Best practices for inbound and outbound references in Asset

[Sal]

Sometime I catch myself struggling in deciding when to add an inbound and when an outbound reference. Do you have any advice or best practises?

Examples:

- Object type "Server"

- Object type "Application"

Do you go for Server "has installed" Application 1, 2 and 3 or Application "is installed on" Server 1, 2 and 3?

Another example would be "Server is clusterhost for" or "cluster has clusterhosts"

Cheers!

[Dave Mathijs · Accepted solution]

Hi @Salomon Häseli 

From the documentation: "Outbound references point from the current object to another object, while inbound references point from another object towards the current object. The direction of a reference is relative; it will change depending on which object you are examining."

In this case you have a many-to-many relationship. However, I would choose Server has Applications x, y and z installed as you cannot have an application without a server.

• Server A may have Applications X and Y.
• Server B may have Applications Y and Z.

When looking at the Application Y, you will then see it's installed on Servers A and B.

[Sal]

Hi @Dave Mathijs 

Good point, thank you! I'll give it a thought. We currently went for the opposite as in practise the applications change more often than a Server. Which means when adding a new application object you don't need to remember to switch to the server and add the application there.

From your answer I interpret there is no right or wrong way on how to implement it as it depends on your needs.