Executive Summary (This is a document excerpt)

The configuration management database (CMDB) is a key ingredient of service management — whether considered in its process incarnation (IT Infrastructure Library, ITIL) or in its technology and product implementation in business service management (BSM). It is also a source of confusion: What exactly is a CMDB? What should and must be in it? How is it used, and, more importantly, how should it be implemented? These questions are present in all IT organizations today. We find that the CMDB is a work in progress and that the implementations currently available, while making considerable progress toward service management, are only a partial response to customer needs. If the CMDB is the foundation of BSM and ITIL, then its content must be defined in a top-down approach, from a management process needs standpoint and not as a repository of whatever information happens to be available. We find also that, in many instances, information used in support of management processes exists in many standalone databases and that openness and the ability to federate may be the two most important features of a CMDB.

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