving a report on page 80).


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Saving a report


Saving a report

To save a report, you must specify a name and a description for the report. You cansave a report to several locations. By default, the report is saved to the BladeLogic

public folder. You can click the Select My Folderslink to save the report to the MyFoldersfolder.

To save a report in sub-folders of the selected parent folder (BladeLogicor MyFolders), click the Select another locationlink and select the required sub-folder.

Sample reports demonstrating Query Studiofeatures

The following sections demonstrate examples of how to use Query Studio features tocreate reports.

Creating a report with filters and calculations

The following example demonstrates how to retrieve the jobs and job runs that tookmore than one hour to run in the last 365 days.

You add the Division function so that the time taken to execute a job or job run isdisplayed in hours, not in seconds.

To create a report with filters and calculations

1 Launch Query Studio from the BMC BladeLogic Decision Support for ServerAutomation portal.

2 Select a package (for example, BladeLogic) from the list of available packages.


4 Click the Preview with No Datalink.

5 Click the Insert Datalink.

Domain Report name Features used

Job Activity Jobs and job runs taking more onehour to run in the last 365 days

Add filters Add calculations


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Creating a report with filters and calculations


6 Open theJob Activityfolder and drag the following query items to the right pane:

Job/Job Name

Job Runs/Job Run Start Time

Job Runs/Time To Execute (Sec)

Job Activity Calculations/# Servers Attempted

7 Select theJob Run Start Timecolumn and click Filter on the toolbar.

8 From the Operationlist, select Last number of days.

9 In the Number of days before todayfield, type 365, and click OK.

10 Select the Time To Execute (Sec)column and click Calculate on the toolbar.

11 From the Operation typelist, select Arithmetic.

12 From the Operationlist, select/ (division).

13 Verify that in the Orderlist, Time To Execute (Sec) / is selected.

14 In the Numberfield, type 3600.

15 In the New item namefield, enter Time To Execute (Hr)as the new column name.

16 Click Insert.

A new colu