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Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 7:05 pm Post subject: Does the CMDB contain staff?
Getting different feedback on this one, does anyone know if the CMDB should or should not contain staff - from an exam answer context rather than real life?
Joined: Oct 13, 2006 Posts: 116 Location: South Africa
Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 4:16 am Post subject:
The real-life answer would be: yes, nearly always - how can you assign incidents to staff if you don't have records of staff? The grey area is whether you store staff records in a place you call CMDB.
The exam answer I guess would refer to the books. ITIL V2 Service Support section 7.3.7:
Quote:
The CMDB may also be used to store and control details of IT Users, IT staff and business units, although the legal implications of holding information about people in the CMDB should be considered. Storing such information in the CMDB would allow personnel Changes to be related to Changes in CI ownership.
In V3, the Service Transition book, under Types of Configuration Item, states
Quote:
Typical CI types include service, hardware, software, documentation and staff.
ITIL doesn't dictate that the CMDB is one tool. In fact, staff information would nearly always be in an HR system or/and something like Active Directory - with links from the 'service desk' bit of the CMDB.
Joined: Oct 26, 2007 Posts: 295 Location: Calgary, Canada
Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 9:09 am Post subject:
As Joe indicated, from the exam stand point, yes, CMDB COULD (not should) contain staff.
In real life you need to ask do you need it to contain staff. Remember that CMBD is not assets database. The most important concept of CMDB is that is stores relationships. Thus, if you need to identify your people in the database and relate them to other CI's because your processes have been designed in a way that they need that information present, then you most definitely should.
Joined: Sep 16, 2006 Posts: 3597 Location: London, UK
Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2007 12:19 am Post subject:
The first time I saw this question I said
No Staff are not CI because you cant upgrade memory or change the processor speed or patch the software at all
Then I realized that people make up the staff and have roles within the process
The HR department probably has allk teh relevent information about the individual personal and business related details
If you put the staff in the CMDB you should also put the roles/teams that they assume or are part of .
IE Change Manager, Service Desk, Service Manager, NOC Manager, 1st line escalation etc
and then link the individuals to the role..#
The people may go away (change process via the HR department ?) and the access that they have or not would go away but the role may not _________________ John Hardesty
ITSM Manager's Certificate (Red Badge)
Change Management is POWER & CONTROL. /....evil laughter
Joined: Sep 16, 2006 Posts: 3597 Location: London, UK
Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2007 6:45 pm Post subject:
If you really want to be pedantic, I can say the data is not lost. After all it is on a CD. The storage device (CD) is merely in search of a secure location
giggle _________________ John Hardesty
ITSM Manager's Certificate (Red Badge)
Change Management is POWER & CONTROL. /....evil laughter
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The grey area is whether you store staff records in a place you call CMDB.
