Dril down analysis w/ nodes with embedded elements

[LH]

Hi,

I am building an IT service repository. The scope is from business services, to logical services, applications, servers and infrastructure.

The infrastrucure part is giving me a headache. I'm using nodes for switches and routers using embedded elements to model ports (so a switch may have 4 ports connected to different servers and routers). Ports are connected to each other using dependencies where applicable.

Purpose:
To troubleshoot how any changes to the infrastrucutre will affect the business services I would like to run drill down analysis (creating new diagrams and using 'add related elements' to get an overview of affected elements). But I am not able to do so.

What I did:
1) create new diagram
2) drag a router from the repository - paste as simple link with all embedded elements included
3) right click on the router -> add related elements (2 levels)
4) nothing it added to the diagram

I have verified that the router is connected to 1 switch on a named port in my repository.

If I try to right click and chose 'add elements' on the port, an error appears "Error: when pasting embedded elements, the parent element must first exist in the same diagram". Fine, but I would like to discover that element - that's my purpose of creating the diagram.

What am I doing wrong here?
Any alternative way to achieve my goal?

Any help / comments are much appreciated!


regards,
LH

[Geert Bellekens]

Have you tried the hierarchy view?

Geert

[LH]

Hi Geert.

Thanks for you reply.

I have been looking at the hierarchy and it does give me the connections that I am looking for. BUT our business users wants to be able to visually see all the nodes that are connected to a given switch or router. The hierarchy tab is not good enough for this.

There must be another way?

[beginner]

Try View/More../Relationships.
Select the relevant port.
Right click one line in the Relations
Locate Related Object

Not an optimum, though.

You might consider a special search (SQL).

b.

[LH]

Not optimal, but the "View/More../Relationships" method will get the job done. Thanks!

I am not sure what you mean with a "special search (SQL)". Can you please elaborate? If it would provide a more flexible and easy to use solution, it would be great.

[beginner]

Sure. Try Ctrl-F and Manage Searches. There you can create your own search using SQL. You have to dig a bit in the underlying database but as all elements (t_object) and relations (t_connector) are stored in tables it should be possible to create a custom SQL (at least I have done similar queries in the past).

b.

[LH]

Ah, right. I see how it would be possible to string together a query this way. Unfortunately it is not an option as I would want the end users to build diagrams on their own - this way is too complex.

Any idea why it isn't possible to use the 'add related objects' with nodes using embedded elements?

[beginner]

Because the connector points to an embedded element. Try placing a port on a diagram without the parent element: it fails. The Add Related works the same way. Try a feature request (I did so years ago, but...).

b.