Efficient synchronization

A few tips about synchronization will help you get the most out of this time-saving tool.

Importing baseline data

When you begin to use Asset Lifecycle Manager, you may choose to import as much existing data as possible into the system to build a baseline of existing assets. The order in which you import data is important if you are creating relationships between assets. For example, if you are creating a relationship between the Computer asset and its supporting resources (e.g., purchase orders, manufacturers, vendors, etc.) you must first populate the supporting resource tables before synchronizing with the Computer asset.

After you have imported records that contain linked, unique data, it's generally easiest to start building your baseline data by importing one or two asset types. You can then add more assets and related data to form a more comprehensive set of asset records.

As you work to import baseline data, be aware that:

• Creating a comprehensive record of assets usually requires the creation and use of multiple synchronization packages to pull data from multiple sources.
• You can create multiple synchronization packages for a single data source in order to populate data from that source into multiple destination assets or resources.

Setting up one-to-many data synchronization

In some situations, you may want to establish a one-to-many data relationship. For example, you may choose to use LDMS inventory data to keep track of software usage on desktop computers, requiring a relationship between each desktop and the many software titles that may be installed on it.

Setting up this type of one-to-many relationship (many pieces of software corresponding to each computer) requires three things:

• A data source for software information, such as a CSV file containing Product name column and a column containing a unique Usage ID for each piece of software, such as:
  
  

• Product:	Usage ID:
  MS Office 2007	12
  Windows Server 2008	13
  Internet Explorer 8.0	14
  MS Windows 7	15
  Mozilla Firefox 3.5.8	16

• A data source for desktop computer information, such as a CSV file containing a Desktop name column, an Owner column, and a column containing a unique Usage ID for each piece of installed software, such as:
  
  

• Desktop name:	Owner	Usage ID:
  SLC-LABN04-09	Smith, Jenny	12
  SLC-LABN04-09	Smith, Jenny	13
  SLC-LABN04-09	Smith, Jenny	14
  SLC-LABN04-09	Smith, Jenny	15
  SLC-LABN04-09	Smith, Jenny	16

• The use of a unique field in the data form into which the software data will be imported. To set up this example, you would first make sure that the software "usage" form contains a unique "usage ID" field.

Setting up one-to-many data synchronization for this example would be a two-step process:

1. Create and run a software usage synchronization package that imports the software source data into the software "usage" form. Because this supporting resource will be used for data checking when you run the next package, it is critical that you import this data first.
2. Create and run a desktop synchronization package that imports the desktop source data into the "desktop" form. When creating mapping for this package, specify "usage ID" in the foreign column to verify the data that will be imported into the "usage" column in the destination. When the synchronization package is run, each item in the "usage" column of the CSV file is compared against existing values in the "usage ID" column of the supporting software usage resource. For an explanation of how the program determines whether to import matching records, see Task 2: Mapping Panel settings, in Synchronization wizard.

Updating and maintaining data

After you have created a set of baseline data, you can keep that data current with changes to external data sources by rerunning relevant synchronization packages. This will import any new records that have been added to an external data source, and will capture changes to any values that are contained in existing records. You can use the "Run a synchronization package" action in the workflow designer to set a recurring pattern for ongoing synchronization jobs. See "Run a synchronization package" under "LANDesk Service Management actions" in the ALM Designer's guide.