Automatically Assign Attributes to New Services

You can use the Default Attributes policy to automatically assign metadata to new services. This policy can help you reduce the administrative time required to set metadata used for orchestration.

The Default Attributes policy can automatically assign the following metadata to new services:

  • expiry date
  • expiry group
  • maintenance group
  • power schedule group
  • rightsizing group

This policy works in two ways:

  • During a service deployment (automated or manual), if Commander finds a policy targeting the selected destination, it calculates the policy actions and combines them with the other metadata (inherited from the source template and supplied on the request form). During automated deployment, Commander applies the combined values. During manual deployment, Commander populates the wizard with the combined values.
  • The policy is triggered when a new service is created directly in the cloud account (outside of Commander).

Any configuration of this policy on a system-wide basis can affect all cloud accounts that are managed by Commander now and can affect all cloud accounts that are added to Commander in the future. If you don't want all cloud accounts to be automatically affected by this policy, configure the policy by selected infrastructure elements only.

  • The Default Attributes policy assigns expiry information and groups to templates, but policy actions aren't performed for templates.
  • The Default Attributes policy does not affect cloud accounts, so it's not possible to assign a maintenance group to a cloud account through this policy.

See Manage Service Groups to learn about other methods for assigning service groups, and which method is best in each situation.

Configure the Default Attributes policy

Important: Before configuring the Default Attributes policy, create the groups you will assign through the policy. See Manage Service Groups to learn how.

Access:

Configuration > Policies

Available to:

Commander Role of Superuser and Enterprise Admin

Administrator Access Rights

  1. On the Configuration page, click Add.
  2. On the Choose a Policy page, select Default Attributes from the list of policies.
  3. On the Policy Name/Description page, enter a name (for example, "Default Attributes Policy for Production"), and an optional description.
  4. On the Choose a Target page, from the Target View Type list, select Infrastructure or Applications, and in the tree select a target for the policies.

    If a service is deployed into a location where multiple policies target the Infrastructure view and the Applications view, the policy targeting the Infrastructure view takes precedence.

    Any configuration of this policy on a system-wide basis can affect all cloud accounts that are managed by Commander now and can affect all cloud accounts that are added to Commander in the future. If you don't want all cloud accounts to be automatically affected by this policy, don't select Infrastructure or Applications as a target. Instead, select a cloud account or any infrastructure elements within a cloud account.

  5. On the Configure the Policy page:

    6. If you want the policy to come into effect immediately after you finish configuring it, select Enable Policy.

    For Take Action, select an option:

    • None: If the policy is triggered, no action is taken. An alert is created, notifying you that the policy has triggered. See also Subscribe to Policy Alerts.
    • Run Workflow: Existing command workflows appear for selection, organized by target type. If the policy is triggered, the selected workflow is run.

      You must choose a workflow with a target type that matches the target of the policy; otherwise, the workflow will fail. For example, if the selected workflow's target type is "VM", the workflow will fail if the policy targets a database. A workflow with a target type of "Any Inventory Type" can be run on all service types.

      Click Add Workflow to set up a new command workflow.

    • In the Expiry area, choose one of the following:
      • If you want the service to expire in a given number of days after the service is added to the inventory, enable Set Expiry Date and enter a number from 1 to 9999.
      • If you want the service to never expire, enable Never Expires.
    • Enable or clear the last checkbox to set whether you want to allow children of the targets to have their own instance of the policy.

      If you enable this option, other instances of this policy can be applied to any infrastructure elements and services that are children of the parent infrastructure element you've selected (an override).

  6. On the Configure Groups page, click Add Groups, then in the Add Groups dialog, select the groups you want to add, and click OK.

    You can choose one or more of the following group types:

  7. Back on the Configure Groups page, select specific groups for each type, then click Next.
  8. On the Summary page, review the summary of your policy configuration, then click Finish to complete the configuration.