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What are CI Relations?

CI Relations indicate the relationship between multiple Configuration Items (CIs). This helps to identify the inter-dependencies between two or more CIs, which in turn helps in easy identification of cause of failure, failure impact, and helps in better proactive recovery planning. 

CI Relationship Types

• Parent CI: A CI is identified as a Parent CI if one or multiple CIs depend upon it. Any major impact on the Parent CI has an impact on the Child CI.
• Child CI: The availability and performance of a Child CI has a dependency on the Parent CI.
• Peer CI: A CI of similar nature is considered as a Peer CI. There is no impact on the CI if the Peer CI goes down.

• Backup CI: A CI is identified as a Backup CI if it provides backup to another CI. It means, if the CI goes down, the Backup CI performs in place of the affected CI, significantly reducing the impact of the affected CI.

  Note
  title Note:
  In addition to these CI Relations, the Administrators can also configure specific CI Relation Types, see Configuring CI Relation Types.

Child, Parent, Peer, and Backup relations between the CIs can be created using the Link list under the CI RELATIONS tab. If the Administrator has configured any CI Relation Types, that is also listed in the Link list. All the linked CIs are displayed in a Tile view. The basic information about the CIs is displayed along with the Event Correlation status (Correlated).

Figure: CI Relations

Event Correlation  

Event Correlation is a method used to identify the few events that should be analyzed and corrected from a large number of events that are triggered. For example, if there are two CIs, one is a Parent CI and the other one is a Child CI. If the Parent CI goes down, an event is created. If the Parent CI goes down and the Child CI also goes down, the event created for the Child CI is suppressed if the Correlated status is YES. The event triggered by the Parent CI is analyzed and corrected.

Advantages

• Easy and quick identification of cause, impact, and criticality of failure

• Better recovery plan in case of failure

Accessing the Feature

You can create and view Peer, Parent, and Child Relationships between Configuration Items (CIs) under the CI RELATIONS tab of the CI page (see: Configuring New CIs and Viewing and Modifying CIs_CMDB). You can also create, link, and de-link CIs under the RELATION tab of the Incident, Service Request, Change Record, Problem Record, and Knowledge Record page.