CMDB in ITIL: Tools, Uses and How Does It Works?

An ITIL CMDB database stores information about service management and infrastructure in Configurable Item (CIs) entries, also known as IT assets. An ITIL CMDB, however, is not like any other data repository. They serve as a centralized system for managing the entire IT environment. It is a single platform for monitoring, tracking, and managing your IT estate. Learn about the CMDB example Excel, and why is CMDB important in this blog.  

This article explains the importance of ITIL CMDB roles in IT management, various CMDB tools, CMDB application mapping, and the importance of ITIL 4 certification. 

What is Configuration Management Database (CMDB)? 

A Configuration Management Database is a data repository file that stores information about your IT environment. The main functions of a CMDB include discovering, controlling, and tracking IT asset relationships. Furthermore, the configurations of each of them will be highlighted. 

Information that is accurate and current is essential for ITIL initiatives to succeed. Specifically with change management, incident management, problem management, availability management, and release management.  

Configuration management plays a key role here. A configuration management practice provides information about CIs and their configurations. Furthermore, their relationships with other assets will also be provided. IT managers, application managers, and system administrators can use this data to: 

• Responding to incidents 
• Resolving problems 
• Planning strategies 
• Deploying network components 
• Making budgetary forecasts 
• Addition, Modification and Deletion of an IT Component 

A CMDB process can play a significant role in improving your IT services. It may be possible to solve a network disruption affecting all workstations more efficiently if you know how to troubleshoot it. Knowing which routers and servers were connected to those machines would be even more accessible. You can avoid a malware outbreak if you track the versions of each desktop's operating system. You are identifying those that require patching. 

What are CMDB Tools and Its Importance? 

CMDB tools are used for managing Configuration Management Databases (CMDBs). By storing information about individual assets in a CMDB, they help track Configuration Items (CI). It can be user-friendly using a web interface since many people may access it. Maintaining and updating the data is also essential to ensure its functionality. 

ITIL CMDB outlines how individuals maintain configuration items, such as hardware, software, personnel, and documentation in service asset and configuration management. As part of configuration management, CIs should be identified for inclusion in the CMDB, data should be limited to authorized individuals, CI records should be updated regularly, and accuracy should be maintained. By auditing and reviewing data regularly, you can ensure data accuracy. An excellent tool often comes with features such as auto-discovery of devices, IT asset management tools, reporting tools that integrate with other IT management software, and integration with other IT management systems. 

Best CMDB Tools

Below are the best CMDB tools you can use in configuration management best practices. 

1. ServiceDesk Plus

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus lets you centralize all your configuration items. The CMDB allows you to gain complete visibility into your IT infrastructure and a reliable and improved system. Your technicians can view accumulated IT services and assets in one place and maintain all business-critical configuration items. You can also use simplified relationship maps to understand how business entities interrelate. 

CMDBs in ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus allows you to define direct and inverse relationships between configuration items. You can use ServiceDesk Plus as soon as you sign up in the cloud. The file can be downloaded and installed on Windows or Linux.  

2. Deepser

The Deepser Service Desk offers highly interactive CMDB requirements to facilitate an understanding of how individual assets affect a company's IT network, making it suitable for detailed customization. Deepser optimizes customer service, asset management, and organization processes through its innovative help desk, customer support, and IT Asset Management software. Its main features include a self-defined availability timer for determining the timing and individual asset impact reports, duration of outrages, and custom object tracking. Monitoring items of importance lets you know how a piece of technology affects the IT infrastructure. 

3. SolarWinds Service Desk

SolarWinds Service Desk CMDB allows you to visualize all the dependencies between different components of an organization's technology infrastructure. Using this tool, you can analyze how past and future changes affect your employees and company. This is one Configuration Management Database example.  

Understanding the impact will allow you to minimize the chances of making changes to communicate with employees who might be impacted. Assigning problems and incidents to configuration items and dependencies is possible with SolarWinds CMDB. Further investigation and diagnosis will be possible in real time due to this. 

With SolarWinds ITIL Configuration Management Database, you can automatically map, visualize, and detect dependencies between configuration items. Therefore, you can quickly understand how various components in your infrastructure relate. Try any pack for 30 days for FREE, starting at $19/month/technician. 

List of other CMDB Software/Tools: 

• ManageEngine 
• Device42 
• ServiceNow 
• GLPI-Project 
• i-doit 
• CMW Lab 
• BMC Helix CMDB 
• Micro Focus Universal CMDB 

What is CMDB Application Mapping?

Configuration records for applications include software versions, individual installations, and licenses. When it comes to relationships between applications, the following components are essential to consider: 

• Server and network equipment, such as switches, routers, and firewalls, are part of the physical infrastructure. 
• Virtual machines, hypervisors, operating systems, middleware, and interfaces are part of the virtual infrastructure. 
• The data and its storage elements, such as databases and storage area networks, are data components. 
• The services include those that run off the application and those dependent on the data processed or provided by it. 

An application map is produced by linking all relevant components and visually illustrating their relationships. In most cases, data is organized hierarchically. Other formats, such as data flow diagrams, mind maps, fishbone diagrams, and similar, are also possible. 

Uses of CMDB Application Mapping

To map ITIL Configuration Management Database applications to ITIL 4 configuration management databases, we can apply the following purposes: 

1. Risk Assessment

CMDB application maps can be handy for risk analysis exercises, revealing a common perspective on the service components. When vulnerabilities are identified, and threat factors are determined at all levels, it becomes easier to protect business services and assets. Consequently, risk treatment planning becomes more effective.

2. Impact Assessment

An essential aspect of the change lifecycle is determining how the change will affect the organization. A CMDB application map is a critical tool for both the change planning teams and the change reviewers. A CMDB dependency mapping impact analysis should be considered evidence in approving a difference even if the CMDB application map is not referred to during a change advisory board (CAB) meeting.

3. Cost Allotment

By analyzing the CMDB application map, it is possible to determine the costs of services and components. It is easier to justify improvements or expansion to meet demand through CMDB application mapping that can serve to highlight areas in the service architecture that need optimizing or spending.

What is CMDB in ITIL? 

In the past, Configuration Management Database software served as repository for manually collected data on IT assets. Due to technological advancements such as discovery tools, CMDB solutions have become crucial to many companies' ITSM solutions as ITSM processes matured, and automation emerged. CMDB ITIL4 has always played an important role in service management and other IT processes and will continue to do so in the future. You can learn more about ITSM processes by doing ITSM Courses online.

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How Does a CMDB Works? 

In a Configuration Management DB, information and relationships are stored in a repository (a database). The data contained in a Configuration Management Database software is what makes it unique and valuable. In the physical IT environment, configuration items are accompanied by attributes, and their relationships describe the connective tissue between them. In many cases, CMDB templates are part of more extensive IT Service Management (ITSM) platforms or suites of capabilities that include tools for importing and discovering data into the CMDB change management and tools for consuming data from the CMDB (such as ticketing tools, change management systems, and reporting systems).

Configuration Management Database allows people to access and store information about IT assets, configuration items, and other IT-related items in a familiar place. CMDBs provide an accurate and complete picture of the IT environment to CMDB managers because this data typically comes from multiple sources. The free CMDB software is generally populated with configuration items identified through discovery and data import tools. Some organizations perform manual inventories and audits as part of their CMDB data updates. As soon as the free CMDB software has loaded data from the different sources (or has been updated as things change), tools and processes that need to access the data can do so in a unified and consistent manner.

Due to the volume of data and the format in which it is stored, people rarely have direct access to configuration data from the CMDB system. Lots of rows and columns are hard to interpret. ITSM tools and reporting capabilities play a critical role in this process. By sorting, filtering, and presenting data to users, these tools match the information in the CMDB to operational or business problems.

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The History of CMDB

• In the 1980s, the CMDB concept was introduced as part of the UK government's IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), a best practice framework for managing and controlling IT services.
• At the end of the 1990s, asset management became mainstream, and IT teams used asset management tools to keep track of their hardware and software assets. There was no such thing as virtualization back then.
• All of these configuration management developments and trends slowly entered the early 2000s. Initially, teams monitored critical business services using a three-tier stack, a database on an application and a web server. When one component failed, the whole system was down.
• The ITIL CMDB finally arrived in the mid-2000s. All these previous phases are combined with change control in a valid configuration database. CMDBs effectively ask: What are the relationships between these assets and these other assets, and these virtual and physical applications? In what ways are they related and interconnected? What kind of service do they provide to the business? The idea of looking at infrastructure through this lens started to gain steam in 2002, but it wasn't hot until about 2004-2006.
• Since 2018, CMDB has been present in all technology developments. Automated, full-stack application and infrastructure dependency mapping is now a reality thanks to the recent maturation of machine learning and Artificial Intelligence for IT Operations (AIOps).

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) describes a set of processes for managing service assets and configurations that maintain information about Configuration Items (CIs) and the components of IT services. As part of ITIL service configuration management and assets, information is managed not only in the form of lists of items but also in the form of relationships between those items. Configuration Management Systems (CMS) are depicted in ITIL as logical data models that may range many physical CMDBs to support asset and configuration management.

CMDB benefits will play an increasingly important role in helping IT employees understand the production environment and make real-time decisions about production problems and changes as companies embrace new processes such as Agile and DevOps. Companies must integrate multiple external data resources into the CMDB as cloud infrastructure and SaaS usage expand to maintain a holistic view of hybrid IT environments. In support of digital transformation initiatives and business processes, many companies are now exploring new ways to manage data assets within the context of the CMDB.

The CMDB integration will likely have a much broader role in the future in IT operations and business operations (in a digitally transformed company). As your business grows and the business environment changes, you will need a CMDB solution to support your needs and evolve with your company.

Conclusion

To enable effective asset management processes, CMDB best practices are essential tools. Organizations use CMDB software to keep track of their IT assets comprehensively and accurately. By doing so, an organization can manage its assets in a portfolio instead of driving them one at a time. With KnowledgeHut ITSM Courses online, one can understand Configuration Management Databases and CMDB applications and uses in service management.