How to Keep the Configuration Management Database Healthy?
Only 15% of the Configuration Management Database (CMDB) implementations done in the world are successful.
What is the reason for the CMDB implementation to go wrong?
Let’s learn about the common CMDB issues and how we can address them to make CMDB healthy and trustworthy.
Most organizations face challenges while implementing CMDB. CMDB is an ITIL database that is used for storing information about the hardware and the software assets of an organization (commonly known as configuration items (CI)).
A CI is a data type of the hardware and software assets that an enterprise stores in CMDB. The IT team of an organization expresses everything in terms of CI. Incidents are considered degraded CIs, problems are described in terms of which CI is the root cause and which one is impacted, and changes are described in terms of which CIs are changing or affected or at risk due to a specific change. The CI’s quality is essential in effective communication of the current state of a CMDB element.
Even though you layout plans and use advanced technologies, data quality issues may arise in CMDB. Some of the common issues are:
How to Address the CMDB Issues?
Many processes and individuals in an organization are dependent on the quality and accuracy of CMDB. To ensure that your CMDB is healthy and trustworthy, you can use the following three ways to address the underlying issues:
1. Build trust in your configuration management team and data
To build trust in your team and data, you must:
a. Acknowledge that your processes and artifacts are flawed and you need to fix them
b. Create a document of the steps that your team should perform to fix the CMDB data
c. Share honest and concise communication with your organization
d. Establish procedures for identifying issues and how these will be addressed
e. Establish and communicate a quality control plan
f. Involve people from other teams in the quality control process
2. Measure the effectiveness and benefits of CMDB
The configuration management team must collect the following metrics to measure the effectiveness and benefits of CMDB:
a. No. of fulfilled configuration management requests
b. No. of CMDB defects identified and fixed
c. No. of CMDB’s missing key attributes
d. No. of incidents and changes placed on CIs
e. No. of reports designed and run
f. Size of the CMDB
g. List of use cases for which CMDB is utilized
3. Leverage the CMDB Health dashboard
The best way to monitor the CMDB’s health is with the help of a dashboard. Using CMDB’s health dashboard, you can see whether the KPIs—Completeness, Compliance, and Correctness—are met or not.
This doesn’t end here. You must build your team and align your CIs, choose appropriate CI classes for your use cases, establish the best communication processes, and automate the information flows to keep your CMDBs healthy.
The successful implementation of CMDB will give tangible and impactful results for your organization.