BMC Atrium Discovery enables you to view object dependencies in graphical format. The term Dependency Visualizations has been chosen to reflect the capabilities of this feature; you can visualize relationships that are not tree structures.

Viewing a dependency visualization

When viewing either a single node or multiple node groups, a Visualization menu is shown.

1. Click the Visualizations menu to display the menu.
   
   
2. Click the dependency visualization type you want to view (for example, the Infrastructure visualization).
   
   

There are many different types of visualization available for viewing each object. If you click any of the types here, a pictorial representation of the object dependencies is displayed. See Types of Visualization for more details. It is also possible to create custom made Dependency Visualizations on your system using a configuration file. See Configuring dependency visualizations for more information.

Visualizations and Navigation When viewing dependency visualizations you should avoid using the Forward and Back buttons on your browser. Doing so may cause problems with the view (for example, the zoom function may be erratic, and navigation buttons in the display applet may not work).

Multiple nodes

When viewing a result set containing multiple nodes, a visualization is displayed with multiple root nodes; one for each node in the result set. Opening a visualization on many nodes at once may be slow; for this reason you are asked for confirmation if you attempt to do this on more than 20 nodes.

Observed host communication

To see details of why two hosts are communicating, right-click the edge between them, and choose the only menu option, Show Communication Details.

A report of all directly discovered network connections that contributed to the observed communication link between the hosts is displayed.

Working with dependency visualizations

Several controls and a legend are provided to enable you to work with dependency visualizations:

• Zoom and pan controls: Enable you to zoom in and out, and pan around the visualization.
• Layout controls: Enable you to choose a layout.
• Printing and export controls: Enable you to print or export the visualization image.
• Using the legend: Shows an annotated legend describing the node types shown in the visualization.

In addition to the control panels, further options are available through a menu which is displayed by right clicking on a node:

• View Details: Shows the view object page for the object.
• Re-Center: Centers and makes the selected node the subject of the visualization.
• Manual Groups: Opens the Manual Groups dialog, allowing you to add and remove selected nodes from manual groups.
• Hide: Hides the object.
• Unhide Neighbors: Reveals any hidden neighbor objects.
• Open: Displays the Hosts in that group, This is only available on an Automatic Group node.

An observed communication link also has a popup menu which is displayed by right clicking on it. This allow the user to see the Communication Summary between two nodes that are communicating.

Zoom and pan controls

The diagram is initially centered in the page. If a large number of dependencies are shown you may have to use the zoom facility or the pan up, down, left and right arrows to view the entire visualization. The zoom and pan controls are displayed in the top-left corner of the screen. This panel includes zoom in and out functions and a thumbnail version of the dependency visualization selected.

Layout controls

The layout controls provide the ability to display the dependency visualization in four layout styles; Circular, Hierarchical, Orthogonal and Symmetric. The layout shown in the example at the top of this page is the Hierarchical layout.

Nodes can be rearranged by clicking on them and dragging them to a new location. Multiple nodes can be selected and dragged together. The icon on the far right of the layout row, seperated by a |, is the Incremental Layout tool. This re-displays the visualization to fit on screen, respecting where you have re-arranged your nodes.

Each visualization also resizes if the window is resized.

Printing and export controls

The Printing & Export Controls area in the side panel of the screen for each dependency visualization provides a drop-down dialog where you can print or save the current whole image view at any time.

The available paper size options are A0, A1, A2, A3, A4, Letter, and ANSI B - F. Once you have selected your paper size, click the Print/Export button and a new screen is displayed from where you can select your printer.

Select Landscape when Printing Whichever page size you select you must select the 'Landscape' option from the print dialog.

The following method can be used to export your visualization:

1. Click the Print/Export button and a new screen is displayed.
2. Right-click the image and choose the Save Picture As link.

Visualization size limit There is a visualization size limit of 5631x4439 pixels. Larger visualizations could consume excessive system resources and cause instability.

Using the legend

There are a list of the icons and their meanings in the side panel for everything that appears in the dependency visualization. The legend also displays all the Manual Group labels that are being displayed in the visualization.

The node that is the root of the visualization, that is, the one from which the visualization was launched, or on which it was re-centered, is highlighted with an orange box. For an example of a multiple root node visualization, see Multiple Root Node Visualizations.