By Dennis Drogseth

Understanding the importance of a configuration management database (CMDB) may be the single most important thing you do in the coming year. CIOs should view an investment in CMDB as a phased requirement that may evolve over many years. CIOs should not sit on their hands and wait for someone to come up with the perfect CMDB out of the box. The CMDBs isn’t a “thing.” Rather, it’s a system of capabilities—a landscape, not a tree, if you will. From a technology perspective, the CMDB incorporates multiple functions—including discovery, workflow, identity management and access control, data integration and reconciliation, and powerful capabilities for visualization—all spread across multivendor environments. From a more total perspective, the CMDB is a new way of identifying owners and trusted sources to support management tasks that can radically transform your organization for the better. But only if you do it right.

Unfortunately, CMDB is badly named. It’s not about configuration management, strictly speaking, nor is it necessarily a database. Instead, the CMDB represents a new way of working, thinking, planning, organizing and integrating management technologies in support of superior process objectives.

To fully appreciate the power of the CMDB, it helps to understand the IT Infrastructure Library, better known as ITIL ® . As you may know, ITIL is a best-practices framework that has taken root worldwide as a way to help IT organizations improve their business alignment and operational efficiency. The configuration management database (CMDB) of ITIL is a trusted resource for virtually all management disciplines. The CMDB provides a consistent, dynamic view of critical infrastructure, services, and operational and business components. In the view of ITIL, the CMDB holds the relationships between all system components, including incidents, problems, known errors, changes and releases.

From an architectural perspective, the value of the CMDB becomes strikingly similar to the requirements some industry vendors have already been working toward — namely, a design point in which data gathered by any management application is made accessible, based on policy, to any other management application across all products supplied by different vendors. It’s a Nirvana like state of data integration and reconciliation.

This vision suggests some striking reasons for the rising interest in CMDBs. While ITIL views the CMDB as an enabler for IT governance and process efficiencies, most IT adopters are prioritizing CMDBs as a way to integrate heterogeneous management investments. In fact, data integration is the No. 1 reason for current CMDB adoption, according to Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) research (see chart below). In this context, CMDB is viewed as an answer to the age-old question: How do I optimize, integrate and reconcile the hodgepodge of management tools my organization has acquired over the years?

This further suggests that the CMDB has two parents: ITIL, with its focus on process; and data integration, with its focus on effectively reconciling multiple management investments. Only in the light of these two parents can the rise of CMDB adoption be understood.

There will no doubt be a lot of disaffection and frustration with CMDBs. The CMDB is no silver bullet. But unlike other solutions of the past, CMDBs will be different. Here are some reasons why:

• Several technology advances should help CMDB systems spread and succeed. These include discovery and application dependency mapping, analytics, workflow, access control and identity management— as well as advances in data integration and reconciliation.
• CMDBs are all about multibrand integration. Moreover, they actually deliver value, unlike earlier frameworks that were more akin to raw timber for a “build-it-yourself” house.
• Too much is already at stake for CMDBs to fail. Major platform vendors know they can’t duck and cover. They also realize that brand loyalty will reside with the next-generation platform that provides an intelligent way to integrate and reconcile multibrand investments.
• The requirements for best practices and IT governance, compliance and effective security controls will continue to overwhelm the inevitable grumbling that CMDB adoptions will cause. Both within IT and the larger computer industry, old habits of mind are gradually changing.

ITIL ® is a Registered Trademark of the UK Office of Government Commerce.

Dennis Drogseth is a vice president with Enterprise Management Associates.