The CMDB Imperative: How to Realize the Dream and Avoid the Nightmares [Paperback]

Glenn O'Donnell (Author), Carlos Casanova (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2009 | ISBN-10: 0137008376 | ISBN-13: 978-0137008377 | Edition: 1

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 influential actions an IT organization can take to improve service delivery and bridge the gap between technology and the business. With a well-designed CMDB in place, companies are better positioned to manage and optimize IT infrastructure, applications, and services; automate more IT management tasks; and restrain burgeoning costs. Now, there’s an objective, vendor-independent guide to making a CMDB work in your organization. The CMDB Imperative presents a start-to-finish implementation methodology that works and describes how the CMDB is shifting to the superior Configuration Management System (CMS).

 

Expert CMDB industry analyst Glenn O’Donnell and leading-edge architect and practitioner Carlos Casanova first review the drivers behind a 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. They’ll guide you through planning, implementation, transitioning into production, day-to-day operation and maintenance, and much more. Coverage includes

 

• Defining the tasks and activities associated with configuration management
• Understanding the CMDB’s role in ITIL and the relationship between CMDBs and ITIL v3’s CMS
• Building software models that accurately represent each entity in your IT environment
• Ensuring information accuracy via change management and automated discovery
• Understanding the state of the CMDB market and selling the 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 established and emerging standards
• Previewing the future of the CMDB/CMS and how it will be impacted by key trends such as virtualization, SOA, mobility, convergence, and “flexi-sourcing”

 

Foreword     xi

Prologue     xiii

 

Chapter 1: The Need for Process Discipline     1

Chapter 2: What Is a CMDB?     25

Chapter 3: Planning for the CMS     57

Chapter 4: The Federated CMS Architecture     91

Chapter 5: CMS Deployment Strategy     133

Chapter 6: Integration—There’s No Way Around It!     177

Chapter 7: The Future of the CMS     197

Chapter 8: Continual Improvement for the CMS     241

Chapter 9: Leveraging the CMS     265

Chapter 10: Enjoy the Fruits of Success     297

 

Glossary     313

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Glenn O’Donnell is a Senior Analyst with Forrester Research, a top technology industry research and advisory firm. He is a trusted adviser to IT organizations worldwide, serving Infrastructure and Operations professionals. He is the Forrester analyst covering CMDB, configuration and change management, and IT automation and is a major contributor to Forrester’s growing ITIL and ITSM coverage. He was previously a Principal Product Marketing Manager with EMC’s Resource Management Software Group, responsible for marketing and strategy development for the EMC application-oriented software offerings and EMC’s overall IT service management strategy. Prior to EMC, he was a Program Director at META Group, also as a top IT Operations analyst. A prolific speaker and author, Mr. O’Donnell is a world-renowned authority on management systems, IT Service Management, IT Operations, and automation technologies and holds an ITIL certification. Since 1980, he has proven to be an innovator and thought leader in various technology development, operations, and architecture roles at Western Electric, Bell Labs,AT&T, and Lucent Technologies.

 

Carlos Casanova is the President and Founder of K2 Solutions Group, Inc. K2 Solutions Group, Inc., offers professional services, training, and technology products that support the delivery of CMDB/CMS, and ITIL initiatives. Prior to this, he was a Sr. Enterprise Architect with MetLife, Inc., where he was the visionary and manager for the first CMDB deployment and subsequently helped design its second-generation, enterprise-wide ITSM platform. He has been a speaker at major ITIL conferences on Configuration Management and CMDB, has several ITIL certifications, and is well known and respected by ITIL leaders. Mr. Casanova’s career spans electronic hardware design, military contracting, software architecture, management consulting, business process modeling, account management, entrepreneurial startups, and technology architectures. In addition, his professional experience in IT Risk Management, Business Continuity, and IT Security has provided him with a broad foundation and perspective that enables him to maintain a constant client/end-user focus with integrity and objective reasoning at the core of all his designs.

 

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Prologue

This discussion comes from many years of experience in this field, watching companies start and stop their initiatives for a variety of reasons, most of which had some merit but almost all of which were simply postponing the inevitable. Some have survived punitive outsourcing by fighting against the tide of adoption. How much longer they can prevail depends upon their continued vigilance. We hope this book helps all companies succeed by giving them a guide to this vigilance.

As authors of this book, we began to form our vision together, discussing the concepts of federation, leveraging of the DMTF CIM models and usage patterns in 2003 and 2004. We won’t reveal who first suggested it, but one day during one of our usual exchanges, we decided to write this book. We both heard the same questions and concerns about the CMDB and always found ourselves giving the same responses. It was clear that a comprehensive and authoritative guide was needed and that no books existed to offer the pragmatic view. The timing of ITIL v3 and the CMDB Federation Working Group appearing on the scene told us this was the right time to do it. In hindsight, we now think we were right even more than we did then. We hope you agree.

We are excited that aspects of our vision are starting to become a reality but are also very disappointed that more companies didn’t move faster to address systemic foundational problems within their organizations. We have seen, and in some cases been directly impacted by, the failure of companies to address some of these systemic issues. Our mission is to help prevent such nightmares. The CMDB (more accurately, the CMS) holds great promise as one of the greatest forces toward the dream of disciplined IT service management. We trust The CMDB Imperative will help you to realize this dream and avoid the nightmares.

© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1 edition (March 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0137008376
• ISBN-13: 978-0137008377
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #899,369 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Strategy, May 8, 2009

By 

Mark A. Lucas "SingleSpeeder" (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The CMDB Imperative: How to Realize the Dream and Avoid the Nightmares (Paperback)

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...

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Font of CMDB Knowledge, December 2, 2009

By 

Malcolm Fry (Colne Engaine, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The CMDB Imperative: How to Realize the Dream and Avoid the Nightmares (Paperback)

I was the Chief writer and Architect for a book called 'Step-by-Step Guide to Building a CMDB' so it may seem strange that I should write a review for this book but this book is so well written and informative I felt I had to add my comments.

First of all it tells a story of a CMDB journey going from the Birth of a CMDB through to Leveraging your CMDB and stops at all of the correct stations along the way. Secondly I am a visual person and this book does have some great graphics. Thirdly it is a great companion to ITIL V3 by taking the theory extolled in V3 to a practical level allowing the reader to get many important and valuable lessons that will smooth CMDB implementation. Finally I especially enjoyed the chapter on Continual Service Improvement because it clearly explains why implementing a CMDB is not enough you must continually improve your CMDB and the processes that support it.

If you are an ITIL practioner whether whether you have implemented a CMD or not 'The CMDB Imperative' is essential reading.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy this book!!, October 9, 2009

By 

Donald F. Neizer II "dneizer" - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The CMDB Imperative: How to Realize the Dream and Avoid the Nightmares (Paperback)

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