Managing impact analysis settings

A Change Analyst analyzes impacts during the Change process. An impact analysis is based on results identified by the impact analysis engine. The impact analysis engine traverses the configuration management database (CMDB) and locates the CIs that are expected to have outages as a result of target CI outages. Most commonly, it does so by using user-configured rules that are based on CI relationships, but it can also retrieve historically identified impact data.

During the planning stage, an administrator configures the impact analysis rules that will be used by the engine. You can also configure system properties that determine how the engine will calculate historical impact data. As Changes are processed in the data center, you can modify the impact analysis rules and historical analysis criteria to meet your evolving needs.

In addition to configuring the rules and criteria for the impact analysis engine, you can remove the action in the PMCHGMAIN1 workflow that kicks off automated impact analysis at the prescribed time in the Change process. The default action invokes the engine using impact analysis rules; you can substitute this action with an action that instructs the engine to retrieve historical data. You can also remove the workflow action if you want impact analysis to be invoked manually.

Finally, you can configure the topology graph that depicts impacted CIs and their relationships. Change Analysts consult the topology for a visual representation of identified impacts.