Business Impact of CMS – Complete Guide
This subject defines how the CMDB fits within the extensive configuration management system (CMS). As per the
ITIL V3, the CMS is consists of databases and applications that support configuration data for a service provider. The CMS is the platform that manages a comprehensive service lifecycle across IT.
The objectives of the CMS are to:
- Make the most of the business
- Support IT-critical services
- Guarantees compliances with rules and internal policies related to security
- Allow computerization to enhance efficiencies
- Enable for management of assets
A CMS may contain various
IT management applications and databases, such as the CMDB, asset database, and a change database management system.
The Single Point of Contact
The CMDB offers a single point of contact, making it the decisive reference mechanism for all IT processes by offering business oriented visibility into the dependences among business processes, customers, tools, and supporting IT organization. This increases the response level for support staffs of the status of real-time IT services, such as e-mail accessibility, Web site functionality, and so on.
The
top CMDB solutions are all created to support an associated CMDB approach, meaning that not all configuration data must be present in a particular physical database. As an alternative, the primary databases, and data sources remains the dependable source for data, while the CMDB serves as the reference for where this data lives and how to fetch it. ITIL V3 now identifies the significance of this coalesced approach and endorses that it be a basic part of the infrastructure of a CMS.
With coalition approach, basic information is stored in the CMDB, which is mapped to other, more comprehensive data repositories. This
mapping provides a CMDB the right to use all configuration items (CIs). So, the CMS contains the CMDB or multiple CMDBs, and with the help of association, access to all key data stores and their corresponding contents. By adding important functions, such as asset management, dashboards, analytics, the CMS propagates the value of the CMDB across IT.
Effecting Cultural and Organizational Change
A significant fact to note as you start down the path of creating a CMDB is that any effective deployment of processes and functions necessitates a cultural change. One of the most vital solutions to this is propagating the benefits of the CMDB — not just benefits to the business, but benefits to each user or group affected by the change. For various individual and groups, these advantages will differ. For the service help desk, the
advantages of a CMDB are better visibility of all the modules and mappings that make up the structure, which in turn supports quicker resolution of the incidents, reduced stress, fewer errors, and so on.
Conclusion
For financial supervisors, a CMDB supports better accuracy in accounting for all the expenses of IT, and supports calculations of TCO, ROI, etc. For the service level supervisor, it means visibility into all the modules and mappings that make up an end-to-end service. For an IT perspective, an
effective CMDB results in better proficiency and success rate of IT, which in turn means improved agility in meeting the ever-changing organizational requirements?
Author : Arunavo Banerjee