Configuring CI promotion

You can modify several system properties to tune the performance of the promotion, synchronization, and baseline processes.

About this task

Some of these properties are used to control the number of threads that are activated and kept active for the use of the promotion and synchronization processes, and also for populating baselines and performing baseline comparisons. Having enough threads available enhances the responsiveness of the processing; beyond a certain point, having more idle threads is not an advantage. You can tune these properties, according to the processing strength of your server, to optimize the performance of these processes.

Other properties govern whether attributes that do not have values on the actual CI are created on the authorized CI, and the number of records that can be fetched from the database at one time.
pmcom.TraversalMinThreads
The number of threads that will be kept active, even if they are not in use, in order to have a thread immediately available for needed work. The default value is 10.
pmcom.TraversalMaxThreads
The maximum number of threads that can be used by these processes, to prevent them from affecting other processes. The default value is 20. You can experiment with higher values to see if they improve the performance of the promotion and baseline processes. Do not set this value above 50.
pmcom.TraversalIdleTimeout
The number of minutes after which a thread that has had no work to do is allowed to expire, unless the number of active threads is at the minimum, in which case no more threads are allowed to expire. The default is five minutes.
pmcom.TraversalLogSummary
Whether to record summary statistics about thread usage, for use in determining the optimum settings of the other three properties. The default value is true.
cci.promotion.keepallblanks
Whether to create attributes on the authorized CI even if the effective value is blank. The default is 0, which means an attribute will be created by promotion only if it has a non-blank value. This property applies to all attributes for all classifications. If the value of this property is 0, you can make exceptions for individual classifications by configuring the system property cci.promotion.keepblanks.classstructureid.
cci.promotion.keepblanks.classstructureid
This property is used with cci.promotion.keepallblanks and is specific to the classstructureid that is part of its name. It provides a way to configure the list of attributes that should be created for this classification even if their values are blank. The value for this property is a colon (:) separated list of the names of the attributes that should be created for CIs of this classification even if the value is null or blank. This property is used if the value of cci.promotion.keepallblanks is 0 and ignored if the value is 1.
cipromotionemail.details.on
Controls whether individual results for each created and updated CI are attached to the email that is optionally sent when promotion completes. The default value is 0, which means that only a count of the number of CIs that are created and updated is included in the email, not individual results. When this property is set to 1, individual results are included as an attachment to the email, if a value is specified for the property cipromotiondetail.filelocation.
cipromotiondetail.filelocation
Specifies the location of a file that contains the detailed results of the promotion. If cipromotionemail.details.on has a value of 1 and cipromotiondetail.filelocation has a non-null value and the user requested email on the promotion dialog, the detailed results will be sent in the promotion results email as an attachment. The files are named PromotionStatusddmmyyyyhhmmss.txt. There is no default value, so by default no details are included in the promotion results email. The files in this location are not automatically deleted and must be deleted manually.
mxe.db.fetchResultStopLimit.ACTCI
Defines the number of Actual Configuration Items that can be fetched at one time, for example, to populate the List tab of the Actual Configuration Items application. The value effectively defines the number of actual CIs that can be affected by an operation. The default fetch limit for business objects is 5000. However some customers have many more than 5000 actual CIs that they want to manage with a single operation. For example, they might want to promote more than 5000 actual CIs at one time. This property defines a fetch limit that is specific to actual CIs. The default value is 50000. Note that your system must have sufficient resources, specifically memory, to handle the specified number of objects.
mxe.db.fetchResultStopLimit.CI
Similar to mxe.db.fetchResultStopLimit.ACTCI, but this property applies to authorized CIs.
Two additional properties are defined as MAXVARS. MAXVARS cannot be updated through the user interface; you must update them using database commands. These properties are not expected to be modified often.
CCIACTCICOPYCUST
Affects how customers are propagated to related actual CIs during promotion on Service Provider systems. For any related actual CIs that promotion encounters, if there are no associated customers and this maxvar has a value of 1, promotion will copy the set of customers associated with the initial actual CI to the related actual CIs. This happens before promotion checks if a new CI needs to be created, so it happens even if no CI is created. 1 is the default value. If the value is set to 0, no customers are propagated from the top level actual CI to child actual CIs.

The customer on the actual CI is used to determine who can access the actual CI. It is also used by promotion when it is creating a new CI. The primary customer on the actual CI is used to determine whether the mapped authorized classification in the promotion scope and its attributes are customer-appropriate. If a primary customer is specified on the actual CI, a CI will be created if the mapped classification is a global classification or is associated with that primary customer. If the actual CI has no primary customer, a CI will only be created if the mapped classification is global, or is not global but has no associated customers.

Sample SQL to update this variable: 
update maximo.maxvars set varvalue='0' where varname like 'CCIACTCICOPYCUST%'
CCICIGENCLASS
This maxvar identifies the classification that is used on generic CIs. When the classification on an asset is set to one that is configured to automatically create a generic CI, the classification specified on this maxvar is used on the CI that is created. During promotion, if an actual CI is linked to an existing CI with this generic classification, promotion will re-classify the CI to the authorized classification in the promotion scope. The value of this maxvar is the classstructureid of the classification. Note that the classificationid is typically displayed in the UI, not the classstructureid.
Here is a sample SQL command to set the value of this maxvar to the classification whose classificationid is CI.GENERIC_COMPUTERSYSTEM: 
update maximo.maxvars set varvalue=(select classstructureid from maximo.classstructure where classificationid='CI.GENERIC_COMPUTERSYSTEM') where varname = 'CCICIGENCLASS'

You can modify the values of system properties in the System Properties application.

Procedure

  1. Click Go to > System Configuration > Platform Configuration > System Properties.
  2. In the System Properties application, type pmcom in the Property Name field, and press the Enter key to display a list of system properties that are defined for configuration management.
  3. Locate the minimum threads, maximum threads, and idle time properties.
  4. Click the triangle beside each property to display information about the property.
  5. To change a property to better match your server, specify a different value in the Global Value field.
  6. Click Save to save your modifications.
  7. Click Live Refresh to refresh the system properties.
Parent topic: Updates to improve promotion performance

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