CMDB Content

[broadway]

Hello Folks,

Any help/guidance will be greatly appreciated.


What are people views on putting NON IT CI's within the CMDB even though these CI's are logged and tracked through the Service Desk, specifically Broadcast kit?

Regards
Broadway

[Mark-OLoughlin]

Sure - put them in. Be sure to define how they will be managed and controlled and who is responsible for ensuring that the data is kept accurate. Define the scope of these NON IT CI's - what you will record and what you wont asnd the benefit of recording them.

Also Keep it as simple as you possibly can.
_________________
Mark O'Loughlin
ITSM / ITIL Consultant

[m_croon]

Hi,

Before you put anything in a CMDB, you should always ask who benefits (and how much) and how much administering it costs. If/when there is a sponsor who benefits (and pays) for administering, I don't see why you should not do it.

Cheers,

Michiel

[Cotswolddave]

If you want to control items which are either grouped (like a release) or form part of a service then yes, use the CMDB. I've put in systems where we have mapped customers, departments, 3rd party services, geographic locations and other non-IT CIs so that impacts can be determined and reported on.

One of my customers is a media company and they wanted control of field assets so they used the CMDB and service desk as an asset tracking workflow tool.

A key part is how you design your CMDB structure - too complicated and no-one can use it, too simple and it doesn't help with categorising changes and incidents. As other contributors have said, there should be a clear reason why you want a particular CI type controlled

Dave

[Pravi]

Hi Dave,

You have mentioned that , you have configured in systems which is mapped to customers, departments, 3rd party services, geographic locations and other non-IT CIs so that impacts can be determined and reported on.

Could you pls describe the above in a broder manner. How are these relations helpful to you and what is that you analyze and conclude. Also if possible could you pls send a template of the above example


Thanks

Pravi

[Diarmid]

Hi pravi,

if you can't see how the information would be useful to you, then perhaps it isn't.

All Dave's "non-IT CIs" can have relationships (for example dependency) to network, server, application elements etc.

A 3rd party delivery failure could affect services.

To have all the links in a database makes it much easier to predict the effects. The possibilities are endless.

Other peoples' templates could be bad for you. You have to think through what you are doing and design accordingly.
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"Method goes far to prevent trouble in business: for it makes the task easy, hinders confusion, saves abundance of time, and instructs those that have business depending, both what to do and what to hope."
William Penn 1644-1718

[Cotswolddave]

Hi Pravi,

Agree with Diarmid that examples of templates are of limited use as they are designed to support the process needs. For example internal change/incident type logging works best with a heirarchy approach to a service map. Mapping "customers" often involves a heirarchy also but in a different way - just like an org chart. Locations are mapped in a similar way site, building, room, cabinet, device, card slot. Being able to accommodate these different structures in a database isn't simple, so focus is required. There are examples in white papers on my web site, but whenever I've put in the details, someone deletes them!

Normally we map CIs using dependency relationships (often just parent/child) within the service desk CMDB. This gives the ability to then use database queries though it probably needs custom reports. It does become cluttered and unmanageable though if you don't use relationship filters when analysing impacts.

The newer technique we are working on is how to perform batch impact analysis to make it more valuable to project teams and data centre managers. Rather than start with a single server and try and understand the impact on services of a change - why not start with a list of all the servers being upgraded and then get the CMDB software to give analyse all the impacts and produce a list of impacted services. This is more about how do you want to use a CMDB, rather than how you put the data in.

Hope this helps

Dave