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Glossary

Adapter

The interface between CA Business Service Insight and third-party data sources. Adapters translate data taken from these data sources into a format that can be used for service level calculations that are provided to contract parties.

Agent

An object that represents a metric in a given time unit.

Alert

Notifications to users about events taking place in the system. Alerts enable users to take corrective action to avoid deviating from contracts, incurring penalties and so on.

Alert Device

Devices in the network that receive alert messages via e-mail, popups or SMS or via a third-party program.

Alert Profile

A set of parameters that defines the conditions under which an alert message is triggered, the users to whom it is issued and how it is sent.

Archived Contract

A contract whose data has been moved to the archive. Archived contracts are not included in calculations and cannot be viewed in reports.

Audit Trail

A chronological record of CA Business Service Insight user and system activities, which are saved in the system. The audit can later be reviewed to identify users actions on the system or processes which occurred on the system.

Booklet

RTF-based file that may include contract data and related reports in a convenient format using pre-defined and configurable design templates

Business Logic Modules

Library of script functions that can be used in Business Logic.

Business Logic Template

Predefined Business Logic formulas that can be used to define new Business Logic formulas.

Change Set

A set of changes to the service provider's resources map.

Clustered Metric

A type of metric that applies to multiple resources or resource groups.

Compound Report

Multiple regular reports that are displayed as multiple series on a single chart

Consumption

A metric type that calculates consumption. Used mainly for the financial module. By using this metric type, it is possible to see in the reports the consumption and the prices separately. The consumption can be calculated in the Price Item metric as well.

Consumption Metric

A metrics that provides the ability to view consumption and prices separately in a report.

Contract Audit Trail

A log of all of the activities of a contract.

Contract Author

The user who is responsible for creating a certain contract.

Contract Party

The customer or provider with whom the contract is signed. A contract party can also represent an internal entity within a larger organization.

Contract Party Group

Logically defined group of contract parties (customers). Referring to a group instead of an individual contract party streamlines contract creation. A contract party can belong to more than one contract party group.

Contract Template

Predefined contract used to create a new contract.

Contract-level Parameter

A parameter of a regular contract, contract template and service level template that is being used by metrics within the business logic.

Current Status Engine

A standalone process that calculates current status metrics. There is no limit to the number of instances allowed to run on one or more machines.

Dashboard

A user interface intended for high-level managers that organizes and presents real-time information and reports in an easy-to-read manner.

Dashboard Map

The layout of the dashboard. The arrangement of widgets in the dashboard.

Data Event

Events generated by CA Business Service Insight adapters

Derived Metric

A metric that was created from a contract template or service level template.

Domain Category

A specific aspect of the service level agreed upon in the contract. For example, you might have a service domain called Help Desk and a domain category such as Response Time of the Help Desk, which describes that particular aspect of Help Desk service. The service provider's system administrator usually defines the domain categories. CA Business Service Insight also supplies predefined domain categories.

Event Annotations

Additional information about a specific event. Event Annotations are set automatically or manually (within the reports).

Event Types

An event is a measurement done on a resource by a third-party measuring tool and then translated by the adapter to a format usable by CA Business Service Insight. Event types determine how these events are defined and formatted for CA Business Service Insight.

Exception

Period of time that does not count towards the calculation of service levels. For example, downtime.

Free-Form Report

A report that is created by a user defined SQL-statement based on CA Business Service Insight database or other external databases.

Granularity

Granularity determines the additional time units the metric author wants to get result for excluding the tracking period of the metric.

Group Report

A report that places several reports side-by-side on one page.

Informational Metric

A metric that performs informational calculation to be used for reporting purposes only.

Interim Metric

A metric that can generate events for the purpose of calculating events. Interim metrics cannot be calculated.

KPI

Key Performance Indicator. A significant measure used on its own, or in combination with other key performance indicators, to monitor how well a business or a service is achieving its quantifiable objectives.

KQI

Key Quality Indicator. A significant measure used on its own, or in combination with other key performance indicators, to monitor how well a business or a service is achieving its quality objectives.

Manual Root-Cause Comment

A comment, set manually by the report viewer, to explain or add additional information to a service level result of specific metric. Manual root-cause comments can be shared by all report viewers of the same metric.

Metric

A combination of several parameters defining the target service level for a certain service at a certain time. Each metric is attached to a single service domain. Metric fields and attributes include domain category, service level formula, service, timeslot, service level target and tracking period.

Metric Event

An event generated by a metric in CA Business Service Insight.

Metric Type

Describes the reason for calculation of a certain metric and defines the list of fields and their behavior in terms of mandatory fields and defaults that a metric of a certain type should have.

Metric Wizard

A user-friendly interface developed to allow users to easily modify metrics the first time the metric is added to the contract from a service level template.

Metric-level Parameters

Parameters of a metric.

Objective Statement

The logical description of a metric containing the parameters that define the metric. Objective statements are displayed in the CA Business Service Insight GUI to provide effective capturing of the metric essence.

OLA

Operational Level Agreement. An OLA is an SLA in which the supplier is the internal organization and the customers are internal business units.

Package

A collection of service level templates and templates packed together to be installed and unpacked in another CA Business Service Insight instance.

Parameter

A value that can be set outside of the business logic to affect the business logic formula. Parameters are being used by the business logic to determine the service level result. A parameter can be of type text, list, number, date or table. Examples of parameters are thresholds and resource names.

Penalty

The compensation owed to the contract party if the service level target is not met within a defined tracking period. Penalties can be turned on or off in CA Business Service Insight.

Price Item

A metric that calculates the prices. The prices can be based on the consumption or defined as fixed prices.

Ratio

A type of Unit.

Raw Data Event

An event generated by raw data in CA Business Service Insight.

Received Events

A list of events received from other metrics shown in the Business Logic Scope window when clicking on the Received Events tab.

Regional Options

Specific details for the locality of the contract party. Parameters include language, currency, time difference from GMT, daylight saving time, date format and currency.

Related Metric

A metric that is referenced as a target in a relation.

Relation

An entity describing a connection of a certain type established between two metrics and having some properties.

Report Wizard

Graphical User Interface (GUI) used to define report parameters.

Report-Group Report

A report that encapsulates multiple regular reports, placed side-by-side

Reports Folder

Reports Folder is a container used to group together reports related to each other in some way or another.

Resource

A single element of the service provider's total infrastructure. Examples of resources include individual servers, switches, hubs, routers, a Help Desk or any other measurable element. Multiple resources can be defined as part of a resource group, which is then treated as another resource itself.

Resource Allocation

Allocating a resource to a service direct the resource events stream to this service. A resource can be allocated to a service, contract party, type or group.

Resource Effective Date

The date from which CA Business Service Insight may use the resource. The resource effective date is defined by the resource version that includes the resource. The resource will not be recognized by any resource version that has an effective date prior to the resource version in which the resource was created.

Resource Entry Date

The date the resource was entered into CA Business Service Insight. This should not be confused with the Resource Effective Date.

Resource Group

A collection of resources that are grouped together as a logical unit. A resource group can contain one or more individual resource or resource group.

Resource Type

A built-in category of resources. Resource must be allocated to at least one resource type.

Role

A set of responsibilities, activities and authorizations. The user role defines the view mode of CA Business Service Insight Every CA Business Service Insight user is assigned one or more roles which determine which actions the user can perform within CA Business Service Insight. Actions that cannot be performed by the role are removed from the CA Business Service Insight user interface when that user accesses the application.

Root-Cause Comment

A comment set within the business logic to explain the service level results. The root-cause comments are associated with metrics.

Service Level Template

A service definition is a predefined set of services and metrics, used to facilitate the creation and modification of contracts according to common business processes.

Simple Report

A means to analyze results calculated by CA Business Service Insight based on a rich set of criteria.

SLO

Service Level Objective. Used to measure contractual agreements.

Template Folder

A collection of all the information about services, domains and units, templates library and service level templates in CA Business Service Insight.

Tracking Period

The time interval during which CA Business Service Insight measures the provided service level versus a service level objective defined in the contract. The measurement taken during this period determines whether there is a deviation from the defined objective (as defined by the business logic) and whether any penalties or bonuses have been incurred. The tracking period also determines how business reports are generated.

Translation Entry

Represents a definition of source and destination values that are used by the translation table.

Translation Script

A script that can be used to ease the maintenance of translations and prevent errors.

Translation Table

A mechanism used for translating values from the data that comes from the raw data to the data defined in the system.

Translations

The conversion of data collected by adapters from their data sources into entities that have been defined in CA Business Service Insight.

Underpinning Contract

Underpinning contract. A contract with an external supplier covering delivery of services that support the organization in their delivery of services.

Unit

A catalog of measurable units. Examples include percentage and currency.

Unit of Measurement

A unit of measurement for all the metrics defined for a domain category.