Configuration Management Database
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configuration management Configuration management (CM) is a process for establishing and maintaining consistency of a product's performance, functional, and physical attributes with its requirements, design, and operational information throughout its life. The CM proc ...
database (CMDB) is an
ITIL The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a set of detailed practices for IT activities such as IT service management (ITSM) and IT asset management (ITAM) that focus on aligning IT services with the needs of business. ITIL de ...
term for a
database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...
used by an organization to store information about hardware and software assets (commonly referred to as
configuration item The term configuration item (CI) refers to the fundamental structural unit of a configuration management system. Examples of CIs include individual Computer hardware, hardware or software components. The configuration-management system oversees the ...
s). It is useful to break down configuration items into logical layers. This database acts as a
data warehouse In computing, a data warehouse (DW or DWH), also known as an enterprise data warehouse (EDW), is a system used for Business reporting, reporting and data analysis and is considered a core component of business intelligence. DWs are central Repos ...
for the organization and also stores information regarding the relationships among its assets. The CMDB provides a means of understanding the organization's critical assets and their relationships, such as
information system An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems are composed by four components: task, people ...
s, upstream sources or dependencies of assets, and the downstream targets of assets.


Purpose and benefits

The CMDB is a fundamental component of
ITIL The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a set of detailed practices for IT activities such as IT service management (ITSM) and IT asset management (ITAM) that focus on aligning IT services with the needs of business. ITIL de ...
framework's
Configuration Management Configuration management (CM) is a process for establishing and maintaining consistency of a product's performance, functional, and physical attributes with its requirements, design, and operational information throughout its life. The CM proc ...
process. CMDBs are used to keep track of the state of assets such as products, systems, software, facilities, people as they exist at specific points in time, and the relationship between all assets. A CMDB helps an organization understand the relationship between the components of a system and to track their configurations. The maintenance of this information allows for certain actions, such as the reconstruction of assets, to occur at any point in time. CMDBs can also be used for things like impact analysis, root cause analysis, or
change management Change management (sometimes abbreviated as CM) is a collective term for all approaches to prepare, support, and help individuals, teams, and organizations in making organizational change. It includes methods that redirect or redefine the use of ...
. CMDB implementations often involve federation – the inclusion of data into the CMDB from other sources – such as asset management, in such a way that the source of the data retains control of the data. Federation is usually distinguished from ETL (extract, transform, load) solutions in which data is copied into the CMDB. CMDBs can be used for many things, including but not limited to: business intelligence, software and hardware builds, inventory, impact analysis for change management, and
incident management An incident is an event that could lead to loss of, or disruption to, an organization's operations, services or functions. Incident management (IcM) is a term describing the activities of an organization to identify, analyze, and correct hazards ...
. In the context of
ITIL The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a set of detailed practices for IT activities such as IT service management (ITSM) and IT asset management (ITAM) that focus on aligning IT services with the needs of business. ITIL de ...
, the use of CMDBs is as part of infrastructure operations and support. The CMDB represents the authorized configuration of the significant components of the IT environment.


Contents

The CMDB contains and records data that are also called configuration items (CI). It also provides details about the important attributes of CIs and the relationships between them.


CI attributes and data

Attributes captured by a CMDB vary based on CI category, and can number up to the hundreds. Some examples include: * CI
Unique Identifier A unique identifier (UID) is an identifier that is guaranteed to be unique among all identifiers used for those objects and for a specific purpose. The concept was formalized early in the development of computer science and information systems. ...
or Identification Code * CI Name or Label (often, both long names and
short name A nickname is a substitute for the proper name of a familiar person, place or thing. Commonly used to express affection, a form of endearment, and sometimes amusement, it can also be used to express defamation of character. As a concept, it is ...
s) * CI Abbreviations or Acronyms * CI Description * CI Ownership (organizations and people) * CI Importance Because attributes are defined by metadata, CMDBs also contain metadata, and thus the concept overlaps with that of a
metadata Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...
repository, which is also used to more effectively run IT organizations. Configuration management addresses how the data is to be kept up to date. This has historically been a weakness of metadata repositories.


Relationships between CIs

At a minimum, relationships are often composed of a Source CI that is related to a Target CI. In the case of more advanced relationships, such as semantic relationships, it is desirable to have a descriptor between the Source CI and Target CI that helps provide context. For example, "database" is related as a "Component" of "Application Y". The descriptor is also known as a Predicate.


Configuration item types

A configuration item type (or CI type) is the
data type In computer science and computer programming, a data type (or simply type) is a set of possible values and a set of allowed operations on it. A data type tells the compiler or interpreter how the programmer intends to use the data. Most progra ...
of the element or
configuration item The term configuration item (CI) refers to the fundamental structural unit of a configuration management system. Examples of CIs include individual Computer hardware, hardware or software components. The configuration-management system oversees the ...
an enterprise wishes to store within the CMDB. At a minimum, all software, hardware, network, and storage CI types are stored and tracked in a CMDB. As enterprises mature, they start to track business CI types in their CMDB, such as people, markets, products, and 3rd party entities such as vendors and partners. This allows the relationships between CIs to become more meaningful and the CMDB to become a stronger source for knowledge management. CI types are: * Hardware *
Software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...
* Communications/Networks * Location * Documentation * People (staff and contractors) A key success factor in implementing a CMDB is the ability to automatically discover information about the CIs (auto-discovery) and track changes as they happen.


Schematic representations

CMDB schematic structures, also known as
database schema The database schema is the structure of a database described in a formal language supported by the database management system (DBMS). The term "schema" refers to the organization of data as a blueprint of how the database is constructed (divide ...
s, take on multiple forms. Two of the most common forms are those of a
relational data model The relational model (RM) is an approach to managing data using a structure and language consistent with first-order predicate logic, first described in 1969 by English computer scientist Edgar F. Codd, where all data is represented in terms of tu ...
and a
semantic data model Semantic data model (SDM) is a high-level semantics-based database description and structuring formalism (database model) for databases. This database model is designed to capture more of the meaning of an application environment than is possibl ...
. Relational data models are based on first-order predicate logic and all data is represented in terms of tuples that are grouped into relations. In the relational model, related records are linked together with a "key", where the key is unique to an entry's data type definition. Such relational models provide declarative methods for specifying data and queries. In other words, users directly state what information the database contains and what information they want from it, and let the database system take care of describing data structures for storing the data and retrieval procedures for answering queries.
Semantic data model Semantic data model (SDM) is a high-level semantics-based database description and structuring formalism (database model) for databases. This database model is designed to capture more of the meaning of an application environment than is possibl ...
s typically rely on the
resource description framework The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard originally designed as a data model for metadata. It has come to be used as a general method for description and exchange of graph data. RDF provides a variety of ...
that maps the relation between a number of things through the use of relationship descriptors, giving context to how things are related to each other.


Challenges

There are three specific core challenges to creating and maintaining a Configuration Management Database: * Relevance: Collecting data throughout each record's or CI's life cycle is necessary. This means putting in processes and tools to collect the most recent changes to data as they occur. * Maintenance: Companies face constant change. Data about CIs and the relationships between them are constantly changing. This maintenance is a significant undertaking that is often not planned for or expected. Organisations often find this the greatest challenge. * Usability: Most CMDBs are just databases. This means they have no traits, features, or benefits of more complex applications. They lack tools to view data via complex visualizations or tools for advanced discovery. This means that most companies need to invest in an application layer that adds such constructs to their CMDB, which adds a layer of complexity and cost that most companies do not plan for or expect. However, implementing features that ensure the database is up to date or allow it to interact with systems to run commands, apply updates, or deploy new applications extends the functionality and usefulness of the CMDB. Because of the above reasons, companies usually choose to purchase their CMDBs, rather than designing, building, delivering, and supporting them themselves.


See also

*
DMTF Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) is a 501(c)(6) nonprofit industry standards organization that creates open manageability standards spanning diverse emerging and traditional IT infrastructures including cloud, virtualization, network, s ...
(CMDBf{{Cite web, title=CMDBf {{! DMTF, url=https://www.dmtf.org/standards/cmdbf, access-date=2021-04-21, website=www.dmtf.org) *
ITIL The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a set of detailed practices for IT activities such as IT service management (ITSM) and IT asset management (ITAM) that focus on aligning IT services with the needs of business. ITIL de ...


References


External links


Collins: Infrastructure management for engineers

Guide to CMDB solution design
Information technology management ITIL