This is the Safari online edition of the printed book.

Implement Configuration Management Databases that Deliver Rapid ROI and Sustained Business Value

Implementing an enterprise-wide Configuration Management Database (CMDB) is one of the most powerful things an IT organization can do to improve service delivery and bridge the gap between technology and the business. With a working CMDB in place, companies are better positioned to manage and optimize IT infrastructure, automate more IT management tasks, and restrain burgeoning costs. Now, there’s an objective, vendor-independent guide to making CMDB work in your organization. The CMDB Imperative thoroughly demystifies CMDBs, and presents a start-to-finish implementation methodology that works.

Expert CMDB consultant Glenn O’Donnell and leading-edge implementer Carlos Casanova first review the drivers behind CMDB, and the technical, economic, cultural, and “political” obstacles to success. Drawing on the experiences of hundreds of organizations, they present indispensable guidance on architecting and customizing CMDB solutions to your specific environment. One step at a time, you’ll walk through planning, implementation, transitioning into production, day-to-day operation and maintenance, and much more. Along the way, the authors offer best-practice solutions for knotty issues that complicate implementation, including data ownership. Coverage includes

• Defining the tasks and activities associated with configuration management

• Understanding CMDB’s role in ITIL, and the relationship between CMDBs and Configuration Management Systems

• Building software models that accurately represent each entity in your IT environment

• Understanding the state of the CMDB market, and selling CMDB within your organization

• Creating federated CMDB architectures that successfully balance autonomy with centralized control

• Planning a deployment strategy that sets appropriate priorities and reflects a realistic view of your organization’s maturity

• Integrating systems and leveraging standards

• Previewing the future of CMDBs, and how they will be impacted by key trends such as virtualization, SOA, mobility, convergence, and “flexi-sourcing”

• Continuously improving the CMDB you’ve already deployed

Whatever your role in planning, architecting, delivering, or managing configuration management, this book will help you drive maximum business value from CMDB—now, and for years to come. 

Foreword

Prologue

Chapter 1: The Need for Process Discipline

Chapter 2: What is a CMDB?

Chapter 3: Planning for the Configuration Management System

Chapter 4: The Federated CMS Architecture

Chapter 5: CMS Deployment Strategy

Chapter 6: Integration–There’s No Way Around It!

Chapter 7: The Future of the CMS

Chapter 8: Continuous Improvement for the CMS

Chapter 9: Leveraging the CMS

Chapter 10: Enjoy the Fruits of Success

Glossary

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 4 Ratings

Good Strategy - 2009-05-08
Reviewer Rating:
I have had this book since early March 2009 and am not complete with it yet...but... what I have read is great. If you are looking for deep technical guidance on setting up a CMDB, buy another book on VSS, Serena, ClearCase, Subversion or whatever you plan on using.

However, ODonnell/Casanova's book covers configuration management at an enterprise and strategic level and how critical CM and a CMS is to support development methodolgies and support methodologies (al la.. ITIL/ITSM). It also stretches the common concept that a CMDB is for code version control and management, ODonnell/Casanova suggest that a HR system contains a partition of the CMDB for those configuration items we refer to as "employees" (perm and contract and outsourced...), and that other systems are also forms of CMDBs because they manage other assets of an enterprise that have potential to be changed in status, location, cost, or relationships.

There ARE some basic architecture guidelines in the book that cover various federation schemes and other considerations - these will be useful for a CM Manager, Chief Data Officer, VP of Data, or architect supporting the development, testing, and code & document management environments.

Again, this is a book very useful for IT management to develop their strategy for implementing a CMS or enterprise CMDB, esp for organizations with distributed locations, esp. mutli-nationals or those relying on offshore development or support.

Overall a very good book...

Great book with clear guidance - 2009-09-24
Reviewer Rating:
This book helps to address a clear need for many organizations -- improved knowledge of IT assets and how they relate to IT services. One study showed that almost 66% of CFOs and CIOs do not know the size of their core IT assets, much less all of their IT assets or the services they support. Without improving this knowledge, it is very difficult to improve service levels, maximize the ROI from these assets, or optimize the IT landscape.

This book fills a critical need for many organizations -- how to translate the guidance under ITSM best practices such as ITIL and make ITSM practices a reality. For organizations that already started down the CMDB path of ITIL V2, this book can help take the next step to develop an effective CMS under V3. For organizations just getting started, it can help you start down the path.

the need for CMDB - 2009-03-28
Reviewer Rating:
Have you, the IT manager, ever wondered what exactly you manage? Not so much the people, but the hardware and software. The book explains that you need a Configuration Management Database, and what it does or should do. At the simplest level of implementation, it is a database of an inventory of hardware. Nowadays, this usually means machines on a network. Here, things are pretty mature. There are software packages called network monitors that use Simple Network Management Protocol to query every object on the network supporting the protocol. From this automated discovery, you can easily get a list of active network devices and some information about each.

But the book shows how a CMDB is much more. Given the hardware, what software is installed or, and this is often more pertinent, what is currently running? To some limited extent, a standard network monitor can poll the various ports on each machine and make an inventory of which are active, along with a guess as to what is listening of those ports. But the guess only works with commonly used ports. In general, a CMDB has application discovery tools that you need to give access to the servers. Here the problem is much harder than for network devices, because there is no analog of SNMP for a general application to conform to. So the discovery tool might scan the server's disk to see what is installed, and to look up the process table for what is active.

All this is for automated discovery. As the book points out, this is far easier and more robust than manual discovery.

The book also touches upon the increasing use of SOA applications. The interrelated nature of these is another level of complexity beyond what more discovery tools currently handle. Yet if SOA really takes off, you need an awareness of the interdependencies between your SOA applications.

An ongoing process of CMDB improvement. The book makes you aware of the need for CMDB as well as its current limitations.

Buy this book!! - 2009-10-09
Reviewer Rating:
I have now read the first four chapters and it is all about where I am as a Configuration Manager. The authors are not advocating a CMDB but rather its more correct replacement, the Management Data Repositories (MDRs) and the more capable Configuration Management System (CMS).

This book should help turn my ITIL V2 CMDB problems into a wealth of MDR and CMS opportunities. While I may not be able to convince upper management to adopt ITIL V3, this book has given me a great idea to propose MDRs and CMS in an ITIL V2.5 manner until we are ready to go full ITIL V3.

I sincerely thank the authors for this book since I have been living the CMDB nightmare for 3 years. We've done somethings right but now we can do better since the authors have given us a laid out road map versus all the online, high-level hype and white paper arguments that never really helped a Configuration Manager with how to really be successful.

So, if you're looking for a return on your investment, the cost of this book, and some piece of mind then BUY this book.

Another great benefit, the book is written well, is interesting, and very easy to read.

Don Neizer

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