Cracking The CMDB EnigmaHint: There is no “CMDB”

Glenn O’DonnellSenior AnalystForrester Research

February 19, 2009

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CMDB

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CMS

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Questions to be Answered

• What is the difference between CMDB and CMS?

• What’s feasible; what’s not?

• What is federation?

• What good is the CMDB?

• How will the CMS evolve?

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What IS this thing we call a CMDB?

• The source of informationfor IT decisions

• “CMDB” is a misnomer

• A critical element ofoperational discipline

• Popularized by ITIL

• Migrate to the ITILv3configuration management system (CMS)

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The Configuration Management System

• The CMS contains MANY “CMDBs”

– Management Data Repositories (MDRs)

– Linked by federation

• Accuracy is ensured by discovery &change mgmt

• Heavy use ofmetadata

• Captures all data aboutIT services and infrastructure

HR DB

Servers

Network Service Catalog

StorageVirtual

Servers

CMS

Known Errors

Incidents

Apps

DataWhse

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CMDB: What’s possible and what’s not?

• Federation is coming

• Infrastructure discovery

• Application discovery

• Attack small bites

• Multi-vendor CMDB

• CMS (but it’ll take time)

• Federation is coming

• Accuracy in “old world”

• Accuracy in “new world”

• Single-Vendor CMDB

• “One” CMDB

• “Big Bang” CMDB

Possible Difficult/Impossible

Isolated pockets of the truth are better than unified ambiguity!

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A simple federated CMDB example

Service Catalogservice Aservice Bservice C

Service MDRcustomer

service ownerapplication A

Customer MDRorganization IDcontact person

IT_customer_rep

HR DBemployee ID

nameorganization ID

Application MDRclient

networkserver

Server MDRmanufacturer

modelstorage

Client MDRmanufacturer

modeluser

Network MDRmanufacturer

modelnum_ports

Storage MDRmanufacturer

modelcapacity

100%metadata

mix ofmetadata

andlocaldata

local data

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The CMDB “Butterfly Effect”

• All decisions are based on configuration information!

• Good information= good decisions

• Bad information= bad decisions

• Decisions compound

• Delays will prove devastating PunitiveOutsourcing

Operational Excellence

Process Refinement

Status Quo

CM

S“N

udge

” Disadvantage

Delayed Start

Collapse

The very future of the organization rides on trustworthy

information!

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Discovery Yields the Truth

• CMDB population is a big problem

– Solution: discovery and change mgmt

• Complexity is beyond comprehension … and getting MUCH worse

– Verify documented systems;trust no current data

• Automated technologies discover the truth

– e.g., network, server, storage, apps, …

• Beware of blind faith, but tools discover complex environments (the truth) better than humans can

Difference

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CMDB process maturity

1

2

3

4

5

• Knowledge of IT is almost entirely in human minds• Verifying configuration is heavily manual

• Simple CMDB is assembled, but data is stale• Limited discovery is in use

• Heavy use of discovery, but data unification is weak

• Most discovery data is unified into a federated model• Early process integration is happening

• Most discovery data is unified into a federated model • Broad process integration is accelerating execution

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CMDB becomes the CMS

• Federation will grow through 2011

• Process integration becomes the focus by late 2009

• CMS technologies become infused in mgmt tools

– Vendors will focus on CMS use, not the CMS itself

• Service design, visualization and reporting will emerge as important tools/functions based on CMS

• CMS elements will be decoupled from other tools

– Modular MDR integration will be the feed

• Active adaptation will derive intelligence from the CMS and will update CMS immediately (mandatory!)

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Prepare for the new CMDB (the CMS)

• Beware CMDB misinformation

• The “new CMDB” follows a federated model

• Understand how tools will evolve and which foundation tools are available today

• Much of the CMDB will change

• Determine HOW the CMDB will be used

• Ensure a thriving future with trustworthy information

Information is not just data,it is useful data with intelligence!

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How to do CMDB right!

• Start now

• Appoint and empower a strong CMDB leader

• Leverage discovery and incumbent tools

• Expect to do some integration yourself

• Unify service-level definitions with metadata models

• Migrate thinking to align more with ITILv3

Avoid the monolith!There can be no single CMDB!

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Thank you

Glenn O’Donnell

+1 617.613.8826

godonnell@forrester.com

www.forrester.com