Foundation of Intelligent IT Operations: CMDB and Service Maps

The scale of enterprise IT environments are growing rapidly and computing resources are deployed in abundance. Consequently, management of IT operations gets increasingly complex. Service Maps and the CMDB (Configuration Management Database) are key tools to enable an organization to intelligently manage the complexity of dependencies and relationships between components. Theoretically, this sounds reasonable and easily achievable, especially since the concept of a CMDB was introduced in ITIL v2 more than a decade ago and the assumption is that almost all organizations that have adopted ITIL would have a CMDB and be delivering on its intended objectives. The reality is far removed from theory though.

Designing, implementing and maintaining a sensible CMDB that is fit for purpose and does not end up being a project set up for failure requires more than just theoretical knowledge. Additionally, with the rapid adoption of cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT) and other disruptive technologies in an increasingly complex multi supplier environment with implementations of "Service Integration and Management (SIAM)", the old school vision of the CMDB needs to be designed with a renewed perspective to keep it relevant to our IT environments today.

This book tries to educate IT generalists with the basics of a CMDB and service maps without the need for understanding technology or any specialist tools, while trying to guide IT service management professionals to build an intelligent information system that produces real benefits to support the management of IT services by having a reliable and enriched source of information, that helps in making better, more informed decisions.