Grouping Monitored Assets

Logical Groups

A Logical Group acts as a container for Configuration Items that logically groups them into whatever organizational system. This can be by geographical location, business service, management group, discipline or any custom grouping. Aggregate Events are useful for identifying related Events that occur on one or more Configuration Item within the same Logical Group.

Logical groups are best used for CI’s that contribute to multiple services. For example, your core network switches and routers could be added to a Logical Group called ‘Core Network’. Then, all you have to do is link the appropriate Service Groups to the ‘Core Network’ Logical Group, without the need to link each of it’s CI’s to each Service Group individually.

In addition to organization, logical groups also have the following usage and impact on other aspects of your configuration.

• Permissions – User Groups linked to logical groups determine the access to assets that users within the groups are assigned.
• Aggregate Event Definitions – Create AEDs from event definitions that belongs to the CIs within the same logical group.

Service Groups

Service Groups act as a higher level container for Logical Groups and CIs. Create your service groups to represent the devices and assets that supports a defined business service. For example: Exchange, CRM, website.

Service Groups are Logical Groups of networked assets that contribute to client-facing services such as email, CRM or financial applications. When defining services, it is recommended that you start with what your users consider to be the most critical services provided by IT. Policies are associated with Service Groups to evaluate the status of Service Group-wide conditions.