Using templates to generate defined topologies

You can create topology templates to generate defined topologies, which search your topology database for instances that match its conditions. These defined topologies can then be searched for in the Topology Viewer and displayed.

You must have the admin role inasm_admin assigned to you. See the Configuring DASH user roles topic for more information.

You can create a new template or edit an existing template.

To create a new template, you construct a topology view centered around a seed resource. This lets you search your database for topologies with resources and relationships that match the conditions defined in the template.

These defined topologies are dynamically generated, maintained and updated, and can be searched for and accessed in the Topology Viewer. Defined topologies are dynamically refreshed when accessed.
Dynamic changes to defined topologies
If edges or resources are removed that render an existing defined topology that has already been indexed incomplete, it will remain available, and can therefore still be found and displayed via the topology search, or via a previously created direct URL.
If edges or resources are added or changed that render a defined topolgy that was not indexed previously complete, the topology will be indexed automatically, thereby becoming accessible via the search service.
Tip: Searching for and then rendering resources is described in more detail in the Search section of the Topology Viewer reference topic.
  1. As the admin user, log into your DASH web application.
  2. Select Administration from the DASH menu.
  3. Select Topology Templates under the Agile Service Management heading.
  4. Enter a resource or template name.
    As you type, a drop-down list is displayed with suggested search terms that already exist in the topology service. If you select one of these, the Search Results page is displayed, which lists the results under separate Resources and Templates tabs.
    • For each resource or template, the name and other properties are displayed.
    • Click View Topology next to a result to create a new template, or View Template to open an existing one.
    The Topology template builder page is displayed, consisting of a topology view on the right, and a number of template definition fields on the left.

Edit an existing template

  1. If you have selected an existing template from the Search results, you edit the template conditions as you would when creating a new template.
    • You can also delete an existing template from here.

Create a new template

If you have selected a resource rather than an existing template, a basic topology view centered around the resource as seed is displayed in the Topology Visualization panel on the right.

  1. Enter a name for the template.
    This name must be unique.
  2. Define a defined topology naming pattern.
    The seed name of the defined topology is substituted when a defined topology is generated, but you can define either a prefix, suffix, or both to create an appropriate name for each defined topology.
  3. Add a tag to be included for each defined topology.
    Tags allow you to group the individually generated defined topolgies by matching them to resources
    Restriction: The following special characters are not supported when specifying tags: 
    . ? + * | { } [ ] ( ) " \ # @ & < > ~
    If existing resources have tags with these characters, you must change them before you can use them to define defined topologies.
  4. Define the type of template used.

    • Exact: You can define a template that uses the selected resource only. This allows you to create a single defined topology, which operators can access from the Topology Viewer.

      Although an exact template type focuses on a single resource, it remains dynamic, which means as long as the seed resource itself remains unchanged, the defined topology can change through the removal or addition of connected resources or relationships.

    • Dynamic: You can define a template for resources with types and tags similar to the selected resource. This allows you to search for defined topologies that follow the same relationship patterns.
  5. Choose an icon to associate with the template using one of the following methods:
    From the Icon drop-down list
    If you open the Icon drop-down list, all icons are listed by name in alphabetical order.
    From the View all icons button
    If you click the View all icons button, all icons are displayed in alphabetical order.
    Click an icon to associate it with the template.
    From the Quick assign button
    If an icon exists with the same name as the template, click the Quick assign button to select it without having to sort through all existing icons.
    This function is useful if you have added a custom icon, and are now assigning it to a template with the same name.
    From the Define new custom icon button
    From here you can define a custom icon, which is automatically associated with the template when done.
    Click the Define new custom icon button to display the Custom Icons page.
    Click New to create a new icon. Alternatively, click the 'edit' symbol to edit an existing icon. Use the following information to define the icon:
    Icon properties
    Each custom icon must have a name that uniquely identifies the icon when assigning it to a type.
    Remember: You cannot change the name of an existing icon. If you want an icon to have a different name, create a new icon, then delete the old one.
    Icons are defined inside an SVG editor, which performs an XML validation check.
    Each icon definition must be valid svg xml with a given viewBox, which is important to ensure scaling of the image.
    The svg definition must include inline styling of the image, such as stroke color and fill color. Use of style classes is not advised, as it can cause visualization issues on some browsers. If style classes must be used, naming must be unique for each svg image to prevent class definitions from being overwritten.
    Optionally, each icon can be assigned to a category, which allows you to group icons of the same type or function together when displaying them in a list.
    Remember: You can also create custom icons from the Custom Icons page accessed through DASH, which is described in the Defining custom icons topic.
    All defined topologies based on this template will display the icon.
  6. Define the topology conditions.
    Use the context (right-click) menu to perform a number of resource-specific actions. You can view the resource's details, get its neighbors, or follow adjacent relationships.
    As you define the template conditions, a preview function retrieves information from the topology database, indicating the number of matches. If these exceed 500, you cannot generate the defined topologies. Refine your conditions until the number of defined topologies are within the limit.
  7. Click Save template and generate defined topologies.
    A list of defined topologies is displayed. From here, you can view individual defined topologies to verify that they meet your requirement. If they do not, refine your template.
  8. Define a default layout for the defined topologies.
    Layout types
    You can choose from a number of layout types and orientations.
    Layout 1
    A layout that simply displays all resources in a topology without applying a specific layout structure.
    Layout 2
    A circular layout that is useful when you want to arrange a number of entities by type in a circular pattern.
    Layout 3
    A grouped layout is useful when you have many linked entities, as it helps you visualize the entities to which a number of other entities are linked. This layout helps to identify groups of interconnected entities and the relationships between them.
    Layout 4
    A hierarchical layout that is useful for topologies that contain hierarchical structures, as it shows how key vertices relate to others with peers in the topology being aligned.
    Layout 5
    A peacock layout is useful when you have many interlinked vertices, which group the other linked vertices.
    Layout 6
    A planar rank layout is useful when you want to view how the topology relates to a given vertex in terms of its rank, and also how vertices are layered relative to one another.
    Layout 7
    A rank layout is useful when you want to see how a selected vertex and the vertices immediately related to it rank relative to the remainder of the topology (up to the specified amount of hops). The root selection is automatic.
    For example, vertices with high degrees of connectivity outrank lower degrees of connectivity. This layout ranks the topology automatically around the specified seed vertex.
    Layout 8
    A root rank layout similar to layout 7, except that it treats the selected vertex as the root. This layout is useful when you want to treat a selected vertex as the root of the tree, with others being ranked below it.
    Ranks the topology using the selected vertex as the root (root selection: Selection)
    Layout orientation
    For layouts 4, 6, 7 and 8, you can set the following layout orientations:
    • Top to bottom
    • Bottom to top
    • Left to right
    • Right to left
    When a defined topology based on this template is selected in the Topology Dashboard, the default layout is used.
The defined topologies are saved in the topology database and can now be searched for by operators using the standard Search functionality, and then accessed in the Topology Viewer.
Remember: Defined topologies are updated automatically when the topology database is updated, and generated dynamically as they are displayed in the Topology Viewer.
Searching for and then rendering resources is described in more detail in the Search section of the Topology Viewer reference topic, and in the Using Agile Service Manager topics.