If you run a business, you likely have a lot of computers and software. You also likely have a lot of data about those computers and software. What happens when your infrastructure grows so large that it becomes difficult to manage? You might be worried about security vulnerabilities, compliance risks, or even an unorganized mess of unwieldy data. The good news is that there are solutions out there for this problem. Here, we will explore how Configuration Management can help your business keep track of its infrastructure in order to improve its efficiency and effectiveness overall.
Why Configuration Management?
Configuration management is a way to manage your infrastructure. It helps you to manage changes, IT assets and applications, as well as business processes.
Configuration Management consists of two main components:
- Change management (CM) – This process ensures that all changes to systems are managed and approved by designated change authorities before they take effect
- Asset management (AM) – This refers to the collection of all hardware and software assets within an organization. It also includes managing licenses for these assets
On the surface, it’s easy to think that simply keeping track of changes made to an environment is about as simple as it gets. But the truth is that there’s so much more at stake than just making sure that a change has been made correctly. If you aren’t careful, it’s easy for even your best-designed systems to start falling apart—and when they do, you’ll be left wondering what happened.
The solution? The ability to keep track of and report on activities allows system managers and auditors to collect an overall view of the system and any modifications done to it.
Read: How to determine your CMDB’s accuracy?
What is a CMDB?
A CMDB is a database that stores information about the configuration, version and relationships of your IT assets. It’s a key component of any IT management strategy and is used to manage change, provide visibility into current and past configurations and help with compliance.
An asset in this context is anything you own or use that could be managed by Configuration Management: hardware, software, Virtual Machines (VM), documents, people, and so on.
The benefits of a CMDB
A Configuration Management Database (CMDB) is a central repository of information about the IT infrastructure and systems that are used to run your business. A CMDB will allow you to:
- Reduce time to market by ensuring that teams have access to accurate, up-to-date information about their applications and services.
- Reduce costs by ensuring that all tools and services are used efficiently, as well as enabling more efficient use of shared resources such as networks or databases.
- Increase customer satisfaction by providing better support through better understanding of how customers use their systems at different times. This in turn leads directly back into increased revenue because happy customers spend more money.
- Keep track of your infrastructure and make the most of it by enabling planning, controlling and reporting on changes to your IT assets
- Make the most of your infrastructure by avoiding outages and security breaches, saving money in maintenance costs, etc.
How does Configuration Management improve your business?
Configuration Management (CM) is a mission-critical tool for enterprise IT. It ensures the consistency of data, applications and infrastructure across physical, virtual and cloud environments. In a highly dynamic environment, Configuration Management tools are essential to keep track of all changes in the infrastructure landscape.
The area of responsibility for the CM process is expanding. Computing systems can be varied or uniform. Single data centers are now commonly supplemented by auxiliary data centers, private cloud implementations and public cloud frameworks. Tools must be able to work with a range of different environments.
In addition to standardization and centralization, there is an increasing focus on automation and orchestration within the CM process. Automation helps to ensure that new systems follow existing standards and policies from day one so that they can easily be included in existing processes. Orchestration allows for efficient management of complex environments without manual intervention.
Do you need a CMDB in the cloud? Find out
How are CMDBs used in production environments today and in the future?
As you know, a CMDB is the foundation for managing and reporting on your IT environment. It helps you make sense of all your assets, including people, applications and infrastructure.
But how are CMDBs being used in production environments today? And what changes might we see in the future?
A CMDB can help you keep track of your infrastructure and make the most of it.
A Configuration Management Database (CMDB) is an online repository that stores information about all your IT assets, including hardware, software and documentation. It gives you a single source of truth for all things relating to your company’s IT environment–from computers to networks to applications–and makes it easier for everyone involved in managing the infrastructure to access this information when they need it.
A good CMDB helps you manage both hardware and software assets by allowing users across different departments or teams at different levels within an organization access their own subset of data without compromising security measures like authentication or encryption protocols.
The world of software-defined environments is a brave new one. As technology evolves in the data center, with new systems such as software-defined storage, networking, SDDC, and Infrastructure as Code, the configuration management tools and practices of tomorrow must be able to identify and interact with the constantly changing, virtual software landscapes.
In this new world, applications and infrastructure are no longer bound to a specific hardware configuration. Instead, they can be deployed on demand in a virtualized environment. This means that not only does the application need to be provisioned with the needed resources and services, but also that it needs to be monitored for performance and availability.
Tame the chaos with Virima CMDB
The bottom line is that a CMDB can help you keep track of your infrastructure and make the most of it. You will be able to see all of your assets in one place, understand their relationships with each other, and find out what needs to be done next. As we have seen from examples across industries and sectors, Configuration Management has become an essential part of any IT project because it helps ensure that everything works together smoothly from start until finish.
The Virima CMDB is the central repository of all of your CI data. It stores and processes Discovery asset, configuration and relationship data, as well as a complete hardware and software inventory. The CMDB can be used to maintain a history of changes to CIs, which can then be mapped out using ViVID Service Mapping.
With Change Management you can identify risk, impact and stakeholders. You can use this information to create a plan for managing your change efforts.
To help your organization manage vulnerabilities, Virima CMDB can provide a complete picture of the security posture of your assets. You can use this information to determine the root cause and full impact of service disruptions, prioritize vulnerability remediation efforts based on criticality of assets, and more.
Want to know more about Virima CMDB? Request a demo today!
