A software hierarchy is the combination of
product, version, and release (or feature) that represents an item
of software in a database or knowledge base. The product is the root
of the hierarchy.
Two software types, distributed and mainframe, determine the kind
of relationships that are possible in the software hierarchy. For
example, IBM® DB2® is distributed software with a product, version,
and release hierarchy. IBM AIX® is mainframe software with a
product, version, and feature hierarchy.
Software products, versions and releases can be imported into the Maximo® database from Software
Knowledge Base Toolkit (separately available from IBM). In the Software Catalog application,
you can use the Product Hierarchy tab to view the imported software
hierarchy. When an import from Software
Knowledge Base Toolkit is
in place, the data provided is made read-only in the Software Catalog.
You can import software product information from most other discovery
tools and then manually organize it into software product hierarchies.
This gives you the same capability to define hierarchical structures
as others who work with Software
Knowledge Base Toolkit,
without actually having to use the knowledge base in
your asset management environment.
Distributed software types
The distributed
software types into which you can classify software differ in terms
of licensing attributes and the types of dependencies that can be
defined for them. The software type determines the role that the software
can play in relation to other items. The structure of those items
is hierarchical:
- Software product
- A logical unit of software packaging and sharing that has a managed
development and maintenance life cycle and customer visible attributes.
It can be a collection of components and other products whose licensing
may be dependent on the licensing of the product as a whole.
- Component
- A unit of software that cannot be offered and licensed independently
of other software. It cannot be installed separately but it can be
detected as installed or running on computer systems by means of its
own signatures. It can be assigned to products and shared between
many different product definitions.
Components can be assigned to software products,
and products can be bundled into more complex products. Many components
can be assigned to one product, and the same component can be assigned
to many products. Similarly, many products can be assigned to one
product, and one product can be shared among many products. The software
to which one or more other products or components are assigned is
referred to as enclosing software.
For every type
of distributed software, you can define a three-level hierarchy:
- Product
- The root of the hierarchy. It groups all the software versions.
Some of the attributes specified for the product are inherited by
subordinate levels of the hierarchy. Every software hierarchy can
contain only one product, which is the parent of
any child versions or releases subordinate to it.
- Version
- Separately licensable software immediately subordinate to the
parent product. It can group one or more releases. For IBM software, different
versions grouped under one parent product can have different product
identifiers, or PIDs.
- Release
- Separately licensable software immediately subordinate to the
software located at the version level. It can only be subordinate
to one version. All releases grouped under one version must have the
same PID.
Note: A fourth level, variation, can be
defined in the optional Software
Knowledge Base Toolkit.
But a variation cannot be licensed individually and it
does not get imported into the Maximo database.
Mainframe software types
Mainframe software is divided into two
types:
- Products
- Software products can have software hierarchies consisting
of three levels: the parent product, versions, and releases. The mainframe
product hierarchy, however, consists of only two levels: the parent
product level and the version level. Each parent product can group
one or more versions.
- Features
- Mainframe products at the version level of
the software hierarchy can own one or more features. The same feature
can only be assigned to one product hierarchy. Features inherit the
licensing attributes of the products to which they are assigned but
they can be identified with a separate entitlement entity attribute.
Mainframe product features cannot be defined as independent entries.
They have to be assigned to a mainframe product entry.