Table of contents
A Configuration Management Database (CMDB) contains information about the components, relationships and interdependencies of the IT infrastructure in an organization.
This article addresses how you can create and maintain a reliable CMDB that works for you.
The CMDB can be used to manage changes to the IT environment, including new equipment and software updates. It also enables IT to identify gaps in its service delivery capabilities if there are no records or inaccurate records in its CMDB.
What is the purpose of a CMDB?
A CMDB is a database that stores information about all the hardware, software, and other assets in your organization. It is used to track the configuration and inventory of your IT assets. This includes things like which version of an application is installed on which server, what model printer someone owns, or what operating system you’re running on your desktops.
CMDBs are basically one-stop shops for any type of asset-related question you might have: “where do I find training videos?” “Who owns this piece of equipment?” “What service pack does this network device need?” By storing all this information in one place (the CMDB), it helps teams across an organization get answers faster when they need them most.
Why is a CMDB important?
A CMDB is a key component of IT service management. It helps you understand the relationships between your IT systems, so that you can more effectively track and manage them.
With a CMDB, you’ll know what components belong together as a system and which components are standalone assets. You’ll also be able to see how these assets are related to business processes, meaning that you won’t just have an inventory of hardware—you’ll have an understanding of how it’s connected with other parts of the organization.
To get this valuable insight into your technology landscape and its relationship with your business departments, however, there needs to be some kind of common language between all parties involved in creating or maintaining it: which means having something like COBIT (Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies) or ISO/IEC 20000-1 as an agreed upon foundation for discussing what’s going on with these systems at every level possible within an organization
What can be stored in a CMDB?
The data stored in a CMDB consists of the following:
- Asset data, including information about software and hardware
- Relationship data, including information on how assets are connected to each other. For example, if a server is running an application that uses an application server as its database back end, then this relationship must be tracked.
- Configuration management data that describes how assets are configured (for example, whether they’re installed with specific patches or not).
How to create a CMDB
The first step in creating a CMDB is to create an inventory. This list will include all the components in your IT environment, and all the relationships between them. After creating this inventory, you need to map out any attributes (information about) each component and its relationships with other components and attributes. This process may take some time, but once completed it will make your CMDB much more useful as it allows users to get more specific information from their reports and queries when they want them.
You can do all of this manually, or use an automated tool like Virima CMDB to do it for you. Virima CMDB leverages automated discovery to populate and maintain accurate data while dashboards and ViVID Services Maps provide insightful CMDB visualizations of asset relationships, service dependencies, and availability status. With this kind of automation in place, you can spend less time worrying about the quality of your data so you can focus on other things like growing your business.
A well-maintained and integrated CMDB is critical to effective IT service management.
You need a CMDB. That much is clear, but what’s not? How do you create one? How do you maintain it? What are the benefits of using a CMDB and what challenges can come up along the way?
If you’ve ever tried to build a CMDB, you know that it’s a hassle. Manually entering new assets and all those configuration details, every time changes are made to the assets? It’s a pain.
You need a reliable CMDB solution that will get your IT assets cataloged automatically—and Virima can do that for you. With powerful network-based discovery that automates the process of finding all your IT assets and cataloging their configurations, you can finally build a CMDB you can trust.
CMDB is critical—Create one that you can rely on
A CMDB is a valuable tool for any IT department, but it isn’t something you can just throw together. To be effective, your CMDB needs to be well-maintained and integrated into your team’s processes. It should also be easy to use so that the data can be added quickly and accessed whenever needed.
Virima CMDB allows you to build a reliable and comprehensive database. This is a reliable CMDB you can trust and never have to worry about your infrastructure again. It’s easy to use, easy to understand, and allows your team to focus on what matters most: your customers.
Build a reliable CMDB with Virima
With Virima, you can easily maintain an ITIL-compliant CMDB by first validating changes against the change management system before promoting them to the CMDB. Or if an ITIL CMDB isn’t your thing, you can have the discovered changes reflected immediately. Either way, you’ll have a full history of what has changed for every single device. Just think about how much simpler troubleshooting change-related incidents will be. You will also save time and cost when responding to the next compliance audit.
Virima also offers agentless discovery of IT assets and configurations via WMI, SSH, SNMP, custom probes and native integration with Virima CMDB or APIs for third-party platforms (for instance, ServiceNow, Ivanti, Azure, and others). We can integrate with cloud providers (i.e., Amazon Web Services) and APIs for native cloud integrations (i.e., Microsoft Azure). No impact on network or host performance means it won’t slow down your business!
We make it easy for you by providing the tools needed to build a CMDB that works for your organization. Your team doesn’t need to be experts in IT or databases; they just need the right tools and guidance. Schedule a demo today to find out more!
