Hey guys, Need some help here, implementing CMDB

[amine-douda]

HI guys,

I was asked to implement a cmdb for one organisation, i will be recruted if i succed, i was thinking its something easy, but i was wrong, now its being like a week now reading about how to implement a cmdb, but i still how no clue about how to begin, so please if there is any help you guys can offer me, some documents or guidance, i would be so greatfull

and thank you all.

[UKVIKING]

amine-douda,

I usually am quite blunt,tact and snarly but I had a bit of chocolate and I am feeling a bit warm and human.

1 - A CMDB is a collection of database(s) that contain all information about the services a company provides. The CMDB would include system, service, application, and any other information that may be needed to support the servers
2 - the CMDB is primary used by a service desk / helpdesk to provide information about the systems, services and users that the service desk is responsibile for
3 - a CMDB is more than an asset register of the systems; however, this is usually one of the core databases used
4 - ITIL process - Configuration Management - is the process responsible for managing the CMDB through the Config mgmt processes, sub process and links to other process.

My suggestions are as follows

If you dont know anything about ITIL, do not attempt this. Get training in ITIL
If you have training in ITIL; it should be also be joined with experience of implementing and using ITIL Best practices. Training and certification should be beyond the foundation
If you have no experience in Database or application design, get some

In my not so humble opinion, you have been giving a task where you will spend huge amounts of time and you will not achieve what you want or what the company / person who requested this wants.

WALK AWAY.

While they may have dangled 'a job' if you do this, if you do a bad job on the CMDB, does it hurt your employment chances with this and other companys
_________________
John Hardesty
ITSM Manager's Certificate (Red Badge)

Change Management is POWER & CONTROL. /....evil laughter

[amine-douda]

UKVIKING,

Thank you for the honest answer, i never had itil traning but i have some ideas about itil,i have no choice but try to make this happen.
i have an other question, if you dont mind answering, i installed ocs inventory to collect all the info about this company, i wanna know once i have this list what is the next step.

and thank you

[Diarmid]

Phase one is not to investigate data but to investigate purpose. In order to establish a CMDB you first have to have established policies and objectives. From that you can design processes and structures. From these you can define what data is required and how it should be laid out.

Put all the info gathered to one side and begin to investigate what information their processes require and how it needs to be used. With luck, some of what you have gathered will be relevant, but before you go back to it design the structures/frameworks and processes for storing, accessing and controlling all the information that is certainly required in the CMDB. Then follow your new processes to populate the CMDB from what you have gathered and other necessary information.

Don't forget about quality and authority considerations in your process designs.
_________________
"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

[amine-douda]

Diarmid,

Thank you, i will certainly do that.

[UKVIKING]

amine-douda,

A CMDB is merely a tool to manage and track the work in the ITIL Process Configuration Management.

You need to get an understanding of that process at least in order to build even the remotest version of a CMDB

Also, please realize the following - no one ever has a complete CMDB . It is list x = 1/n - always approach 0 but never gettign there

Before you can build a CMDB or even an asset Register, you need to know the following

what systems do you have
what information about the systems you want to track and why
a place to store them

I can not really help you with the next step as that would be consulting as opposed to Free Advice
_________________
John Hardesty
ITSM Manager's Certificate (Red Badge)

Change Management is POWER & CONTROL. /....evil laughter

[amine-douda]

Hey guys,
thx for the answer, i start to understand what is a cmdb and how it works, etc ..
but i still have one question, i wanna know if there is any relation between cmdb and oracle .. for exemple the cmdb contains alot of information, and it depends on you needs, what sort of informations exist there, so lets take an exemple .. i creat 3 tables (ComputreCi, ServersCi, RoutersCi) may creat these tables using oracle ?? or there is already softwares designed to do that ?

[UKVIKING]

amine-douda

I do all my database design in Microsoft access

This way you can build the database, tables, forms, queries etc

and then determine what fields you need for what tables and whether to have multiple tables and reference tables etc


There is software making CMDB

However, I would agree with Diarmid

you need to step away from the CMDB and concentrate on the process to manage the information about the assets you want to control with the CMDB

I had a CMDB on a white board - 3 servers, 10 desktops, 4 printers.

The process for doing things was pretty easy

The hard part was gefreshing the data after some one washed the white board
_________________
John Hardesty
ITSM Manager's Certificate (Red Badge)

Change Management is POWER & CONTROL. /....evil laughter

[Diarmid]

[amine-douda]

UKVIKING,

Thank you for the valuable advice, i will discust using Microsoft access with my boss, and i thank also Diarmid, he was right i had to inform my self more about the purpose of the company and what they really need, by doing that, the way start to be more clear. thank you all

[Timo]

I don't like warm and human John. Anybody with me?

[UKVIKING]

Timo

I am crushed.

How many other agree
_________________
John Hardesty
ITSM Manager's Certificate (Red Badge)

Change Management is POWER & CONTROL. /....evil laughter

[Diarmid]

Timo,

it's no use lobbing stuff over the forty-whatsit parallel when John's just said he agrees with me.
_________________
"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