Comparing a baseline to actual CIs

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You can compare the members of any active baseline version to the corresponding actual configuration items. This comparison enables you to verify that the actual CIs are still in their desired state. If the actual CIs have changed, you can determine the reason and decide how to respond.

Before you begin

If a baseline includes a large number of member CIs, the comparison process can take several minutes and can be resource-intensive. If possible, perform comparisons of large baselines at a time when they will not interfere with other operations.

About this task

You can compare a baseline to the corresponding actual CIs at any time. Perform comparisons based on the purpose of the baseline. For example, if you created a baseline in order to record the state of a group of CIs before you make a large change, you might run the comparison immediately before beginning the change process, to verify the condition of the target CIs, and again after the change is complete and the actual CIs have been re-discovered, to verify that only the planned changes were made. If a change fails, you might run the comparison a few times as you restore the CIs to their pre-change state. If you created a baseline to monitor the CIs that make up a service, you might run comparisons on a regular schedule as a way to audit the configuration of the service.

If a baseline includes member CIs that are associated with different customers, all the CIs might not be compared. The comparison does not include member CIs or actual CIs that the person requesting the comparison does not have authority to view. After the comparison, log messages can show the CIs that were not compared for this reason.

Procedure

  1. Click Open menu > IT Infrastructure > CI Baselines to open the CI Baselines application.
  2. Place the cursor in the CI Baseline field. Type a filter term if you want to limit the list of records. Press Enter.
  3. Open the baseline version that you want to use in your comparison. Verify that Active is checked, and that the Active Date matches the version that you want to use.
  4. Click the Compare with Actual CIs button in the Member CIs section to start the comparison.
  5. A message reminds you that the comparison process can take several minutes if the baseline has a large number of members. Click Yes to continue.
    The comparison process runs and the results are displayed in a dialog box.

What to do next

After you perform the comparison, view the results and analyze any differences that are shown.