Customer Reviews

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

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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...

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.

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

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.

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.

I manage technology operations for a large financial institution in the states, and I think that The CMDB Imperative: How to Realize the Dream and Avoid the Nightmares is a very good primer to implementing a Configuration Management System.

We're looking to implement a new CMS in 2012, and I was hoping to find a good resource to help identify the pitfalls of initial implementation, as well as guidance for future successes. I feel this book does that very well.

Not only is it broad in scope and covers a lot of ground, but it gets into specific technical challenges and is very deep. Clearly, this will not help you implement a specific CMS system - it doesn't get much into brands or software tools, but rather provides a good overall understanding of what's to come.

It's like "What to Expect when You're Expecting", except the end result is a CMS/CMDB, rather than a newborn human. :)

Great book for what I needed.

As a Configuration Manager I find it very hard to find books that explain clearly the benefits of CMDB such as business impact. There still seems to be a large number of organisations that see the CMDB as an Asset Management database.

Glenn and Carlos explain very simply but in great detail the benefits of CMDB and what they can do to help a business when set up correctly. It is a breath of fresh air to hear people talking about different methods of building a CMDB and not just trying to do a big bang approach which in my opinion is destined to fail.

As a Configuration Manger I found myself turning to this book as a religious person would to a bible, as Configuration Managers tend to be very lonely people in an organisation and must find support of their methods from outside their organisation as so many organisations cannot understand the complexity of a properly working large CMDB.

This book also suits people who have heard the term CMDB or been involved in other areas of ITIL as it really does explain everything that you need to know. Glenn and Carlos have written this from a practitioner point of view and not from a theory point of view.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

CMDB has been a really hard concept to understand & implement right, now with the ITILv3 approach of a CMS would be even harder, this book is a MUST to get an insight of the concepts with a how to define its strategy and how to make it come true with continual improvements...very complete on the approach & a simple way to present it. Very good for practitioners & for lectures at IT masters programs :-)

An excellent practical guide to how to implement and use a CMDB in the real world. An great companion to the ITIL guidance, both V2 and V3, and an easy to read book that breaks down complex topics and translates these topics into an understandable framework. For IT Service Management professionals, an excellent primer on the elements of a successful CMDB system.